Don't Be Fooled

Right now the majority of Colorado seems like it is spring with temperatures nearly reaching 60 degrees every day. This does not mean riding is over. Once you get up to higher elevations it is still cold and there is a lot of snow. The snow isn't the greatest because it is a little crusty, but this should make you ride harder to remote areas in the trees and back country. These spots will be amazing with untouched fresh snow, but will also have higher risks of avalanches. With this risk, you need to know how to avoid avalanches, what to do in one, and have the right gear to save your life.

Almost all avalanches are caused by riders and can be prevented. The top three things you should know about avalanche safety are as follows:

1. Ride up or down onto, or across, steep slopes only one snowmobile at a time; the rest of the group should watch from a safe location until the rider on the slope safely clears it before the next person proceeds.
2. Do not park at the bottom of a steep slope in single file; instead park to the sides of the slope with your snowmobiles side by side and pointed away from the slope.
3. Never go up on a steep slope to help someone who has become stuck, since adding your sled to the slope could trigger an avalanche. 

There are multiple signs to look for if the snow is unstable:

• Recent avalanches (don't play on similar, unreleased slopes)
• New snow (the added weight can overburden buried, weak layers)
• Wind loading (wind can deposit snow ten times faster than snow falling from the sky—as a result weak layers can quickly become overloaded)
• Rain (weakens snow quickly, but causes the top layer to stabilize when refrozen)
• "Whumphing noises" (indicates the collapse of a buried weak layer)
• Shooting cracks in the snow surface that run across the slope (indicates the snow is ripe for fracturing and is beginning to slide downward)
• Hollow-sounding snow (indicates a buried weak layer of snow)
• Signs of rapid or intense warming (the snow will weaken quickly and create unstable conditions — often see small 'pinwheels' or snowballs that have rolled down the slope) 

Even if there are many tracks on a mountain, there is still a chance it could avalanche which is shown in the picture below.

 
This is a crack in the snow which indicates a avalanche could happen.


Avalanches can happen in any size, but any size is deadly.



My next blogs will tell you what to do in an avalanche and what equiptment you should have.