Should the NWAC be publicly funded?

So in my rambling way, why not have a substantial portion of the NWAC's budget come from WSDOT, another from the ski areas or any other heli/hut skiing operation with the remainder from some sort of access fee for bc skiers/slednecks?

Ski resorts and heli/hut operators provide a wealth of information to NWAC, maybe NWAC should be paying them? Again a user fee for backcountry users in winter is somewhat Draconian, a lot of people never go near avalanche terrain. So you might have a large group of winter users paying for a small group's avalanche forecast needs.

Aaron my man, we are in complete agreement here.
I think Ski areas rely upon their own asssesment as do heli/hut operators.
It's an intersting question... does WADOT rely upon it for pass closure and avy control...... I doubt it but am interested to get the answer..... Stimbuck, paging Stimbuck..

I'd pay for the mountain weather forcast alone, which is 1,000,000,000x better than NOAA. Who maintains the telemetry? I'd pay a lot more for continued access to that.

The telemetry is available on TAY for free( and beautifully so I might add)

Again a user fee for backcountry users in winter is somewhat Draconian, a lot of people never go near avalanche terrain. So you might have a large group of winter users paying for a small group's avalanche forecast needs.

Should probably clarify my post.  By "access fee" I mean access to the site/info, ie subscription not some sort of user/permit fee. If the quality of the content is not up to snuff or if they don't have data relevant to your interests/zones, you wouldn't be subscribing.

The other question that needs to be raised is does the NWAC save lives???
I know these are questions are sacred cows but the data needs to be analyzed. We'd like to think it does and maybe it does but statistic's .. damn statistics.

I don't have that data but personally I think TAY and  other skiing websites have probably done more than the NWAC to promote avy awareness and  good protocol and the need to get knowledge but that's conjecture as well.

How long as it been in existence.... and since it's inception have avy deaths in WA shown a marked change that correlates directly to the NWAC report or is it more due to the type of winter we have had???

The telemetry is available for free on TAY only because the NWAC buys, installs, and maintains the equipment and then posts the data which you access through the TAY site. No NWAC funding, no data.

Ski areas feed information to NWAC, but I've been present in the NWAC office when calls were coming in from ski areas demanding forecasts. As far as I know, the ski areas contract with NWAC because they consider the information worth paying for.....unlike some who post here.

NWAC also has a strong educational presence. The fact that one or another person here might not use the daily report ignores the fact that NWAC has done much to disseminate information which we all use in our own evaluations on a regular basis.

IMHO, the forecasters at NWAC are more reliable than either the National Weather Service next door or, god forbid, the WA DOT.

Does this mean NWAC should be funded with tax money? One might expect that answers will be related to one's philosophy of government and taxation in general. Personally, I think government is currently abdicating its responsibilities on a number of fronts, and that tax increases to better fund lots of stuff (e.g., parks, education, social services, roads and other infrastructure, policing, plus all sorts of educational and predictive services like weather forecasts) would be a very good thing. Of course, others have different perspectives.

Mark