It always felt to me like avalanches were things that happened somewhere else. I knew they were serious and dangerous business, but as primarily a New England resort skier, I’d lost sight of that.
How naive. A few recent events — notably a compelling Zoom presentation hosted by the Bryce and Ronnie Athlete Snow Safety Foundation and a steady stream of headlines with the word avalanche in them — have given me a greatly heightened sense of awareness regarding avalanches.
It was quite an enlightening thing to attend the January webinar hosted by the BRASS Foundation that included a screening of the film “Off Piste,” a 13-minute documentary that reconstructs the avalanche that killed US Ski Team athletes Bryce Astle of Utah and Ronnie Berlack of New Hampshire in 2015. The two were with teammates at a ski area in Solden, Austria, when they decided to ski off-piste, and if you don’t know what off-piste means specific to European ski areas, you really should find out before even thinking about skiing there.
They triggered an avalanche that swept them downhill and buried them, and the fact that no one had avalanche safety gear complicated rescue efforts. The film focuses on the lack of preparedness by the athletes for the conditions they faced, in terms of both equipment and education about avalanche terrain. “Off Piste” is difficult to watch, but it pulls no punches in delivering a message that knowing before you go is the responsibility of anyone venturing into nature.
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”They just didn’t know it was dangerous,” said Bruce Tremper, a longtime Utah Avalanche Center expert who was among those who produced a report on the Solden avalanche, during the BRASS webinar.
Tremper explained that to the six skiers in the Astle/Berlack party that day, the off-piste section they came upon looked like a wide-open slope that beckoned for them to let it rip. They’d reached that point in part via a chairlift. Things seemed innocent. Making sure skiers know before they go is BRASS’s mission, and the film is a big part of it. Avalanche safety protocols have been instituted throughout the US Ski and Snowboard organization, from its elite competition teams to clubs across the United States, as a result of the accident and subsequent efforts of the BRASS Foundation, which continues to promote avalanche education.
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The presentation was hosted by Tom Kelly, the former communications director for the US Ski Team, and featured Steve Berlack (Ronnie’s father), US Ski & Snowboard president Tiger Shaw, recently retired US ski racer Ted Ligety, Tremper, avalanche safety instructor Lindsay Mann, and “Off Piste” producer Trent Meisenheimer. Not long after that presentation, I began noticing the word “avalanche” was appearing frequently in the headlines in my various news feeds, with datelines from around the world appearing alongside many in North America. Not all of them were in the backcountry, either — some occurred within the boundaries of established ski areas.
Then one really hit close to home: A backcountry skier was killed in an avalanche on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and when details emerged about the victim — “Skiin’ Ian Forgays” — it was obvious that anyone can be an avalanche victim. Vermont Ski + Ride magazine posted a detailed report on the death of Forgays, who was very experienced, and the avalanche that killed him.
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Prior to this confluence of avalanche talk, I thought my biggest safety concern while skiing was other skiers hitting me or tree wells. Now I’ve reassessed, and begun to do some homework. I look at untouched snow differently. I caution people who mention plans to get outdoors in locations that could be susceptible to avalanches, such as a winter hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
I’m also going to wait a while to satisfy my urge to try backcountry skiing, which I know is very popular right now, but I am just not ready. I know I can do it physically, but I want to know a lot more before I go, and when I do it’ll be a very gradual immersion.
Avalanche education resources
• Mount Washington Valley Avalanche Center
• Colorado Avalanche Information Center
• American Avalanche Association
• Excellent story about risk shared by the Friends of Tuckerman Ravine on Facebook