Wanna get nerdy? Follow Bruce Jamieson on Vimeo
I have always enjoyed the ins and outs of the avalanche phenomena. From my first ski tour in the slack country of big white in my XXL cotton T-shirt to crystal identification and my goretex everything. The only constant is my interest in learning more about safe back country recreation. Understanding the nature of avalanches is an important step in being able to make your own assessments out in the field. However it can prove confusing when trying to interpret your snow pit findings or various tests and sorting out the potential impact of a skier on the current snowpack.
Years of hands on experience will eventually make the correlation obvious or alternatively one can listen to an experienced professional and get a jump start thus saving some trial and error. Dr. Bruce Jamieson is a avalanche researcher with the university of Calgary and has had a massive impact on the way we all do things in the back country. Some compression tests to fracture characteristics to photogrammetry ( what the hell is that) Dr. Jamieson covers a wide variety of subjects in a very accessible format. Vimeo. So do yourself a favor and follow his account for all sorts of information and demonstrations of the avalanche phenomena.
Below is one of my favorite videos. It demonstrates the common snowpack tests that are uses to assess instabilities within the snowpack.