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Bo Torrey
February 29, 2012
PRT-5720
Theoretical Experience

Theoretical Experience:

I decided for my Theoretical experience I was going to organize

and implement a program that took a group of five to ten students at
the college level for their first day ski/snowboard touring in the
backcountry. All of the students live on the same Outdoors leadership
floor on campus and are friends, as well as advanced in-bound (ski
resort) skiers ages 18-24 and looking to take there ski/snowboard skills
out of the resort and into the backcountry. I will primarily be focusing
on avalanche safety and traveling safely through hazardous mountain
terrain.

Population:

A group of college students ages 18-24 whom are experienced

recreational skiers within the ski are boundaries and are now looking
to take their skills to the backcountry and expand the skiing skills as
well as their recreational ability. This specific population is all

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interested in gaining valuable Avalanche Safety information such as
safe terrain to travel on, avalanche rescue as well as learn how to
properly evaluate a snow pack and make educated decisions to protect
themselves and the members of their touring party. It is important to
note that theoretically these students willingly signed up for this
program and wanted to gain experience and knowledge in a
backcountry skiing specific setting for themselves.

Goals:

To increase the participants understanding and experience

level skiing and snowboarding in a backcountry setting,

while learning to mitigate avalanche risk.

To have the student effectively perform and Avalanche
rescue scenario while using their Avalanche beacon
transceiver, probe and shovel.

Why?

It is very important to understand that Avalanche safety and

Backcountry travel are very complex subjects and require hundreds of
hours spent studying both in the field and out of the field. Mistakes are
made everyday in the Backcountry, most mistakes are a product of

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ignorance so it is very important to understand your experience and
not become too comfortable or too confident. Spending time in the
Backcountry will help you to gain a better grasp of your comfort level
as well as your personal ability, understanding these two ideas can be
very beneficial to your safety and your overall ski experience . Failure to
understand these basic concepts can result in serious injury or death.
Even those with a strong understanding of the complex dangers can
still make a wrong decision and end up losing their lives. This winter
season on 2011-2012 has given us countless examples of experience
skiers making poor decisions and paying the ultimate price. There is a
fine line between confidence and arrogance, you can never lose
awareness of respect for the surrounding mountains while in the
backcountry and expect to stay alive in Avalanche terrain .

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(http://utahavalanchecenter.org/advisory/slc?page=2)

-This is a very important graph to understand and helps to depict what

I am talking about when I say that it is very important to not gain to
much confidence in Avalanche terrain especially when the danger is
above Considerable.

Objectives:

To have student be able to effectively conduct an

avalanche rescue using the safety equipment.

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To have students be able to properly dig a snow pit and

understand the basic principles of snow layering and

snowpack composition.
To have students be able to properly assess a snowpack

and make educated decision on safe ski terrain.

Have students understand and be able to pick out safe
terrain as well as terrain features that will provide safe

travel and safe skiing.

Have students understand the different modes of
transportation in the backcountry as well as the benefits
and drawbacks to each of them. (Ex. Boot-pack,
Snowshoes, Trekkers, Touring bindings etc.)

Why?

The objectives are suitable for the population because they all
lead to furthering the knowledge and experience of the participants .
This program is organized to give students a basic understand of
Avalanche hazards, snowpack composition and how to effectively use
your safety equipment. I believe that with the given objectives the
goals will be reached and the participants further informed on the
subject. I wont be able to stress to them enough the importance of
practice, practice will never make perfect in the avalanche scenario,
however with more practice and experience comes more knowledge so

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it will be vital for the students to get out into the backcountry after this
program to keep their skills in tune.

Influential Characteristics:

With any given day spent in the backcountry there are going to
be a number of different characteristics that will inevitably affect your
plan. One of the most obvious characteristics that play a factor with all
outdoor activities is the weather. Weather can really hinder a
backcountry activity, it can limit our travel distance, it can limit the
terrain shown to student and it also plays a huge role in Avalanche
rating. Whether it is snowy, sunny, windy or warm each way affects the
snow and plays a vital role in determining the structure of the
snowpack. As the facilitator it is very important to put a positive spin
onto such characteristics. For instance if we go out and its snowing
really hard I might lead to group towards and area of open trees that I
know is going to allow for more visibility when skiing as well as provide
a safer environment for the participants. A lot of the time people will
lose their moral when they are being beat in the face by wind and
snow and these kinds of things can affect the groups overall success
throughout the day. It is important to keep these things in mind when
organizing a program such as this.

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Another characteristic that could greatly influence how the
program is run is the current Avalanche Danger. The danger rating
changes day in and day out, and can greatly influence where the
outing goes in the backcountry on a particular day. One day might be
all time sunny powder skiing with Low Avalanche danger rating and the
next day could be sixty-mile per hour winds and snowy with a High
Avalanche danger rating, so it is important to monitor these things and
track the snowpack throughout the season. If the Avalanche danger
rating is High on the day of our program it will most certainly affect the
terrain we are able to access; however, this does not mean the
students will not be able to learn as much. A High Avalanche danger
rating gives students a great opportunity to see first hand avalanches
and dissect the snowpack to see what is causing the High rating. As
the facilitator it will be important for me to keep the students happy
and interested and although they might not be able to ski the most
amazing steep line they will learn what it takes from the snowpacks
perspective to eventually be able to get out onto those steeper lines.
Another huge factor that will play into the group dynamics is the
participants overall fitness levels. Not everybody is going to be on the
same level when it comes to such a strenuous activity and when you
add a forty-pound pack to the participants backs it separates those
levels even more. It will be important to monitor the participants

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fitness throughout the hike and adjust the pack weights for those
whom are struggling with the hike and for those who are not. This will
help keep the group united during the hike and help to build a sense of
teamwork among the group members.

