2 minute read
Operations
We had a veteran SAC staff this season—including Scott as Director and Ethan, Chris, and Ben as Avalanche Forecasters. While the challenges of COVID-19 prevented us from having a full intern, Mitch Creelman joined our team this season as a part-time Intern-Volunteer. He assisted us in the field while also working on a graduate degree in the Geosciences Program at Boise State University. Mitch will also be assisting us this summer as we design and refine website products.
The SAC staff spent the fall wrapping up website projects, maintaining weather stations, attending and presenting at regional snow and avalanche workshops (held virtually this year), preparing education materials, dialing in the snowmobiles, and installing the beacon park. We had planned to attend the biennial International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW) in Fernie, British Columbia in October, but this conference was also moved to an online format.
Once the winter gets rolling, SAC aims to have at least one forecaster in the field every day of the week. This season, we logged 227 field days for an average of two forecasters per day. Of these field days, 87% involved time on skis, and 33% included snowmobiles. We received 301 observations from the public—a 30% increase from last winter! Local ski guides, snow safety workers, and USFS staff contributed 426 observations to our professional observations database. We owe a huge thank you to the guides at Avalanche Science, Sawtooth Mountain Guides, Soldier Mountain Cat Skiing, Sun Valley Guides, Sun Valley Heli Ski, and Sun Valley Trekking, as well as the ski patrols at Sun Valley and Soldier Mountain.
All told, we logged over 900 observations this season, 25% more than 2019-20.
In addition to field and office time related to producing the daily Backcountry Avalanche Forecast, SAC staff produced a variety of social media content, taught avalanche education programs (including a Motorized Level 1 course and a virtual version of our popular bi-weekly Digging Deeper series), maintained and repaired weather stations, and plugged away on local and national-level projects.
While the effects of COVID-19 are beginning to feel like the “new normal”, they continued to alter the landscape of avalanche safety—from how we do our jobs and the number of people using our products. Backcountry skiing and riding was more popular than ever due to the COVID-induced boom in outdoor recreation. SAC staff followed best practices for minimizing the transmission of the virus, including working remotely, moving our staff meetings and educational programs to a virtual format, and altering our field procedures.
