Ski mountaineers practice search skills
Club promotes safe backcountry travel
By MATT FURBER
Express Staff Writer
Rick Barker, organizer of the Sun Valley
Mountaineer’s Club and 25-year veteran ski guide in the mountains flanking the
Wood River Valley, is pleased with this year’s early season snow pack.
"We have been very fortunate so far," he
said.
Rick Barker assists a Sun Valley
Mountaineer’s Club member as they close in on the location of a mock
avalanche victim. Express photos by
Matt Furber
But, good conditions for backcountry
skiing are no reason to rest easy for Barker or the dozens of members of the
two-year-old club he helps facilitate. The aim of the club is to develop teams
of skiers, who will become familiar with ski terrain in the Pioneer and Boulder
mountains to the east of Highway 75 and the Sawtooth and Smoky mountains to the
west.
Last Thursday, a day of high pressure
causing a temperature inversion that provided warmer temperatures and crystal
clear blue skies on Galena Summit, Barker and three groups of backcountry skiers
met to practice search techniques in avalanche terrain. What began as an ad hoc
group looking for skilled ski companions has become a more organized collection
of people who each fall schedule skiing and training around family time and work
obligations, Barker said.
"This year we are focusing on topics
picked by members," Barker said. This season the group has already had workshops
organized by avalanche and beacon specialists and experts in backcountry first
aid and mountain weather.
Transceiver beacons in hand, Thursday’s
mock search for buried avalanche victims got under way soon after skiers left
the highway to hike toward the Cross, a peak just north of Galena Summit, the
pass separating the Wood River Valley and the Sawtooth Valley that’s a popular
destination for backcountry skiers and snowboarders.
An avalanche beacon is an electronic
transmitter and receiver worn under clothing. During a backcountry tour it is in
transmit mode. In the event of an avalanche rescuers immediately begin a search
by switching their beacons to receive, or search mode. There are two types of
beacons, analog and digital. The first provides a beeping sound to the rescuer
that gets louder as he or she gets closer to the transmitting beacon. The second
provides distance and directional information with lights on a built-in display.
For Thursday’s exercises as many as four beacons were packed in Tupperware and
heavy-duty camera cases and buried on slopes simulating victims stuck under
avalanche debris.
Priscilla Woods unwrapped her Christmas
presents early this year, especially for the training session because one of the
goals of the exercise is to familiarize oneself with the equipment necessary for
backcountry access and emergency preparedness.
"The goal is for skiers to find out what
they know and what they don’t," Barker said. "Members of each group work
together to learn how to communicate and watch each other as they ski between
islands of safety. They learn to work as a group to find options and make
reasonable decisions."
Searcher Alex Orb assembles his probe
to discover the exact location of a beacon in a mock avalanche zone.
Express photos by Matt Furber
Woods’ collection of gear includes touring
skis and boots for comfortable hiking, which can comprise the majority of time
spent in the backcountry. Her boots also provide stability for the ultimate
goal: skiing untracked powder. Other gear essential to Wood’s enjoyment are
climbing skins that affix to the bottom of her skis with adhesive, warm and
waterproof clothing, eye and skin protection from the sun, a shovel, lunch and,
of course, her avalanche beacon. She still needs an extendable probe to help
complete her quiver.
As the skiers built upon bookwork in the
field, the assembled skiers hammered out the kinks that were exposed during
practical application.
The exercises were appropriately confusing
at times. How many victims are there? How many have we found? Is your beacon on
transmit? Did we check under that tree already?
At the end of each exercise the guides
debriefed the group. The discussion included; how to start a search, missing
victims buried high in the slide zone, when to take skis off or put skins on,
how to wear and carry a beacon, what to do with it when a victim is located, how
to pinpoint the location of a victim, how to distinguish multiple signals, and
how to manage communication.
The exercise was not formal instruction
but a review of principles, going through the paces, Barker said. "The thing
with this beacon thing is they are horribly archaic for what you are trying to
do."
But, for Woods and other skiers the beacon
will help her ski companions find her if she gets trapped in a slide. And if she
becomes involved in the rescue of a ski partner, knowing the ins and outs of her
beacon will improve the chances of a successful search, Barker said.
Barker said that people often don’t want
to take the time out from skiing to practice, but using the apparatus frequently
makes it much more useful in an emergency. He said his favorite place to
practice is on Baldy, where he and a buddy can easily set up searches when legs
need a breather. One person can hide a beacon somewhere on a run. After the
second person finds it, it can be hidden again and the other person can have a
try.
"This is something we do on our own
anyway," said fellow guide, Kingsley Murphy, hinting at the mountaineering
club’s origins. "We thought if we’re training, we might as well help other
people too."
The group training is also preparing for
one-lift helicopter flights with Sun Valley Helicopter Ski Guides. The skiers
will be dropped off in the backcountry and will ski out on their own or be
picked up at the end of the day.
Barker, Murphy and Ed Dumke, another ski
guide who helped bury beacons last week, said, however, that search practice is
open to anyone who shows up.
"I was a little rusty on Tuesday," Dumke
said of his first day of training for the season. "I feel a lot better today."
Barker said it usually takes him 15 to 20
practice sessions to get comfortable with his equipment before he gets back to
the familiarity and comfort level that gives him confidence in his search and
rescue techniques that are essential to backcountry travel.
"It is fine to practice in your home or in
your yard, but real familiarity comes from doing it in snow on a slope on your
skis," he said.