"Avy Talk"

2/2/10
Gulmarg

Every Tuesday night at one of the nicer hotels there is a free safety briefing called “Avy Talk” put on by Ski Patrol. Ski patrol is made up of two experienced heli guide/ mountaineering gurus from the U.S. They are training about a dozen Kashmiri men in the hopes that they one day will be able to be proficient enough to run this place. Kinda like the U.S’ involvement in Iraq.

The place packs up as about one hundred foreigners cram into the tiny lounge to hear the latest on snow conditions and a first-hand account on the probable dangers to be found in the backcountry. Brian is the main ski patrol guy and he does the talking. His quiet but clear voice doesn’t vary much in tone and he takes on an almost frightening demeanor when he takes long pauses between sentences. The effect is quite apparent, as the whole room will remain silent while he is talking.

This is always a sobering experience.

The bottom line this evening was that super dangerous conditions exist in the backcountry due to some really unfortunate snow fall this season. A huge storm rolled in quite early on November 9th which dumped a meter or more of snow. Then there was a two-month period on no snowfall and cold, clear weather.

Now time for a little snow physics lesson-

When the air is quite cold (well below zero) there exists a temperature gradient due to the fact that snow touching ground will always be 0°C and the snow at the surface will be the same temperature of the air. This temperature difference causes moisture from the lower parts of the snowpack to evaporate. En route, the water vapor comes into contact with snow crystals higher up in the snowpack and sticks to it. This creates larger grains (often larger than 2mm) of snow that have very sharp edges on a microscopic scale. Under a low-powered magnifying glass they look like little sickle-shaped pieces of smooth ice. This is called facets and they do not bond to each other. It is impossible to make a snowball out of this kind of snow. When a skier’s weight is added to new snow that has fallen on top of facets, it is like jumping onto a rug laying on ball bearings: it’s pretty easy to move.

So basically the backcountry is dangerous. Certain slope directions and aspects are obviously more dangerous than others, but there is no totally safe place to ski. So the warning level is quite high. Brian really made everyone’s ears perk when he said ski patrol-aided rescue in the backcountry (anything out of bounds) will not happen at all and he will personally pull his people back due to such high risk of avalanches. That being said, many people had already taken risks and skied out of bounds. Three people were partially buried in avalanches today and one man broke his femur hitting a tree. No one has died yet.

This is the avalanche path inside the skiing boundary. the surface is really hard and the little chucks you see are hard as rock. Not fun to snowboard on.

This mountain is powerful, and must be respected. The slopes get steeper the farther down you go, and the drainages become narrower. There are many rocks jutting out of the surface and most major avalanches are just un-survivable, according to Brian.

There is no sugarcoating with Brian.