• The best current summary of the status of avalanche programs in Juneau is the web-edited 7.1MB QuickTime movie version of the presentation we prepared recently for the International Conference on Snow Avalanche Mitigation in Iceland and presented at a colloquium at the SLF Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, Switzerland.
• There were some very useful exchanges of information and techniques during our trip to Europe and it opened some exciting new possibilities for international collaboration toward solving our urban avalanche problem.
• The Juneau urban advisory program demonstration program we did last year was the only urban avalanche forecast in North America. It was a unique and pioneering nontechnical avalanche advisory geared to a general audience of urban residents.
• Unfortunately, the City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) Assembly was not willing to fully fund the program itself and the federal and state governments have failed to chip in their shares, so there is no core operational funding to pay staff to continue the program.
• After twelve years of hard work on avalanche issues in our region, we were not willing to give up easily when the Assembly fell short, so in the fall we submitted a proposal that doubled the CBJ on-budget money with funds we lined up, and tripled it when all the associated off-budget in-kind partnerships and donations were tallied in.
• That proposal would have enabled us to operate through the first half of the forecast season, but it depended on CBJ commitments to begin early enough in the season to meet the professional standard of care and to come through with funding for the remainder of the season using state and federal or CBJ money.
• We put in five weeks of unpaid fulltime work in the summer and fall to help the CBJ raise state and federal funds. We met with Governor Palin's budget people and our federal Congressional delegation's Juneau staff, provided detailed information on our website, and developed and presented our statewide avalanche program budget presentation (0.3 MB PDF download).
• Ultimately the CBJ Assembly decided not to fund the program. We believe this is the wrong decision but that is what they have chosen.
• There were some misleading statements in the media that need to be corrected.
• We were very definitely not seeking a budget increase. In fact the forecasting budget estimates by us and by others over the years have been very consistent, and we actually made efficient use of donations and partnerships to make a 17% CUT in the weekly cost to the CBJ, quite the opposite of an increase!
• Some also suggested we were asking for too much. Again, our budgets were consistent with those developed by others over the years, and were figured at nonprofit chargeout rates a full third below those commonly charged for work in our field. The basic fact is that we could have saved lives for the cost of a $5.20 burger per resident per year, in a city that routinely spends far larger sums on what can only be considered very nice but thoroughly nonessential services.
• The CBJ's budget was completely unrealistic. Even if we could cover the overhead from half of their $50,000, which is very doubtful, it would leave only $1,042 per month pay for each of the four staffers, far too little to live on for fulltime jobs in Juneau.
• The Juneau Empire suggested that we should work out a compromise budget with the City. This suggestion reveals a profound ignorance, an assumption that we were asking an inflated price, when in fact as a nonprofit whose goal is to serve the community, we were already asking for the bare minimum necessary to do the job. There was nothing extra in the budget to trim or to compromise any further with.

Avalanche Forecast Credibility

In the absence of community funding for a professional-quality avalanche forecast, some well-intentioned individuals and groups have proposed alternate forecasts.

In evaluating the credibility of an avalanche forecast, here are the questions you should ask. If the answers are no, the forecast fails to meet the established professional standards and while some of the information may still be useful the forecast must be given low credibility:

• Are the forecasters monitoring the snowpack for the whole season, starting early in November, so deep weak layers and the evolution of the snowpack are being properly tracked and documented?
• Are forecasters in the field daily?
• Are test areas adjacent to or in the starting zones being forecasted visited and tested at least weekly?
• Are other test areas at starting zone elevations being visited and tested at least three times weekly?
• Are field and recording practices in accord with the American Avalanche Association “SWAG” observations guidelines?
• Is the forecast issued daily and updated more frequently when conditions change?
• Have all the forecasters taken or are they instructors for Level 1 and 2 avalanche courses meeting American Avalanche Association (AAA) guidelines, plus the AAA AvPro professionals’ course?
• Are all the forecasters Professional Members of the AAA, having qualified with a minimum of four year’s professional-level experience, and does the lead forecaster have a minimum of ten years of mentored professional-level experience under the same AAA criteria?
• Is the lead forecaster based here in Juneau where they can make daily observations firsthand?
• Do the forecasters have a track record of collaborating with the other centers in the National Avalanche Center network and participating in their training and meetings?
• Do the forecasters have a track record of being active in continuing education like the International Snow Science Workshops and the AAA continuing education seminars?
• Do the forecasters have a track record of collaborating and working well with other community organizations in the avalanche and search and rescue fields?
• Is the forecast area clearly defined?
• Do forecasts have an expiration date and time?
• Do the danger levels follow a scale like the one on our advisory page, consistent with the US backcountry danger scale but adapted for urban use?
• Is the staff paid at professional levels to ensure that the program meets its standards and that fieldwork and updates get done on time?
  

