Avalanche-awareness educator Keith Newlin handed out transceivers Saturday at Snow Valley Mountain Resort in the San Bernardino National Forest.
Volunteering with So Cal Snow Avalanche Center, the retired Snow Valley ski patrol member showed four snow lovers how to use the devices as avalanche beacons to help them venture safely into snow-covered backcountry.
Shortly after, Costa Mesa snowboarder Robert Shadley, 34, locked in on an avalanche beacon’s signal beneath towering evergreens. He then used a collapsible probe to find the beacon buried a few inches under the snow.
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He was taking part in an avalanche-awareness clinic offered during Costa Mesa-based Gear Coop’s first So Cal Backcountry Session.
Such clinics are part of the mission of the 4-year-old avalanche center, a grassroots nonprofit group run by Southern California backcountry skiing and snowboarding devotees.
“We do this for our love of the mountains and trying to keep people safe out there,” said center director Allen Giernet, the snowboarder who founded the center.
Southern Californian skiers and snowboarders are getting the first good access into the mountain backcountry since 2010 or 2011.
Coming amid years of drought, this snow-rich winter already is the busiest since Giernet, former vice president of snowboarding at Mountain High near Wrightwood, launched the center out of his Winnetka home in November 2012.
According to Giernet, six confirmed avalanches have hit the Mount Baldy area this season – including a 3,000-foot avalanche in the Baldy Bowl apparently triggered by three hikers using crampons and ice axes. Two of them were injured and hoisted out by helicopter.
The So Cal Snow Avalanche Center is the only organization providing avalanche information – but not official forecasts – for the Angeles and San Bernardino national forests.
Using their own field observations, plus reports from the public and other avalanche center volunteers, Giernet and board members Keith Church and Jeff Pierce, National Ski Patrol avalanche instructors, produce weekly snowpack summaries with reports of avalanche concerns.
Supported by donations
The U.S. Forest Service National Avalanche Center in Bozeman, Mont., operates a national network of about 13 centers staffed and partly funded by the Forest Service, and also funded by community nonprofits. The So Cal center follows Forest Service guidelines but is supported only by donations.
The avalanche center is hosting a fundraiser at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Top of the Notch at Mount Baldy resort. Center officials hope to raise at least $8,700 to install the center’s first above-snowline weather station and help cover the organization’s $1,200 annual operating costs.
The center has undertaken the task of providing snowpack condition reports for the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains – whose weather forecasts are produced by two National Weather Service offices, one in Oxnard and one in San Diego.
“The challenge is we have three different mountain ranges, which are, in essence, three different climate zones, and three different geographical and topographical locations,” Giernet said.
To cover such a vast area, the center’s directors work and/or live at various locations in the mountains. The center also relies on information from skiing and snowboarding guides operating in various areas or resorts, and other adventure professionals.
The public also can submit snowpack observations and avalanche reports on the center’s website, socalsnow.org.
In addition, the center’s volunteers teach avalanche awareness clinics and avalanche classes.
Deadly danger
About 36 people will die in North American avalanches this season, while roughly 180 will die worldwide, Giernet said at the Saturday morning avalanche clinic at Snow Valley’s Last Run Lounge.
This season’s first avalanche was reported Jan. 21 at Mount Baldy ski resort by patrolers who spotted a natural slide early that morning after a snowstorm.
Since then, there have been five more confirmed avalanches and several others reported in Mount Baldy’s backcountry area.
These are the first confirmed Southern California avalanches since late 2012, when three backcountry skiers triggered a slide but escaped unharmed, Giernet told about 12 participants at the clinic.
But on one January day in 2008, avalanche conditions outside Mountain High’s boundaries turned deadly for three backcountry skiers Giernet knew.
Avalanche deaths shot up in the 1990s and exploded in the 2000s with the growing popularity of backcountry skiing and boarding.
Giernet showed slides, diagrams and a video of avalanches triggered by skiers and snowboarders.
He also explained avalanche basics – from snowpack layers and avalanche terrain to triggers – to show why avalanche classes are needed.
Any slope greater than 30 degrees has avalanche potential, but the highest concern is for slopes of 35 to 50 degrees.
“It’s the backcountry. That’s where the avalanches like to play – same place we do,” he said.
Avalanche center volunteers are scouting locations for what they hope will be the first of several above-snowline, solar-powered, self-contained weather stations that would make information from high elevations more accessible for the center, public and National Weather Service.
California’s maritime snowpack tends to have wetter, heavier snow. While there are exceptions, avalanche danger generally starts to decline within 24 to 48 hours after a storm when the snow begins to settle and becomes more cohesive.
Backcountry snow – and avalanche danger – could stick around at least two more months, depending on weather, with more storms forecast for the week’s end. Warm storms could raise snow levels or bring snow-melting rain.
“There’s still a lot of snow in the mountains,” he said. “But how long the snowpack is going to last is really at the whim of Mother Nature.”
Snow safety
Fundraiser: So Cal Snow Avalanche Center event, 5 p.m. Saturday, Top of the Notch at Mount Baldy Resort
Classes: National Ski Patrol Avalanche Level 2, today, Clubhouse 66, 1200 E. Route 66, Glendora, and Mount Baldy, $180
Read more: “Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain” by Bruce Tremper
Information: socalsnow.org, fsavalanche.org
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