climbers, avalanches and our 100th post!

i'm taking a level one avalanche course this week with the colorado bryan mountain nordic ski patrol. so far it's been cool; an interesting grab bag of nerdy insight into snow crystals and "probing."

my motivation in signing up was to become a safer backcountry snowboarder. i wasn't thinking about mountaineering or climbing at all. what's been interesting to learn however is that climbers encounter avalanches quite a bit.

here's a curious graph courtesy of the colorado avalanche information center.



from 1950-1988 the leading activity in avalanche fatalities was "climbing/hiking." it's noted by the green line. (larger graph here.) the fastest growing fatality-inducing avy activity? snowmobiling.

there are some other statistics about avalanches on the caic website as well.

(an aside. this is the diary's 100th post. wild!)