[HN Gopher] Rescue artists of the new avalanche age
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Rescue artists of the new avalanche age
Author : youbet
Score : 28 points
Date : 2022-02-09 20:37 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gq.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gq.com)
| earthscienceman wrote:
| Woah. What an intersection of cultures... a GQ article, on
| avalanche rescue, posted on HN. I'm excited to read the
| conversation. There are many problems/inconsistencies/vagueries
| in the article that make little sense. It seems the author
| doesn't have much expertise in avalanches and didn't have an
| expert consult on the final (interesting-ish) piece. I wonder why
| _this_ particular incident was chosen, as it 's fairly
| uninteresting as far as backcountry rescues go. I also wonder why
| a publication like GQ doesn't have an expert write these
| articles...
|
| First, "his two friends followed at a safe distance, a few dozen
| yards behind". Anyone who has taken an avy safety course should
| know that that is _anything_ but safe. The friends should have
| never been in the couloir with him, there should have been
| someone scoping line of sight [1]. This is such a key point
| because, although these mountain services are doing god 's work
| in terms of keeping people safe, your friends are by far your
| most important (and often only) rescue support. The article
| highlights this with them standing dumbfounded at the crown of
| the avalanche, and their friend nearly paid with their life.
|
| Second, wind slabs aren't inherently unsafe just because there is
| "new snow stacked on old snow" although they statistically
| frequently lead to unsafe conditions. The safety of snow
| conditions is about the layers in the snowpack and what is in
| between them, is there a surface for this wind slab to slide on?
| The author misses a great opportunity to briefly educate readers
| (and themselves) on the details of avalanche safety here.
|
| Third, for those of you interested in this type of thing the
| Colorado information center does field reports on avalanches and
| burials and keeps an absolute wealth of data on hand on as many
| of the parameters as possible [2]. I have some ideas for some
| analyses using these data that could provide insight into
| avalanche conditions and variability but never have the time.
| Avalanche research is very very underfunded.
|
| And finally, if anyone is looking for a great book on the
| mechanics of avalanches (i.e. engineering mechanics), check out
| "Avalanche Dynamics" by Pudasaini [3]. It's by far the best text
| covering the literature on the internal aspects of avalanches. It
| has all the good makings of really difficult/interesting science,
| statics, fluids, dynamics, inhomogeneity, a dearth of data, real
| world complexity, relative lack of importance to the survival of
| the human species...
|
| [1] https://www.jonessnowboards.com/content/362-how-to-
| descend-i...
|
| [2] https://www.avalanche.state.co.us/observations/field-
| reports...
|
| [3] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-540-32687-8
|
| Postscript:
|
| This is such a GQ fucking article, complete with useless
| paragraphs of fluffy flowery language that lean towards a
| mediocre impersonation of Hunter S. Thompson. Love it.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| I don't know a lot about the topic but I did once stumble upon
| this interesting YouTube video of a Washington (state) DOT
| employee demonstrating the checks they do to determine
| avalanche risk. It includes an interesting exercise of cutting
| out a section of snow to examine the layers.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnRR2FZhvbw
| xwdv wrote:
| I was caught in an avalanche a few years ago and was very lucky
| to not get caught below the surface. Although there wasn't much
| time to think I felt for sure I was going to die. Be careful out
| there.
| j4pe wrote:
| The incident this piece revolves around seems strange. I can't
| find the avalanche report to confirm this, since only fatal
| accidents seem to be publicly available [1] (all reported US
| avalanches are cataloged publicly [2]).
|
| First, it seems like the burial victim was on the surface for 30
| minutes and wasn't found by his companions - who also had
| avalanche beacons. It's very common for people to panic after an
| avalanche burial - the comments of any youtube footage of
| avalanche rescues will be full of people screaming "you idiot,
| why did you take off your gloves/not spread out/forget to set
| your transponder to search". Because these are simple things that
| people forget. But I've never heard of rescuers, for a full half
| hour, failing to notice a fluorescent float bag on the surface of
| the avalanche field. Is it possible this was uncovered by rotor
| wash?
|
| Then, the professional rescuer is described as asking on-site
| amateurs - twice! - to remove his shovel from his pack. This
| should never be necessary. All alpine packs are designed to hold
| avalanche gear - shovel and probe - in an isolated compartment
| for rapid ease of access. It's just an odd note that makes the
| reader wonder what inaccuracies have crept into the story, or, if
| it actually happened as described, makes the reader wish the
| author had the expertise to notice and explore these anomalies in
| the incident.
|
| 1. https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanches/destructive-avalanches-
| and-...
|
| 2.
| https://www.avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?ac...
| boc wrote:
| This sort of thing _might_ work in the heart of the Alps where
| there are villages and helipads scattered around the bases of
| these giant mountains, but absolutely do not rely on this type of
| rescue method in North America. The rate of survival after just
| 20 minutes of being buried drops logarithmically. Pulling someone
| out alive after 3 hours of burial as per this story is an extreme
| outlier.
|
| Also not to criticize but they got warning that someone was
| buried, got airborne in their helicopter, but then flew 8 minutes
| out of their way to a neighborhood to pick up a doctor first?
| That seems like a huge waste of time when every minute counts.
| Not to mention that searching a slope that just slid with a loud,
| powerful helicopter can easily cause additional slides onto the
| same area.
|
| The only way you're going to survive a full avalanche burial in
| the US or Canada is if you have an active beacon strapped to you
| and someone onsite survives the slide and finds you with their
| beacon + probe. Then they need to shovel through dense avy debris
| which is essentially cement. When snow slides, it rapidly heats
| up and then when it stops, it rapidly cools and hardens around a
| slide victim. Priority is to find the victim's head and clear the
| airway, then assess for injuries and warm them up.
|
| Helicopters aren't the "new age". Maybe someone will come up with
| a better way to precisely find victims than the current beacon
| technology. Maybe airbag technology will improve and become more
| successful. Maybe we'll go back to the really old days and ski
| with balloon attached to our waist to help quickly mark a burial
| location.
|
| Taking an AIARE course really opens your eyes to the violence and
| unpredictability of avalanches. Those cute ski dogs are there to
| find your dead body, not dig you out alive. Helicopters are there
| to transport you after you've been dug out, not to land and
| rescue you from burial. Be smart out there folks.
|
| If you're curious about learning more, read the incident reports
| from fatal avalanches. Centers around the country do very
| thorough examinations of each incident, and post them publicly
| complete with images, terrain reports, weather reports, and
| sometimes video reports.
| https://utahavalanchecenter.org/avalanches/fatalities
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