Dylan Craaybeek is a backcountry skier and avalanche forecaster for the Colorado Avalanche Info Middle based mostly within the Crystal Valley close to Carbondale. He generates the avalanche forecast for the Central Mountains, which embody the Grand Mesa, the West Elk and Elk Mountains, the Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness, and the Sawatch Vary.
Final summer time, he additionally labored as a freeway avalanche forecaster in New Zealand on the Milford Street. Earlier than becoming a member of the CAIC, Craaybeek labored as a tail information for splitboarding and snowboarding, avalanche teacher, and snow hydrologist (primarily engaged on the NASA SnowEx marketing campaign). And like many snow-lovers, he additionally frolicked as a liftie for Vail Mountain.
This Q&A is the primary of a collection of interviews with avalanche forecasters. Have questions you’ve all the time wished to ask a forecaster? Publish them within the feedback and we’ll pose them to forecasters in future installments.
WS: What made you sufficient in snow science to pursue it as a profession?
DC: After I first moved to Colorado, I studied physics and astrophysics on the College of Colorado for a couple of semesters earlier than dropping out for monetary causes. That’s after I moved to Vail to be a liftie and fell in love with backcountry touring. I had a couple of shut calls with avalanches and wished to get educated on avalanche security so I may safely spend time within the snow-covered mountains. After taking all of the leisure lessons I may discover, I enrolled within the Avalanche Science Program at Colorado Mountain Faculty. That is the place I first realized I may mix my love for environmental sciences and touring within the winter backcountry surroundings. I completed the Avalanche Science Program and my bachelor’s diploma in environmental science and spent each doable day for a number of years within the backcountry digging pits and studying concerning the snow. I fell extra in love with snow with each storm, each season, and each grain of snow I checked out–particularly when them below a microscope. It’s arduous to provide a precise purpose why I turned so considering snow. It may very well be as a result of it permits for such environment friendly journey by means of the mountains. It may very well be due to the non permanent nature of a seasonal snowpack. It may very well be due to how necessary and underappreciated seasonal snow cowl is for the Earth’s vitality finances. It may very well be due to how stunning each particular person grain of snow is. However principally, I believe it’s as a result of the extra I study snow, the extra I notice how a lot I don’t know and nonetheless must be taught.
CAIC’s Dylan Craaybeek within the subject accumulating firsthand observations.
WS: Describe the method of making your day by day forecasts. What completely different varieties of knowledge go into it and the way does all of it come collectively into what the general public sees?
DC: The method of making a day by day forecast, in its essence, is analyzing the present snowpack circumstances, forecasting incoming climate, after which predicting how the forecast climate will influence the snowpack. This course of begins with the primary snowfall of the season and sometimes doesn’t finish till the snow is melted–nicely into the spring or summer time. I like to have a look at it as constructing a psychological mannequin of the snowpack–of what a snow profile would appear to be on any facet at any given elevation within the areas the place I forecast. Probably the most helpful data for my psychological mannequin comes from my fieldwork however each element I can get my fingers on is beneficial. This may be climate station data; distant snow sensing methods and snowpack modeling software program; discussions with backcountry customers, guides, patrollers, freeway employees, and so forth.; and, most significantly, public observations. Aspect observe: lots of people don’t notice how necessary public observations really are, however any quantity of knowledge is beneficial–even when it’s simply a picture of your tracks explaining that the snow was glowing otherwise you didn’t discover something uncommon. That is helpful details about the geometry of the snow grains on the floor. It’s a helpful train to image what I believe the snowpack will appear to be after which exit into the sector and see how correct (or inaccurate) I used to be after which calibrate my psychological mannequin. There are loads of sleepless nights spent fascinated about the snow and updating my psychological fashions.
What are the toughest choices you must make on this course of?
One of many hardest choices is dropping the hazard after we are coping with a Persistent Slab avalanche downside. This nearly all the time occurs as a result of the probability of triggering an avalanche decreases however usually because the probability of triggering a persistent slab avalanche decreases, the harmful potential of those avalanches will increase. This results in warnings about low-probability, high-consequence situations, that are notoriously troublesome to message to most of the people.
WS: The CAIC forecasts pack in loads of nice information and dialogue. What are a few of the items you see much less skilled members of the general public battle to know or incorporate into their backcountry journey plans?
DC: One piece of the avalanche forecast that may be troublesome for some folks to know is the probability of human-triggered avalanches at CONSIDERABLE (3 of 5) versus HIGH (4 of 5) avalanche hazard. During times of HIGH avalanche hazard, pure avalanches are probably and human-triggered avalanches are very probably. During times of CONSIDERABLE avalanche hazard, pure avalanches are doable and human-triggered avalanches are probably. Nonetheless, regardless of the diminished probability of human-triggered avalanches, harmful avalanche circumstances nonetheless exist even when the hazard stage decreases from HIGH to CONSIDERABLE. It’s important for backcountry vacationers to fastidiously consider the snow, apply cautious route-finding, and make conservative choices, as you may nonetheless simply set off a lethal avalanche on slopes beforehand deemed unsafe during times of HIGH avalanche hazard.
WS: The forecast provides us details about the snowpack and the avalanche issues, however we’ve got to use that to terrain and make choices about the place, when, and the way we recreate. Any ideas or instruments for folk who need to try this higher?
DC: I might say I’ve two main ideas when making use of the forecast to the terrain you might be touring by means of in real-time to make choices.
Decelerate. It’s all the time value spending an additional 4 minutes to learn the dialogue portion of the avalanche forecast, an additional minute or two to double examine you have got your radios charged and all of your avalanche security gear, and some further minutes to debate your plans and what you need to keep away from doing along with your companions earlier than you begin touring by means of avalanche terrain. If you’re feeling rushed, regulate your plans so you have got the choice to decelerate and plan appropriately or simply wait and exit the following day if you end up higher ready.
The choice-making course of issues. After a day within the backcountry–whether or not debriefing along with your companions or alone–don’t label the journey a hit or a failure based mostly solely on the result. As a substitute, analyze your decision-making course of. Particularly in locations like Colorado the place we recurrently cope with Persistent Slab avalanche issues, it’s doable to make dangerous choices for years with out penalties. Touring in avalanche terrain with a buried persistent weak layer current and never triggering an avalanche shouldn’t validate your decision-making course of; it may have simply been luck. The easiest way to achieve helpful expertise is to shift your focus from outcome-based judgments to analyzing your decision-making course of unbiased of the result. Submitting a subject report back to your native avalanche heart may be a wonderful debriefing instrument.
Whereas a lot of the WildSnow backcountry snowboarding weblog posts are finest attributed to a single creator, some work nicely as completed by the group.
