{"id":37000,"date":"2019-12-08T19:00:52","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T02:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=375663"},"modified":"2019-12-08T19:00:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T02:00:52","slug":"olivero-backcountry-stars-take-it-upon-themselves-to-teach-summit-locals-avalanche-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/local-news\/olivero-backcountry-stars-take-it-upon-themselves-to-teach-summit-locals-avalanche-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivero: Backcountry stars take it upon themselves to teach Summit locals avalanche safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pro skier Michelle Parker, foreground, leads a collection of local girls and women through the SAFE AS avalanche and snow safety clinic at Copper Mountain Resort Saturday.<\/strong>
Curtis DeVore \/ Copper Mountain Resort<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

COPPER MOUNTAIN RESORT \u2014 The greatest aha moment breakthrough for the collective of Summit County locals at Saturday\u2019s SAFE AS avalanche clinic may just have come off snow.<\/p>\n

While the clinic attendees were in a classroom setting, pro skier Michelle Parker asked them to follow her to the back of the room. There, Parker had set up what she described as a tilt board avalanche demonstration. Parker poured cane sugar and flour to simulate different kinds of snowfall layers. Like an avalanche arts and crafts project, the sugar and flour was scattered on top of a few different surfaces, some more slick than others, that Red Bull freeskier Parker had adhered to the wooden board.<\/p>\n

Parker then asked one of the students to read the angle of the tiltmeter as she raised the back end of the board up. As the meter crept above 30 degrees toward 35 degrees, the sugar and flour began to crack, showing students just how an avalanche manifests up close and personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so logical to see it in a demonstration like that in a safe area in a classroom,\u201d Parker said. \u201cIt starts to click. You see the bed surfaces and how they might react at which degree the slope would slide. Then you get to the anatomy of an avalanche \u2014 the flanks, the crown, the bed surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker returned to Copper Mountain Resort this weekend with fellow pro skiers Jackie Paaso, Cody Townsend, Elyse Saugstad and others as part of the SAFE AS \u2014 Skiers and Snowboarders Advocating and Fostering Avalanche & Snow Safety \u2014 Clinic. Saturday\u2019s clinic was the same women\u2019s-only class SAFE AS has operated since the pro skiers launched the clinic eight years ago. Sunday\u2019s clinic at Copper was opened up to a coed format for the first time.<\/p>\n

Clinic operator and pro freeskier Jackie Paaso said Saturday she and her pro skier friends have always operated SAFE AS as a women\u2019s-only event because they felt the voices and concerns of women are often not heard or neglected in backcountry groups. However, in recent years Passo and the other pros said they realized many women aren\u2019t going into the backcountry in all-girl groups. Often, they are out there with a significant other, a family member or guy friends, and felt opening it up to include men as well made sense.<\/p>\n

As such, they welcomed Townsend along for the weekend, where he provided a man\u2019s perspective on touring and communicating effectively in guy-girl groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey always say, \u2018The safest thing in the backcountry is a woman,’\u201d Townsend said. \u201cStatistically you are less likely to get caught in an avalanche with a woman in your group. The main thing we try to stress is, \u2018If you think it, say it.\u2019 Because quite often you can fall into silence because it\u2019s welcoming in the backcountry to be quiet, it feels peaceful. But for safety\u2019s sake it is really important to be always talking. You want the group to think larger than the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just this past week Townsend released the latest short film as part of his latest, lauded freeski film career: \u201cThe Fifty Project.\u201d The project chronicles Townsend\u2019s goal to climb and ski all 50 lines chronicled in the book, \u201cThe Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America.\u201d The most recent chapter, \u201cPeak Obsession,\u201d released on YouTube Nov. 27, took Townsend\u2019s group to Meteorite Mountain and Pontoon Peak near Valdez, Alaska.<\/p>\n

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The trip was an experience that echoes Townsend\u2019s emphasis on communication in the backcountry. Townsend said on Saturday that typically quiet cinematographer Bjarne Salen spoke up while ascending with the super experienced group.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we were getting up toward the summit we started having discussions about if we were going to continue,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cThere were some danger factors for the way back down, for the way up \u2014 it just was on edge. Then Bjarne spoke up and said, \u2018I made a decision 200 feet below that I\u2019m not going to the top today.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo at that moment it was very impactful,\u201d Townsend continued. \u201cbecause he\u2019s generally a quiet guy. He\u2019s very comfortable, generally, in very hard, steep snow situations, situations like we were finding ourselves in. So when he said \u2018I\u2019m not going to the top,\u2019 everyone was cool with it. Those are the kind of moments \u2014 understanding my partner, understanding his comfort levels in steeps and exposed situations we were in \u2014 when he says, \u2018I don\u2019t want to go to the top today,\u2019 that for me is a massive red flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two months later when the group returned and accomplished their goal, Townsend said the conditions they observed confirmed they made the right call and avoided catastrophe.<\/p>\n

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Last winter Parker coached rising star snowboarder Brock Crouch after the Red Bull rider\u2019s buried-alive experience the winter prior in Whistler, British Columbia. Parker said before Crouch\u2019s accident, which resulted from a cornice breaking beneath his board, the Californian hadn\u2019t had much avalanche education.<\/p>\n

After the accident, Parker spent weeks last season working on avalanche safety with Crouch and his good friend and Summit County local Red Gerard. Parker said the young pros had their eyes opened to the dangers of the backcountry.<\/p>\n

Crouch overcame his fears and tested his new avalanche skills not on a tilt board, but on a line eerily similar to the one he had his accident. While in Tahoe last year after the avalanche education, Parker said Crouch picked a line with a narrow entryway and blind rollover in between two massive cornices. To ensure success, Parker walked Crouch into his line by communication over the radio, spotting him from her snowmobile through binoculars.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he nailed it,\u201d Parker said. \u201cI think for him and I we both saw it as, \u2018You stepped it up. You faced your fear. You were in the right position. You had a wealth of knowledge you didn\u2019t have before and you executed that super safely.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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