Avalanche Seminar

I had the opportunity to go to a free Avalanche Seminar at REI Wednesday 1/11/06 by Gary Brill.

Avalanche Dangers

• Steep Terrain : Angle of slope 30 or more
• Unstable Snow




• After snow storm before snow has a chance to stabalize and settle
• After warmup in temperature
• Weak Layering
  


• Apparently this can exist at any time and there is no real way to identify but from digging test holes, the challenge being there to dig a hole that is representative of the terrain you are attempting to ascertain. One of the common causes of weak layering is warm up where water seeps through one layer to another and re-frezes causes slick shearing in layers. Also surface hoar can also create this slick weak layer that causes shearing of slabs.
  




• Weak Layering dos