Sequencing of Activities:

Students will meet at the White Pine parking lot up Little

Cottonwood Canyon at 7 a.m to begin the program. Before anyone
steps foot on trail and into the backcountry it will be very important for
them to first have a strong understanding of the safety equipment they
will be using in case of an Avalanche. First I will be going over the three
pieces of equipment and what they are each used for. Most
importantly is the beacon transceiver, which is used to help locate a
buried victim, incase of an Avalanche. I will then put one beacon in a
backpack and order the students to go and bury the pack while I look
the other way and switch my beacon to search mode. After the
students have buried the pack and I have my beacon in search mode I
demonstrate the proper technique to using the beacon transceiver in a
rescue scenario. Once I feel the students have a basic understanding
of how a beacon is used I will split the ten students into three teams,
one team of four and two teams of three. Following that, one team at a

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time will be put through the same task of trying to locate the pack and
then using the probe and shovel successfully dig the pack out. The
reason we do this before we get on trail is because it is an absolutely
vital piece to avalanche safety and if executed properly in under fifteen
minutes gives the burial victim over a ninety-percent chance of
survival. Once each team has successfully completed a few rescue
scenarios it is time to get geared up and ready for the trail. I will go
over a few different modes of transportation in the backcountry
including snowshoes, alpine trekkers and alpine touring binding .
(Important to note that for this program each student will be provided
a pair of alpine touring skis and bindings, this is the most efficient
mode) This should not take very long and will be a discussion during
the time that participants are gearing up for the hike and it will also
give them some time to see what the different modes of
transportations are. I will discuss the benefits and drawbacks to each
mode of transportation and the most ideal time to use them. During
this time I will also demonstrate how to properly apply a climbing skin
to the base of the participants skis. The climbing skins are similar to
sealskin in that they slide one direction and then catch on the fabric in
the opposite direction.
After our discussion and demonstration the students will not be
geared up and ready to hit the trail. The hike starts off slow and steady

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until we reach an open meadow about a mile up the trail surrounded
with a 360-degree view of the mountains. After a quick stop for a drink
I have the student look around the mountains and pick out some
slopes and terrain features they feel might be hazardous for
Avalanches and what might be safe from Avalanches, this will help me
segway into our discussion about traveling in avalanche environment
and terrain management. Even on High Avalanche danger rating days
you can still go out and find quality skiing and safe skiing you just have
to choose the correct terrain. After a quick snack and continued
discussion of how the students are feeling so far we regroup and
continue on the trail to a sheltered North facing aspect that I know will
provide the best snowpack results and based on the daily Avalanche
Danger report courtesy of www.utahavalanchecenter.com was listed as
a Moderate danger rating. This will begin our snowpack assessment
activity. I will start out by having all of the participants watch me as I
construct my snow pit and conduct evaluation test to determine the
strength of the snowpack on the given aspect and given slope angle.
After my demonstration I will spread the students out on the slope and
have them dig their own pits and conduct their own evaluations on the
snow. Meanwhile I will be monitoring each participant and helping
them if they have any questions or if I see fit. After each student has
conducted their evaluation we will regroup and have an open

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discussion style processing session where students can share their
experience with the activity and any questions or concerns they may
have. I will be interested in seeing how similar the students evaluations
are to each other and how they are different from each other.
Following the processing session students will have an opportunity to
ski the slope which we had just conducted out snowpack evaluations
on, assuming the snow pit results lead to confidence in the snow packs
strength and Low Avalanche danger. After we ski the slope participants
will again apply their skins to there skis and begin hiking again. This
time we have are sights set on an open west-facing slope which on the
daily Avalanche report was listed as pockets of considerable caused
by pockets of wind slabs avalanches. This would show the students a
different snowpack composition and what it looks from the inside. After
each participant has conducted another snow pit and avalanche
evaluation will be regroup and process the reports . For this processing
situation I would use an open forum style where students can openly
discuss their findings. If there were any major contradictions among
participants results we would then go back and do a snow pit
evaluation together as a group, going step by step through the entire
process to make sure everyone understand the information .

Processing:

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For a program of this type I might require a written response

before the program starts so I can get a better understanding of the
participants level of skiing as well as there current knowledge of
avalanche safety and backcountry protocol. This will help me tune the
program to meet it for the specific needs of the students in the
program. If all of the participants have been on a helicopter-skiing or
cat-skiing trip with their parents and family then I might not have to
concentrate as much on the use of the safety equipment because
those operations cover a bit of information before they take anyone
out. Throughout the program I will be using an open forum style of
processing to constantly gage and evaluate the students progress and
the programs overall effectiveness. This will continuously help me
restructure the program to meet the needs to the students and
gradually reach our goals. Following the end of digging our final snow
pits I will pass around paper to each student and have them free write
about their experience throughout the entire day, some of their
favorite parts of the day and some of their least favorite parts. I want
to know specifically what students felt about the location of the
program, White Pine is a very nice area and offers very diverse terrain
however doesnt represent the entire Wasatch Mountain range, and
can be a little bit intimidating to new comers. I would also be curious
very curious to hear about how much the participants felt they had

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learned during the program and how likely they were to continue
pursuing backcountry skiing.