Avalanche News - May 2, 2024
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Snow’s Secret Light Show: What Makes It Sparkle
Understanding the optical properties of snow may unlock advancements ranging from enhanced snow removal techniques to heightened avalanche safety. One might think that snow, of all things, is easy to describe: it is cold, white and covers the landscape like a blanket. What else is there to say about it? A lot, according to Mathieu Nguyen. He has just defended his doctoral thesis on the optical properties of snow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Gjøvik. He has analyzed over a thousand images of snow. “This type of method can be used in a number of sensor technologies that include everything from giving us a better decision-making basis for when roads should be cleared to monitoring the risk of an avalanche in the mountains more closely.”
More ... (SciTechDaily)
Fascinating Video Showing How Avalanche Rescue Dogs Work
While most people think of their dogs as little more than companions, many of the most popular of today’s breeds were originally developed to be hard workers. A life of lounging on the couch and being taken on a few short daily jaunts around the block is not for them. Hunting dogs, sled dogs, herding dogs, and many other breeds were bred for serious, tiring jobs, and those abilities are still being put to use in many places around the world today, including the important, difficult, and life-saving work of search and rescue. Though the idea of a search and rescue dog immediately conjures up images of a St. Bernard climbing the Alps with a little barrel of brandy about his neck, in real life search and rescue dogs come in all shapes and sizes. It takes years to train a proper avalanche dog, and actually finding people under the snow (as shown in the video) is only a small part of the training they must undergo.
More ... (AOL)
Two caught by windslab on Mt. Shasta, Broken Femur and Knee Injury
A 911 call was made to the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office shortly after noon on Saturday, at 12:21 p.m. A climber on Mount Shasta reported being stranded at an elevation of 12,000 feet with a broken femur, having narrowly survived a wind slab avalanche moments earlier. The climber stated that he and his climbing partner had planned to summit Mount Shasta and snowboard down the Avalanche Gulch route but triggered a wind slab avalanche at 13,000 feet.
California Highway Patrol's Air Operations attempted to extract the climbers, but strong winds and poor visibility hindered the helicopters' ability to safely land near them. Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah Larue announced that SCSO dispatchers notified US Forest Service (USFS) Climbing Rangers of the incident and requested assistance from California Highway Patrol's (CHP) Air Operations. Meanwhile, the SCSO Search and Rescue team, along with USFS Climbing Rangers and a group of professional mountain guide volunteers, initiated a ground extraction process.
More ... (Avalanche Center Incidents)
