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18-Apr-2006
Avalanches, by Yishen Kuik

I had the chance to listen to avalanche expert Jill Fredston at the Explorer's Club yesterday. Ms. Fredston lives in Anchorage and organizes avalanche rescue in Alaska. She spoke with great experience, great humility and great humanity. She made several points during her presentation, all of which have market relevance.

1. Avalanche victims are usually not people with no knowledge. Avalanche victims are usually people with some experience or people with great experience. People with no experience rarely venture out into avalanche areas. It is the experts who venture into such areas with regularity. Expert on terrain that they have been on many times before are greatly at risk to being blind to danger signs.
2. People have short memories and overestimate their ability to judge risk. Ms. Fredston shows pictures of homes in Juneau on an avalanche path. Homes in those locations have been destroyed 5 times, the most recent being in the 60s. When she asked residents of those homes if they knew they lived on an avalanche path, most said that they did not. When asked if they would move, they invariably gave justifications why they would not ("it's near to town", "I've been here 15 years and it's been okay").
3. People are not objective in assessing risk. Ms. Fredston talked about how on a nice day, back country skiers want to look at all the reasons why they should go out. They don't want to look at all the signs that might suggest the snow conditions are potentially hazardous. Also, peer pressure in a group usually overwhelms individual caution. Individuals don't want to be wet blankets or seen as being over cautious by the group.

Ms. Fredston leaves an impression of wisdom, anger, sorrow and grace after more than 20 years of retrieving bodies from avalanches. Despite the best efforts of mountain safety experts like herself, it is our stubbornness, our willfulness and our forgetfulness that ensures that avalanches will keep claiming human lives year after year for time immemorial.

 More than the public has the right to lose indeed. Those interested in greater detail can take a look at her eloquently written book "Snowstruck : In the Grip of Avalanches"