We started off the morning meeting at the Sunrise Café to grab coffee and some snacks for the day, then headed up to the Workout Wall in Smuggler’s Notch.  We started off on the right side, working on climbing technique, movement, and awakening new muscles!  Everyone progressed so much during the day- learning to trust the crampons, each swing getting better, and trying out little mixed sections (using rock and ice) to get up steeper sections at the top of the climbs. We worked on our ab muscles too… so much laughter.  A fun glissade out at the end of the day and a jaunt up to check out the top of the Notch completed a full winter adventure.

Thanks to Kara, Katie, Nicole and Alison, who came all the way from Boston, and Brittany (representing VT!) for coming out for a day on the ice!

-Andrea Charest

~posted by Steve Charest

On the left end, two other climbers set up a top rope and as they were rappelling, one of them stomped through the ice dam that was keeping the far left end of the ice dry– as we watched them climb, the water was cascading over them!  We had a much drier climb with nice soft ice.  We climbed here until the hands could no longer hold on.

Sunday brought rain in the valleys but snow, wind, and colder temps above ~1200′.  Good thing Matt got a decent view of the Notch on Saturday… it was socked in today.  We followed the trail that fellow Petra folks broke on Saturday (thanks guys) to climb Jeff’s Slide and climbed just right of the far left side.  So much snow!  A quick avy assessment reassured me that the whole shelf wasn’t going to go sliding off with me on it.  Once in the cave, we headed off climber’s right on some excellent steep, soft ice.  We decided to call it a day after descending from J’s Slide so that Matt could recoup before the drive back to MA this afternoon.

Thanks Matt and Shawn, hope to see you again soon! ~Andrea Charest

1. Advancing understanding of avalanche terrain, particularly from the perspective of stability analysis.
2. Discussing how the snowpack develops and metamorphoses over time; and discuss the factors that contribute to spatial variability.
3. Learning standard observation guidelines and recording formats for factors that influence or indicate snow stability using the SWAG module (Snow, Weather and Avalanche Guidelines).
4. Advancing understanding of avalanche release and triggering mechanisms.
5. Introducing a snow stability analysis and forecasting framework.
6. Improving companion rescue skills including multiple and deep burials.

The weather didn’t exactly cooperate for long days outside (rain, sleet, freezing rain), and formed a breakable crust over a layer of sleet, making for “survival” skiing the one day we were able to get out for a tour (Monday 3/7) to below the Little Headwall in Tuckerman Ravine.  There, we dug test pits to evaluate the snowpack and performed rescue drills of multiple buried “victims.”  The ski out on the Sherburne Trail was over an hour of the breakable crust attacking our skis, sending us to the ground occasionally, and making for some group bonding over one of the worst days of skiing any of us had ever had!  Oh, did I mention that Vermont was getting up to 30″ of snow while we were getting rain & sleet?

Because of the conditions outside, our education was concentrated in the classroom, which was equally as valuable.  Temperature gradients, vapor pressure, weather, snowpack metamorphism, persistent weak layers, tour planning and preparation, lapse rates, rounding, faceting, graphing snowpacks,  bonding & sintering, 3-circle method… there’s more than you can imagine involved in snow science, but we were reminded to keep the big picture in mind– don’t let all of the small stuff become so important that the big picture is overlooked.  And, an inherent factor in the winter sports that we do, the mountains often make the final decision– as Chauvin says, “Not all good decisions have good outcomes, and not all bad decisions have bad outcomes.”  When we walk away from an excellent ski run without consequences in avalanche terrain, did we make a good decision, or just have a good outcome?  It’s hard to know, but we’re being educated on how to make the best decisions given the information we can obtain.

Here are some photos of the course, and I hope to get more from other participants!  Many thanks to Marc and Steve for teaching, and thanks to Pablo, Ryan, Coby, and Dan for participating in this course!

One of the tools that Steve now has is an “Avalanche Airbag” pack.  As biglines.com writes:  “Avalanche airbags work on the principle of inverse segregation. A flowing granular fluid under gravity (such as moving snow) will deposit the larger particles on top and the smaller particles on the bottom.  The idea of the airbag is to suddenly increase the volume of the victim, thereby floating them to the top layer of the avalanche before the moving snow stops  and solidifies. Provided the airbag is properly deployed in time, the chances of a complete burial are significantly reduced.”  The first time we deployed the airbag was inside Petra Cliffs Climbing Center– kids all thought that it was a “rocket pack” that would shoot you up and out of the avalanche.  Now that would be fun… but it would probably weigh 40 pounds!

~Andrea Charest

We ended up chasing the sun that day, beginning on Jeff’s Slide for a couple climbs and a rappel.   We looked over to the frigid, shaded North side of the Notch and  knew we had made a good decision.  Just about the time the last bit of sun was squeezed away from Jeff’s Slide,  we were ready to move on, and we followed the sun to Frank’s Creation and climbed until the sun went down!

Mark, Cameron and Juan work for Walrus Kayaks, a small builder of composite sea kayaks based in Winooski, Vermont.   I’ll hopefully collect some photos from them soon!

-Andrea Charest

I trucked up a load of ropes and statics earlier that morning to set up, towing them in behind me in a Mad River Rocket-turned-pulk.  I got some odd looks that morning, skiing in on the Notch road with a harness on, pulling a 40 pound load.  Guides Paul Brown and Dillon Bosma met the crew at the parking area, came up to Driving Force; everyone climbed a few times.  We are now rated one of the top activities to do for a Bachelor Party on “Simply The Best Man!”   We hope to get some photos from this group soon.

~Andrea Charest