avalache awareness- for snowshoers

I have been reading all the news reports of Snoqualmie (Snow Lake) accident and Crystal back-country. I feel so bad for those folks and their families. I recently talked with a guy who lost a friend in the same place (Snow Lake) under the same conditions just four years ago. I didn't talk about avalanche safety because it was inappropriate considering the conversation was emotionally charged. What I am concerned with is safety for snowshoers. I feel that many snowshoers do not have avalanche safety experience and people die in the same place year after year under relatively the same conditions. Does anyone have any ideas to help bring some awareness to snowshoers to help avoid these accidents?

Be safe out there-

I do not have a sure fire way to get the word out to all backcountry travelers about avalance safety however I do know that most, if not all avalanche courses are geared towards all backcountry travelers, not just skiers.  Snowshoers are welcome and encouraged to participate. 

Yeah but do they? 9 out of 10 people at these things seem to be skiers, in my experience.

I think many snowshoers are casual users for whom the time and money that awareness requires is beyond what they are looking for. They look to snowshoing as a fun and easy way to play in the snow, with very low commitment. Outside of avalanche terrain that is true, but it is when easy summer hikes like Snow Lake become winter avalanche hazards that you have trouble.

I think that the maintainer of that trail, the Forest Service, should do something to discourage inexperienced users from hiking it (and possibly Denny Creek) in the winter. Signage at the TH may be enough. A current avalanche forecast (on weekends at least) would be better.

Treating the more widespread problem is harder, and I think falls upon (after the individual) the retailers pedaling walls of snowshoes every fall. Most skiers would put awareness training and gear on their list of must-haves for backcountry travel. But they are usually experienced skiers to begin with and understand that travel beyond the resort is different. So they have some understanding of why they need to make that commitment. A lot of snowshoers are just trying out a new sport and come in with hardly a clue, so any clues we can give them early on will help.

I was thinking about this today while skiing at Crystal. While sitting on the lift I kept looking over at Union Peak and thinking about those 3 snowboarders who are MIA and the grief that their families must be going through.

Prehaps the snow shoe manufacturers such as Tubbs and Redfeather need to attach a tab to each set of snow shoes stating some avalanche awareness facts. They promote ads showing snowshoers happily tromping around in the snow and I think they have a responsibility to at least warn the people who but them.

Of course , this is the USA ,so the normal way would be for families to sue the snow shoe manufacturers and then they would post warning labels.

REI in my opinion could also do some good by giving out some avalanche data with each set of snow shoes bought . Backcountry skier , with exceptions seem to be more aware of avalanche danger but most snowshoers I have met in the BC are completely cluless and it has never even crossed their minds.

The snowshoers, or more correctly, non-skiers in the avy courses I've taken were there because the clubs (WAC and Mountaineers) required it for climbing classes. It's like the curve with snowmobiles, i think. The sport expands beyond the awareness until there have been too many accidents to ignore.

It would be easy to include a "winter hazards" handout with winter gear purchases. Maybe including a list of good areas to go to practice. Paradise and Stevens pass have guided snowshoe trips, I believe. And maybe a list of areas where avy gear and awareness are required. REI sponsors several avy awareness classes during the season, don't they?

On the other hand, there are so many warnings attached to just about anything we buy that it's easy to ignore.

There isn't a requirement for folks who take the WAC climbing class to take the WAC backcountry travel class (our avy class) beforehand...though many students who take the climbing class eventually take the backcountry class as they move into doing more mountaineering during the winter instead of just climbing during the summer months.

The WAC backcountry class is open to snowshoers, boarders, and skiers, but the quantity of students we can accept in each discipline is limited by the number of volunteer instructors we get for that specific sport. 

I coordinated the backcountry class for the past four years and it was always an interesting trend that we'd get snowshoe students each year but it was tough to find snowshoe instructors...more often than not, graduates of the class would return to help out, but they'd discovered that the glisse sports were far more entertaining than just snowshoeing so they'd want to help with the ski groups and not the snowshoe groups.