State can do more about awareness

To the editor:

While the intention of this article (“At your own risk,” page B3 of the Feb. 3 Frontiersman) was good, to warn and educate backcountry users of high avalanche danger, the author failed to even mention the Hatcher Pass Avalanche Center’s website (hatcherpassavalanchecenter.org), the amazing professionals at Alaska Avalanche School (Alaskaavalanche.org) or locations where backcountry users can purchase winter backcountry safety and rescue equipment.

Here at Hatcher Pass, we have no “officials” in the avalanche safety arena, a perpetual public safety failure by our Department of Public Safety, the state of Alaska and the Mat-Su Borough.

Instead of focusing on the short-term high danger and trends of the snowpack, the avalanche danger was sensationalized. The article unfortunately devolved into advertising for North America Outdoor Institute (NAOI) and a pat on the back for the state Department of Public Safety. NAOI’s work, while important, fails to adequately train individuals in avalanche rescue, proper terrain management or the common negative outcomes of human factors. One of these major human factors is thinking you know and understand more than you really do. A free, four-hour workshop where you play with beacons and talk about avalanches is no substitute for a paid, multi-day course or years of experience managing terrain in the backcountry of Alaska. Participants of these courses are left either too scared to venture outdoors or with an over-inflated sense of understanding, leading to unnecessary accidents.

The state of Alaska and Department of Public Safety continues to fail to protect residents from avalanche danger. It’s not a question of enough funding or specific user type, all users could benefit from this information. Every other mountain state in the nation and throughout Canada provides detailed avalanche hazard, evaluation and forecasting for their backcountry users. These forecasts are no exchange for training and experience, but they give uninformed and informed users alike a place to begin gathering information.

In Alaska, we have a few nonprofit organizations stepping up to provide avalanche information in Valdez, Juneau and Haines. There is one official avalanche center, the Chugach Avalanche Information Center, funded through the nonprofit Friends of the Chugach and operated by the U.S. Forest Service.

HPAC provides basic forecasting and snowpack information, but it could, should and want to be doing much more. Instead of funding inadequate single-day training events geared mainly toward snowmachine users, perhaps the department of public safety could use its grant money to actually fund something that can provide concrete results: the Hatcher Pass Avalanche Center.

Our state chooses to inform the public of hazardous road conditions via 511 and flashing road signs. Our state chooses to educate and provide obvious road signs for residents when there’s high fire danger. Low and behold, our government even provides travel and warning information when dangerous weather is moving in. In a state where avalanches and snowpack are a lingering danger for nine months out of the year, in a community of nearly 80,000 residents the least our public agencies could do is provide direct funding for even the most basic type of avalanche information services.

For updated Hatcher Pass avalanche and snowpack information, visit HatcherPassAvalancheCenter.org. For real-time weather stations at Hatcher Pass, visit cnfaic.org/wx/wx_marmot.php.

See you in the mountains!

Ed Kessler

Palmer