Anything changed in 10 years?

I was shocked and a bit dismayed to find that Frank Baumann had died. Apparently Frank, of Squamish BC, died of injuries suffered in a single car accident near Pemberton on November 1st of last fall. I had been thinking of giving him a call…but you know how that goes. I stayed at his home in Squamish while rock climbing a couple of times in the past five years. I got to know his wife and three young 20's aged daughters. Frank was such a generous guy and enjoyed a wonderful relationship with his wife Nadine and his three daughters. We tried to get out on a trip or two but he was always so busy with his geotechnical engineering firm. We became friends through our mutual agreement concerning the SME accident. Many of the things Frank did and stood for have resulted in significant changes in the guiding and professional avalanche community of western Canada. As the article states, after the accident the in-law of one of the victims was not satisfied with the CAA analysis of the accident. Frank was an insider with many friends in the engineering/avalanche/climbing/guiding communities. He, as AVABLANCHE, was both vocal and well-reasoned in his detailed criticism of the accident on Telemarktips. Aware of his credentials, the in-law I mentioned hired Frank to do a study of the accident which was in SME's permit area but on Crown Land. Frank employed an engineering level of accident evaluation that had not been seen in previous avalanche accident reports (particularly in the professional community). Although the in-law eventually decided not to sue mostly because there was no energy for a long dragged out battle, Frank's work was recognized by the BC Coroner's Offfice as superior in nature and he was hired as the Coroner's Investigator for professional avalanche accidents. Throughout this period we communicated often.

The Telemarktips discussion of the issue was highly controversial and the guiding community and to some degree the professional avalanche community was split down the middle - maybe leaning more towards Frank's viewpoint. There were some in the guiding community who clung to old school views, believed the guide is always right, and didn't want outside scrutiny; and feared increased regulation and a potential lack of autonomy. There were others, particularly in the ranks of the higher echelon of CAA officers and educators that fully supported what Frank and later the BC government was trying to do. I had to laugh, at the time, as some of those vehemently opposed to discussing or criticizing the accident in a public forum - guiding is after all within the purview of the public whereas I never believed private accidents were. They were just tragedies - tried to beat down the discussion by saying something like "Do you think any professionals are watching this thread." And, of course, they were. Only a few professionals spoke out but nearly all were watching as was the BC government. At an ISSW in Jackson (as I recall) I stood and talked with several in the upper echelon in the CAA and at Parks Canada and a comment was made, "What do you think we talk about?" The group also told me that they thought Frank and my positions were correct.

Eventually, the controversy died down concerning guiding, avalanche professionalism and government oversight. And for the evaluation of this accident, and to a different degree, the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir accident involving schoolchildren in Glacier National Park, some regulations were changed, the CAA grew to become even more professional, and recreational avalanche education in Canada evolved. The guiding community became more firmly on board (outfits like CMH had always employed a high degree of professionalism, anyway). Communication sharing through INFO-EX was universally adopted (Beglinger had not been a member of INFO-EX at the time of the accident as had some others not been). In Parks Canada The Strathcona-Tweedsmuir accident resulted in the adoption of certain rules regarding the accompaniment of custodial groups by professional guides and some other changes.

On Telemarktips, Frank suggested that a decision-making tool would be a good idea for recreational decision making. I made up a rough draft of a grid that had on one axis Avalanche Hazard and on the other a terrain descriptor that graded terrain much the same way that Avalanche Hazard is delineated. There were a number of definitions for the terrain descriptors. Glacier National Park's avalanche professional Grant Statham came out with what he called the ATES shortly thereafter. It looked a lot like the decision making tool Frank and I developed together on Telemarktips. And in private communications this was confirmed to Frank. The basis of Recreational avalanche education changed with the ATES, and learning the descriptors, having professionals evaluate terrain in the field to match the ATES, and simplifying decision making, becoming the focus. It's worth noting that Frank was asked to develop the first recreational avalanche course in SW'ern (all of?) BC for the BCMC a number of years before Heather Paxson, then of the North Face, asked me to do the same thing here. Frank was also a former ACMG ski guide.

Frank Baumann was a geotechnical engineer and evaluated things like landslide and avalanche potential, geothermal potential, etc. He worked in BC and in recent years spent a good deal of time in the high Andes of Chile where he was hired as the engineering consultant overseeing safety concerns such as where to build roads and erect housing free from objective hazards. He invited me on a one day helicopter trip to a proposed geothermal project on volcanic and unstable Mt. Meager near Pemberton. Together we walked the area where housing was intended, looking at avalanche hazard, and we cut a landing area for a helicopter pad. The project eventually did not pan out as geothermal vents could not be located that had sufficient potential for development. I regret that we never got to do anything outdoors as he was very fit, even in his mid-60's, had boundless energy, and was a very highly moral guy both in his personal and professional lives.

I would not want to have been, and am glad I've not been in Ken Wylie's shoes. He doubtless had some concerns on the day in question, yet he was not in authority - a very awkward situation for a guide. The 2002-3 snowpack in BC remains notorious for it's weak layers (it was bad here in Washington until late December when sufficient high elevation rains rendered it inactive. The weak layer formed as a faceted layer in early to mid-December and continued to add additional weak layers, mostly Surface Hoar, as time progressed. It never seemed to snow enough to eliminate the risk from a potpourri of weak layers. Avalanches at the deep weak layer, which were initially triggered easily by skiers and others; came to be triggered as subsequent weak layers failed instead, almost invariably, and the shallower avalanches stepped down to the very bad, deep weakness. Fatal and injurious human triggered avalanches continued to produce accidents through late March or so and snowmobile triggering with severe consequences continued through April. Because the avalanches invariably stepped down, the avalanches became less frequent with time, but, because of their often immense scale, had ever increasing consequences. The CAA warned of the danger nearly continually, but especially after recent snowfall or during periods of warming when the shallower slabs were more reactive to triggering. It was an El Nino year with clear periods to produce weak layers and new snow that typically began light, shallow, and low density but became gradually denser and heavier as storm cycles progressed. The cocktail produced a snowpack that really wasn't predictable, that was so treacherous potentially (and at times) that it was beyond the experience of even those with the most experience. The best choice (that was employed by many helicopter outfits) was just to severely restrict terrain.

Gary, I am glad you were my avalanche education.