Announcement: February 2, Snow Dynamics One-day Awareness, TEMSCO, Juneau

• This is not one of our courses, but this is the one event these folks are doing with a Department of Public Safety grant in our region, and it is free. Register at 907-775-2600 or snow_dynamics@yahoo.com

Mileage Donations Needed

• Another way you can help us is to make a tax-deductible donation of airline miles to help us send our field assistant Mike Janes and apprentice forecaster Kent Scheler to the American Avalanche Association's AvPro professionals' course in Salt Lake City, Utah this December.
• We are trying to get all the staff training we can to make good use of our time this winter, in hopes of forecast funding next year.
• These are two of our up-and-coming avalanche specialists, one of our goals is to train a new generation of people to deal with our region's avalanche problems, and these are our two best.

What the Juneau Urban Avalanche Advisories Were

• The City and Borough of Juneau funded a short-term demonstration project for daily avalanche forecasts for the urban paths in the winter of 2006-07. They put up $45,000 which we stretched with volunteered time, fundraisers, a major donation from Alaskan Avalanche Specialists, and in-kind support to provide a nine-week pilot forcecasting program for the urban paths.
• The advisories covered the Mt. Juneau urban paths only, not Thane Road or the backcountry. They were in a simple icon-based format that provides a quick-glance summary for web and media distribution to a general audience.
• Avalanche forecasts should cover the rest of the Juneau area, have more detail, and forecast for the full season. We hoped the demonstration program and the CBJ contribution to funding for the upcoming year would serve as an incentive to get the other responsible agencies to contribute, but so far they have not.

Center News - Education

• We are teaching a number of courses. We are working with the University, Alaska Heliskiing, and other partners to ensure that there is quality avalanche education available in our region. We have several Level 1 courses in the works for the upcoming season, plus several crew trainings. Our courses that are open to the public are listed on the education page.
• Following the lead of towns like Silverton and Telluride where there is one big annual community avalanche school, we are setting up a community Level 1 course this February through the University of Alaska Southeast. Unlike our fall semester UAS courses, this one will feature evening classroom sessions and weekend field sessions over two weeks so it will be more accessible to working people.
• Our Level 1 handouts, course materials, and other resources are online as downloadable pdfs and jpegs on the Handouts page. All are frequently updated. We keep the most-current versions on our site and will be adding more material over time. So far as we know, we are the only people teaching avalanche courses who have put so much of our course material on the web. This is a tremendous resource, be sure to check it out!

Other Center News

• We have been formally affiliated with the National Ski Patrol since the 2005-06 season. We will continue to help teach Patrol courses, have patrollers get credit for ours, trade materials, and help with events like Avalanche Awareness Day at Eaglecrest.
• Our website forms should be working now. Drop us an e-mail if they aren't.

Beacon News

• Only two beacon models have been recalled so far, but inconsistent battery fit has been an issue for many beacons. Be sure your batteries fit securely. Some users are wrapping tape around smaller diameter batteries to adjust the fit, but batteries that do not have enough protrusion on the positive cap still can work loose in some holders. Check and test your beacon carefully. The Ortovox website has some good information on beacon batteries.
• Use only alkaline batteries as specified for your beacon. Rechargeable or special photo and digital batteries do not meet the specifications and are known to cause malfunctions.
• Pieps continues to offer new software upgrades for their digital DSP beacon for only shipping and handling costs. Current information is on distributor Liberty Mountain's home page. They have made some major improvements and now appear to have the largest range (even in worst coupling) and best discrimination between multiples of any well-proven digital beacon.
• The Mammut/Barryvox Pulse is out now. It looks impressive but is still new. Ortovox's new S1 beacon is rumored to be appearing. There are no signs yet of the rumored new generation of the Tracker beacon.Pieps appears to have delivered the most significant improvements in digital technology in a well-tested production beacon.

Thanks

Thanks to the Skaggs and S-K Foundations for the funding that has made our website work possible!