March 26, 2005, NWAC Field Trip

Thanks to Garth, Mark, Charles, and everybody else who supported the field trip. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour and the lunch get-together afterward. The avalanche center was pretty much just as I had imagined it. But now I don't have to wonder whether my imagination is correct. I especially appreciated Mark's good natured hand-holding of one of our local ski area operators over the phone. "Don't worry, it shouldn't rain until later this afternoon... Yup, that's what the models say..." (or something to that effect). Those NWAC guys really serve their customers!

A fun time: highly informative and highly recommended if the opportunity comes around again.  My thanks as well: Garth, for making it possible by, all else aside, standing patiently in the rain while the TAY motorcade filed slowly through the gate;  Charles, for providing the organizing principle and the means by which planning could happen; and Mark, for giving up his time, privacy and comfortable chair to serve us for over an hour.  

Thanks again to Garth, Mark and Charles.  

What a day to be there.  Very informative.

Keep up the good work.


Eric and Elisa.

Here's some more pictures from the event - if you see yourself and I didn't get your name, could you post who you are? Thanks!

In the parking lot: silaswild, markharf, allyson, Mason_White, ? , amy, kam, Sam Avaiusini, ? , Garth Ferber, Amar Andalkar, ? , ? , ? , russ, ? , Larry_R, Charles, Lowell_Skoog

Garth & Mark

silaswild, russ (on floor), Amar Andalkar, Mason_White

(front to back) kam's hat, wickstad, ? , allyson, philfort, Sam Avaiusini

Trevor, ? ,Charles

I'm the one standing to the right of GregL.  Elisa is between Lowell and Garth (just the top of her head).

And btw Karl Malden?  Movie-star good looks for sure but Karl Malden?

Yes, a big thanks to Garth for leading the tour and Mark for letting us invade his space. I agree with Lowell that it was very useful to see the physical NWAC in operation and no longer have to just imagine what actually goes on there. Seeing Mark field phone calls made me aware what an interactive role the NWAC plays, at least when we are having active weather. The weather sure cooperated, too, giving us much to look at and learn from as Garth walked us through some of the data gathering steps that occur early each morning before the avalanche forcast is released. If the tour wasn't too much trouble for Garth and Mark, maybe we could do this again next winter and give some more people a chance to see what goes on behind the forecasts that we all find so important.

Folks - I greatly enjoyed the tour, so would be happy to do another in the future. It was good PR for the NWAC too.  :) Garth

Again thanks to Garth, Mark and Charles! I was thoroughly entertained by the tour and the lunch after. Hope I remember all I learned.   :)

For those who were not able to attend, perhaps I could pass along the following: in describing his early morning data gathering before preparing the mountain and avalanche forecasts, Garth mentioned that he routinely checks the TAY trip reports, (as well as the NWAC blog) and that they are quite useful.

A number of questions followed having to do with how we could make more helpful TRs. Garth indicated that too much and/or too detailed info is less than ideal. A page long description of a single snowpit listing '50 layers in the snow' doesn't add much to the overall picture that is needed.

I thought that the key idea was that what's important to us is important to them. On one trip we might be concerned about one aspect, and the next trip something else. That's what the forecasters want to know. Snowpit info is nice, but other info is useful too, even to the extent of just having a bad feeling about a certain slope, choosing another and not having a problem.

And Mark pointed out that it's useful to have info about stable conditions too; if only slides are reported then the forecasts eventually get skewed towards that end.

In response to a question about timeliness of TRs, Garth said that that of course timeliness is nice, but that slightly dated reports are useful too, and that we should not hesitate to post for this reason.

For those who would like to use a template, one is available on the NWAC snowpack information exchange site, but I got the impression that whether or not a template is used is not that big a deal for the forecasters. From my perspective, the message was that one does not have to have a degree in snow science to provide useful info. In some instances and for some locations, the only on the scene data they will have will come from us, and they are happy to have it.

So we are all encouraged to post our TRs, especially from locations not already covered.

Hope I conveyed what Garth told use correctly; if not, help!!    :)

Larry

Ps: by all means, let's do this again next year!