Xavier Fané
Avalanches come under the media’s spotlight every winter, often under tragic circumstances. Our community has lost loved ones and visitors who were recreating in our winter wonderland but got caught or buried in moving snow. Colorado has a notoriously dangerous snowpack that takes more lives on average than any other state in the country. This can prompt the media or others to question the pursuit of winter backcountry recreation altogether: “Why partake in such a risky endeavor?” As someone who is intimate with the risks of backcountry travel and yet spends almost every winter day outside, I’d like to explain why I backcountry ski and why I encourage my friends and family to recreate in the backcountry as well. First of all, traveling in the backcountry isn’t a game of Russian roulette. It’s an activity with calculated risks and thoughtful decision-making. The interaction between uncertainty, snowpack and terrain allows every person to adopt strategies for their own risk tolerance, in the same way we do when we go driving. This challenge requires thought and focus but is also rewarding. When it comes to assessing the avalanche danger, there’s always some level of uncertainty, but we can generally default to more secure terrain to manage that uncertainty. Many tours in and around Crested Butte offer up powder stashes or alpine splendor or good exercise and pose zero avalanche risk: e.g. low-angled terrain, dense trees or ridgelines. And many times during the winter or spring, the lowered avalanche danger allows us to venture into more aggressive or exposed terrain. The Crested Butte Avalanche Center issues a daily avalanche bulletin, which rates the avalanche danger as well as the expected frequency, size and distribution of avalanches for a given day. We also offer travel advice, which can range from “Avoid the backcountry today” to “Be cautious of windloaded slopes” to “Stay away from slopes steeper than 30 degrees during this afternoon’s warm-up” to “Use normal caution.” Statistically speaking, driving a car in our country is more likely to end in tragedy than recreating on skis, snowboard, snowshoes or snowmobile in the backcountry. When we drive our cars, we take certain precautions to reduce and manage the risks, and we should bring this same mindset to our backcountry endeavors. We take a driver’s ed class. (So take an avalanche class!) We check road conditions, read warning signs and speed limit signs. (So check the current avalanche advisory at www.cbavalanchecenter.org!) We stay alert to changing conditions, such as icy patches or gravel roads, and adjust our driving accordingly. (So watch for signs of instability, such as recent avalanches, collapsing snow, cracking snow, rapid warming, heavy snowfall or wind103