Mountaineers On Staying Alive In Avalanche Country Nov. 19
Setting off into the winter backcountry, looking forward to natural wonders, but also carrying a healthy respect for avalanche danger. Courtesy/LAM
By os Alamos Mountaineers
Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Los Alamos Mountaineers will meet on the third Tuesday of the month, Nov. 19. The social hour, with cookies, begins at 6:45 p.m. followed at 7 p.m. with the program.
At this month's meeting, Rick Rubio will discuss key aspects of avalanche safety, including how to recognize and avoid avalanche danger. Avalanche is a significant danger for winter activities in the backcountry; in the last decade, avalanches claimed an average of 24 lives per year in North America.
Rubio writes, "Northern New Mexico is notorious for dangerous avalanche conditions due to our weather patterns of early snowfall followed by cold dry conditions. This weather pattern forms a weak snowpack that is waiting to be triggered by the next skier, mountaineer or snowmobiler. On top of that, unstable snow doesn't avalanche 95% of the time, so we don't really know every time we go out if we are doing the right things or if we are just lucky. We don't generally get a second chance to correct mistakes. This talk will emphasize a systematic method in which we predict, observe, and compare the avalanche problem using our knowledge, the forecast, and weather history. We then methodically observe conditions along the way, then compare what we saw to what we predicted, and gain experience on managing the risk that way, without getting killed in an avalanche."
Rubio hails from Southern California, but now makes his home in Los Alamos. He has been an avid skier, hiker and mountaineer for more than 40 years. He has been alpine and backcountry skiing all over the Eastern Sierra, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Japan and the Alps. In addition to the Los Alamos Mountaineers, Rubio is also an active member of the Southern California Mountaineering Association, where he is on the Safety Committee in charge of testing new members. He is AIARE 2 certified in avalanche education.
