photo: Tommy Chandler
It’s April already, and the ski touring season is winding toward its close. (Of course, after over 600 inches fell in the Wasatch this winter, we still have a hearty base for the die-hards who prefer to keep on skinnin’.) Many tour-ists are deeply indebted to their local avalanche forecasting centers for another season of life-saving information provided on a daily basis.
We Utah skiers are spoiled by more than fantastic snow and terrain; whether we plan to dash out of the resort gates for a glory lap or we’re plotting a hut-to-hut trip in the Uintahs, all we have to do is consult our local Utah Avalanche Center’s website (or podcast, or phone recording, or radio announcement) for an in-depth avalanche forecast and analysis. On the site, easy color-coded charts explain what types of danger exist, how high each type of danger is, and where to watch for each type. This information is a daily complement to one’s own snow safety education and experience. Everyone, from the newbie to the expert, can find invaluable beta to use while planning a tour.
The Utah Avalanche Center (or UAC) is widely recognized as one of the finest snow safety operations out there, and as I reflected on all the backcountry fun I (safely, informedly) enjoyed this winter, I started wondering what goes into operating an avy forecasting and education center like the UAC. While the UAC is widely respected, very few people have the faintest idea what it takes to really keep its operations running. The center also has to creatively scrape money together from as many sources as possible—there’s no simple, single source of funding. To better understand the work the UAC does, I sat down for a chat with its director, Bruce Tremper.
BL: So, what sort of background and experience do UAC staffers have, and what do they do in the off-season?
BT: There’s no single requirement to work with the Utah Avalanche Center besides having a lot of professional avy experience. I have a master’s degree in geology (I did an avalanche-related thesis) and a minor in meteorology. I’m from Montana, so I started out ski patrolling at Bridger Bowl and was the director of avy control at Big Sky for several years and then worked as a backcountry avalanche forecaster in Alaska. Then I came to Utah in ’86 to work with the Utah Avalanche Center.
photo: USDA Forest Service
Everyone on our staff has done a few years of avy control at a ski area or as a professional heli ski guide, and many have a science background too (which isn’t mandatory—it’s just helpful to know how to think that way). In the summer, everyone has other jobs. For instance, Evelyn Lees is a lead guide with Exum in the Tetons, Drew Hardesty works up in the Tetons too as a climbing ranger … Brett Kobernik goes home to work on his family cherry orchard in Michigan. Brett Kobernik is a self-taught computer whiz in addition to being a forecaster, and he keeps our website and technical stuff going. I catch up on projects in the summer; there’s plenty to do. Craig Gordon and I usually work part time in the summer doing the real work—developing education programs, website work, etc.
BL: Where are the UAC’s staff based and what areas do they cover?
BT: We have four full-time staffers in our Salt Lake office covering the Wasatch. And we have one forecaster in Moab, one in Logan, one in the Western Uintas, and one covering the Manti-Skyline area. Eight total. We’re lucky in the Salt Lake office because we have multiple people to help with the daily shifts. The outlying areas operate solo, which can be hard, but we put the most resources where most of the use is.
BL: What does a usual day of work entail?
BT: I think a lot of people mistakenly envision someone getting up at midnight, going ski touring in the dark, and reporting back with an avy forecast by dawn.
But that’s not how it works; the forecaster on the morning shift gets up at 3 a.m. and goes into our office at the National Weather Service out by the Salt Lake Airport by 4 a.m. That person stars reading all the observations submitted by local ski patrols, the Wasatch Powderbird Guides, the Utah Department of Transportation, and all the volunteer observers who are out every day anyway. They used to submit their observations by phone early in the morning, but now we have a computer network set up for them. It’s much faster.
The morning shift person has to collect all this information and post the first dawn patrol avy report by 5 a.m., then we do a weather forecast and get our online advisory out by 7 a.m., along with our podcast and phone recording. Then by 8:15 a.m., our announcements on local radio stations are done. You have to be a fast typist (so excuse our typos). Then you finally have time to go to the bathroom. The staffer stays in the office until about noon, processing information and compiling field observations submitted. Other staffers who are out touring in the field will call in with their observations, and the morning person finishes his or her eight-hour shift by noon. That person gets to go home and take a nap. We often call each other in the evening, and most of the forecasters call the SLC office at 6 a.m. to discuss last-minute strategies.
It’s a lot like the Wizard of Oz—it might look impressive from the outside, but if you look behind the curtain, you see only one person twittling the knobs, making it all happen. There’s just so much data coming in; it’s hard to keep up. It’s a lot of work. We all put in well over 40 hours a week—it’s a lot, but if you don’t do your job, people die. The pressure’s on. Once my wife made me tally my hours for two weeks, and I was surprised to see it was about 80 hours a week. That’s a lot, but it’s our job, and we do it because we love it. I can’t imagine working that many hours doing something I didn’t love.
BL: How is the UAC’s time spent outside of its day-to-day forecasting operations?
BT: We spend about a third of our time in the office and a third of our time doing fieldwork. (That’s the fun part—and you really can’t know what’s going on with the snow unless you get into the mountains and use your experience to look at the snow, feel the snow.) Then we spend a third of our time on avy education and outreach. Our Western Uinta forecaster, Craig Gordon, started the extremely successful Know Before You Go avalanche education program. It’s been taught directly to about 130,000 students so far, and lots of national programs are trying to model themselves after it. We have it all set up so a volunteer ski patroller or UAC staffer or other snow safety professional can give the presentation to a group.
BL: How does the UAC pull together its funding to make all this possible?
BT: We’re a Forest Service program, so we’re all employees of the Forest Service. But less than a quarter of our money comes from them. The rest comes from a variety of sources, most notably the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, a non-profit organization that raises money. (Since the UAC staff are employed by the government, we can’t directly do fundraising.) This year, the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center raised $270,000 … pretty impressive. Our total annual budget is $460,000, so we piece the rest together where we can. Other major funders include Utah State Parks and Recreation, Utah Department of Public Safety, Salt Lake County and United Fire Authority. It’s the epitome of a successful partnership organization in which every one benefits.
Add your input to the conversation in the comments section below; has the Utah Avalanche Center helped you stay alive too? Find ways to support the UAC here. You can also link to Backcountry.com from the bottom of the UAC’s homepage, and 10% of proceeds from these gear purchases will be donated to the UAC.
Related Posts:
Tags: avalanche safety, backcountry skiing, backcountry snowboarding, ski touring
As usual, you did an amazing job on this interview! Congrats to you, and thanks to the Av Center for it’s excellent work. Let it snow!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0