Avalanche Awareness
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Think Like an Avalanche : by Forest Service National Avalanche Center Produced by Doug Abromeit of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Center, is a more recent eddition of the classic video Winning the Avalanche Game. Learn to think like an avalanche with this informative and instructional video or DVD. Featuring interviews with avalanche specialists and pro skiers, this video will help to increase your backcountry IQ and teach you how to recognize avalanche terrain and carry out a fast, effective rescue. VHS or DVD. Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center (Call Black Diamond to order: (801) 278-5533) |
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Riding Safely in Avalanche Country: Riding Safely in Avalanche Country is produced by the Forest Service National Avalanche Center. It is the best snowmobile-oriented, basic avalanche awareness video available and it's a steal at $15.95. All proceeds from video sales go to avalanche education for snowmobilers, so you can feel superior for ordering it! |
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Avalanche Awareness: A Question of Balance: by Betsy Armstrong and Knox Williams Produced by some of the country's leading avalanche experts like Betsy Armstrong and Knox Williams, Avalanche Awareness: A Question of Balance is an excellent avalanche awareness video that gives you real tools to use in the backcountry. |
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Avalanche 2-Pack: "This video covers all the bases re: avalanche safety. If you are spending time in the backcountry, pick one up. Could be the best 10 bucks you ever spend." |
Avalanche Rescue and Skills Training
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Avalanche Rescue Beacons: A Race Against Time: Avalanche Rescue Beacons: A Race Against Time was produced by Dale Atkins at the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. This video is good stuff and really clarifies the functioning of avalanche beacons. You learn the "whys" behind all the quirky little things that are hard to remember about beacon searches, like: orienting to the maximum signal, interpreting double loud points and the difference between grid and tangent searches. 38 min. $25.00 |
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Avalanche Rescue: Not a Second to Waste: The same crew from the CAIC teamed up with the National Ski Patrol to bring you Avalanche Rescue: Not a Second to Waste!. It's nice when videos like this are produced by people who really know what they're talking about! Organized rescue teams like ski patrols and search and rescue groups will probably find this information the most useful, but anyone who ventures into the winter backcountry can benefit from this quick primer in search techniques. Seeing how long it takes even skilled rescuers to find a buried victim will make you want to run out and buy a beacon! You can order this video on-line if you have a current NSP membership number, otherwise, check your local bookstore. |
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Snow Profile Procedures: The Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA) is known for their cutting-edge avalanche programs and high quality education materials, so it makes me wonder what happened here. The idea of a video that illustrates snow pit profiles is a great one, since the process is difficult to visualize from a text or lecture, but the world will have to wait for a better attempt. Order it if you must, but the excellent Observation Guidelines... reviewed on our Other Publications page contains the same information and is not nearly so pricey! |
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Snow Profile Procedures: In contrast to the pathetic Snow Profile Procedures, The Canadian Avalanche Association's (CAA) Beating the Odds is a great training video that consistently ranks as the most popular in our avalanche courses. While it starts out a bit hokey, the video ends up doing an excellent job of tying the big picture together as it follows a group of unacquainted backcountry snowmobilers, skiers and snowboarders as they plan and conduct a weekend excursion into avalanche terrain that turns deadly for some. This video was a finalist at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in 1996. |
Avalanche Entertainment
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Raging Planet: Avalanche: The Discovery Channel's Raging Planet video series focuses on dramatic forces of nature. Raging Planet: Avalanche is like similar commercial videos produced by non-snow people: you can expect high production values, high drama, nail-biting avalanche footage and somewhat weak snow science. This is a fun, ooh-aah video, but don't expect to learn much practical information! These programs are multi-media events and you can scan their web-site for related articles, lesson plans and other information. Due to improved equipment, new winter sports and relentless media obsession with the idea of "extreme", it's not just the lunatic fringe getting killed in avalanches these days. If Hollywood-style videos encourage the avalanche-naive general public to seek out deeper information, then it is certainly a good start! |
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Avalanche: Avalanche! is a Nova (PBS) program. This is another extremely well-crafted production with excellent avalanche footage, nice graphics and interviews with prominent snow scientists and avalanche control experts. The snow science is still a bit weak, but this video won't teach you anything that you'll have to unlearn later. Don't worry about getting bored--entertainment is still the ultimate goal, here! PBS invented the multi-media concept and the Nova web-site continues the tradition with related teaching materials, information on the making of the video and other information. |
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National Geographic's Avalanche: The White Death: Another in a series of natural disaster "profiles" by the people who invented the genre. Buy a good copy so you don't have to sit through the commercials on the one your mom sent you from Florida. |