#672 How To Do An Avalanche Test

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how to do an avalanche test
in 10 easy steps

step 1
climb a mountain

step 2
dig a hole

step 3
make a straight wall

step 4
poke the wall

Take your fingers and then push them in and you can tell the snow pack. Like right here is really hard, right? Softer here, here, getting softer again. Real soft down here, right, hard. Soft here.
So you can see just by where I was able to push in: snow pack. You have two hard layers, right, one here. And a real solid layer right here.

step 5
cut the snow to make a square shape

step 6
dig around the shape

step 7
cut down the back of the block of snow

step 8
tap the snow

So, where going to do 30 taps. Put the shovel on top. First 10 taps with just the wrists, right, and what you want to watch for, is the snow pack moving at all.

And next you’re going to do them from the elbow.

And then 10 from the shoulder.

I don’t think it’s going anywhere today.

Then, if we wanted to do more testing, what we could do, is have someone ride down on skis or a snowboard and do a stop here, or get on top and jump on it.

step 9
ski on it

It’s not going anywhere.

step 10
ski or board back down the mountain

links

More videos showing these kind of avalanche tests:

Bill Atkinson from Otago Polytech

Doug Chabot, of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center, demonstrates an Extended Column Test (ECT).

Doug Chabot, of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center, demonstrates an Extended Column Test. It failed with 11 taps and broke clean--a potential problem later in the week if the surface crust melts.

Doug Chabot of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center performs an Extended Column Test on an east facing, 34 degree slope. The fracture propogates clean across the entire column showing the weak snow.

Scott Schmidt, avalanche forecaster at the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center, describes unstable condions during an Avalanche Warning at Lionhead.

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