Avalanche Survival: Know Your Snow

I was lucky that March day, but in the world of backcountry snow sports, where there is no ski patrol or avalanche control, luck can quickly run out.

Hence my decision to enroll in a three-day avalanche safety course.

Interest in avalanche training has intensified recently as backcountry sports have surged in popularity. Fat skis, high-tech bindings and a lust for deep powder fueled by “ski porn” — movies and magazines that show extreme athletes on remote snow-choked peaks — have spurred what Doug Abromeit, director of the United States Forest Service National Avalanche Center in Idaho, calls “a quantum leap in the number of backcountry skiers.”

Jim Collinson, an assistant director of the Snow Safety department at Snowbird ski resort in Utah, has noticed it, too. “Thirty years ago people didn’t ski the backcountry because the gear wasn’t any good for it,” he said. “Now the gear’s so good, there’s an explosion of ‘experts’ in the backcountry.”

Not surprisingly, fatalities have also increased. According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, the number of people killed in slides in the United States has climbed steadily over the last 50 years — from one death in 1960 to 30 or more in 5 of the last 10 years. (One of the most recent fatalities was Scott Kay, director of the ski patrol at Wolf Creek Ski Area, who was killed doing avalanche control inside the ski area boundaries on Nov. 22.)

Despite the dangers, the backcountry continues to draw athletes who want to “earn their turns” on ungroomed slopes. Like me, many of them seek safety training. The number of people taking such classes in the United States has risen from 2,000 to nearly 3,000 annually over the last three years, said Brian Lazar, director of the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education, based in Gunnison, Colo. The classes, which cost $150 to $500, focus on how to avoid and survive a slide, and how to rescue someone when disaster strikes. I took a three-day Level 1 course, offered by Crested Butte Mountain Guides, which costs $450 and includes two nights’ lodging in a mountain hut in the Colorado backcountry.

The six students in my class began by practicing rescues using transceivers, or beacons — crucial safety tools, which, along with collapsible probes and shovels, are indispensable for backcountry skiers. Transceivers send and receive radio signals, allowing rescuers to search for someone buried in the snow. The victim’s location is then pinpointed with the probe.

Then the digging begins. Surviving an avalanche burial is a race against the clock. Most victims who survive the initial impact of an avalanche have 15 minutes before the warmth of their breath melts the snow around their face, which will refreeze into a casing of ice that can suffocate them. Victims can increase their survival chances by remembering that avalanches are made up of water. Like a swimmer trying to avoid drowning, the key is to stay on top of the snow.

“Fight, fight, fight,” said Jayson Simons-Jones, our instructor and owner of Crested Butte Mountain Guides. “I don’t care if you do the breaststroke, butterfly, crawl or dog paddle. Swim!”

Later we studied topographic maps, weather and avalanche reports, and diagrams depicting cross-sections of snow slopes to learn how terrain, weather and snowpack make a slope safe or deadly. A key activity was digging a square-walled pit so that we could see exactly how the snow looked in cross-section. We poked and prodded the snowpack, checking for weak layers, and examined the crystals for shapes that looked prone to sliding.

Mr. Simons-Jones, a former ski patrol member, said he became obsessed with avalanche safety after being caught in a slide himself. He has taught avalanche skills for 10 years, and says he has seen a threefold increase in backcountry traffic in Crested Butte, in the heart of the Colorado Rockies, one of the riskiest places in the United States when it comes to avalanches.

“Twenty years ago there would be one or two tracks in Red Lady Bowl every few weeks,” said Mr. Simon-Jones, referring to the area’s signature backcountry run. “Today it’s wall-to-wall tracks.”

“It’s not hard to get into avalanche terrain in Colorado,” said Mr. Lazar, of the avalanche research institute. Without even realizing it, “you can walk into it,” he said.