Leveraging Digital Mapping Tools for Planning and Communication: Using CalTopo for winter backcountry travel and avalanche forecasting. Meghan Twohig, CalTopo Training and Support, USAW 2020, summarized by Jeremy Collett CalTopo is a dynamic, digital mapping program that allows you to integrate multiple layers of mapping information and bring it with you into the backcountry using the CalTopo app. In her presentation, Leveraging Digital Mapping Tools for Planning and Communication: Using CalTopo for winter backcountry travel and avalanche forecasting, Megan Twohig from CalTopo …

Take me to your powder: The importance of tracking early season weak layers… how long do they persist? Mark Staples, Utah Avalanche Center, USAW 2020, summarized by Jeremy Collett. It’s October and it’s snowing in the mountains. Early season snow is exciting, but it can also be deadly. In the last 10 years over 60% of avalanche fatalities in Utah have involved avalanches breaking on early season snow. Avalanches that happen on old, early season snow, are often extremely large, wide, and deadly. In Utah, we often get snow in October and early November followed by a dry …

Join us for the 14th Annual Utah Snow and Avalanche Workshop (USAW), where Utah’s avalanche community will team up with snow professionals from around the west to share avalanche knowledge. Regional avalanche workshops are the most time and cost-effective way to build and refresh advanced avalanche skills available. This is your chance to learn from avalanche experts and brush up your skills before the start of the season. You’ll learn from forecasters, patrollers, snow scientists, highway avalanche crews, search & rescue personnel, mountain guides, ski industry manufacturers, …

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This winter we did an experiment – we put quizzes in a handful of avalanche forecasts. Getting information, like in an avalanche forecast, and then being quizzed on what you just learned, is a good way to reinforce what you just learned and recognize what you may have missed. It’s also useful for us to learn how well the message we intend to send is actually perceived and how we can improve our delivery. And throwing in a question that requires you to combine the forecast with some avalanche understanding to make a hypothetical decision and providing feedback seems like a good way to show …