Refresh your pit digging skills - VIDEO

Now is the time to start brushing up on avalanche assessment techniques. Even if you can't actually get out there in the snow to practice, activating your brain's recall and memory will serve you well until the snow comes.

Propagation Saw Test

This video covers quite a bit of information so you may want to focus in on a particular test at first. It's a brief 'how-to' for common snowpack tests in order to locate and assess instabilities within the snowpack. Start times of the various tests in this video are:

1:32 Compression Test
5:06 Deep Tap Test
7:28 Extended Column Test
10:54 Rutschblock Test
14:48 Propagation Saw Test
18:48 Shovel Shear Test
20:49 Hand Shear Test
22:11 Concluding remarks on initiation, propagation, and limitations.

Video by Applied Snow and Avalanche Research, University of Calgary.