Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark and there's Charles Bryant and there's no ol
Speaker 1: over there. It's like Jerry with a beard, and this
Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. Yeah, that's a good way
Speaker 1: to describe no Al because it's not at all accurate
Speaker 1: except for the beard. But it's funny. It is funny.
Speaker 1: That's the point that's going. It's going. Fine, you got
Speaker 1: a good intro for this one. Noah, Really, I was
Speaker 1: going to mention the terrible avalanche on Everest. Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it took the lives of I believe fifteen Sherpa. Yeah
Speaker 1: that was sad. Yeah, it was especially sad because we
Speaker 1: know how Scherpall work. We've done an episode on it before,
Speaker 1: and you know, to Live and Die on the Mountain,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's well, it's become the sharp
Speaker 1: away a little bit, but it's still a major tragedy.
Speaker 1: Because sure, but if you go back and listen to
Speaker 1: that show or I think we even called it, what
Speaker 1: like warm friend, Yeah, like they're really great and just
Speaker 1: good souls, and it was it was super sad to
Speaker 1: hear about that. Is that what prompted this idea? I
Speaker 1: believe so, Yes, yes, okay, yes it was. I thought
Speaker 1: it might have been. I know you know a lot
Speaker 1: about snow crystal shape because of your Don't Be Dumb
Speaker 1: episode recently, I thought that might have been it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: about whether or not there is such things to snowflakes
Speaker 1: that are exactly alike. What's the answer? I think that's
Speaker 1: a good way to start out. No, not really, Okay,
Speaker 1: there each one is perfect and special. If you had
Speaker 1: if you're comparing snowflakes that are formed from a very
Speaker 1: small amount of water, then you're probably going to find
Speaker 1: some that are identical. But as I say in that
Speaker 1: episode of Don't Be Dumb, if you count those, you're
Speaker 1: a jerk. So like a real snowflake, like a snowflake
Speaker 1: like that children love and that you haven't broidered on
Speaker 1: your sweater. No, there's no two that are alike. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, even though something like seventies septillion snowflakes fall
Speaker 1: to Earth in a year. Wow, that's a lot of snowflakes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but when you put them all together, they don't necessarily stick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and every once in a while, something can happen, not
Speaker 1: yodeling that can trigger an avalanche. Yeah, and I was
Speaker 1: when we were reading through this. I've found that there
Speaker 1: were a lot of differences obviously between avalanches and uh
Speaker 1: slides that we've covered. Yeah, we did landslides. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I even found a few little similarities and wildfires which
Speaker 1: I did not expect. Lay it on me. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: get to it later, like potential ways to Well, we'll
Speaker 1: get to it. We'll lay it on me at a
Speaker 1: future time. Ok So, um avalanches, Yeah, Basically an avalanches
Speaker 1: is uh, well, it's it's a failure of a large
Speaker 1: or small amount of snow to stay in place any
Speaker 1: longer friction once again, Yes, just like with landslides, Um,
Speaker 1: the the mass overcomes the force of friction that's holding
Speaker 1: it in place and it just kind of moves downhill
Speaker 1: all at once. The thing is that doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: a big deal, but in North America of an avalanche
Speaker 1: can reach something like two hundred and thirty thousand cubic
Speaker 1: meters in size. It's about twenty football fields filled ten
Speaker 1: feet deep with snow. How fast I've seen up to
Speaker 1: and beyond a hundred miles an hour once they really
Speaker 1: get going. That's a big deal. Yeah, So twenty football
Speaker 1: fields filled ten feet deep with snow moving in over
Speaker 1: a hundred miles an hour down a mountain. If you're
Speaker 1: on the way, yeah, to save the day. Pretty much,
Speaker 1: you're in trouble basically. So avalanches are a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1: Even though it's just snow, and snow is beautiful and
Speaker 1: wonderful and cold, it's like all of it moving at
Speaker 1: once is a problem. That's right. And um, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways that an avalanche can form, but
Speaker 1: really there's three. There's three factors involved. You've got snow, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have a slope or an incline, and then you
Speaker 1: have some sort of trigger. Yeah, and like I said,
Speaker 1: it's not yodeling. Loud sounds just don't really have what
Speaker 1: it takes to trigger an avalanche. That's that's in the
Speaker 1: movies that you'll see that, Yeah, German movies. That's right. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: I guess let's back up a little bit to what
Speaker 1: we're originally talking about, which was the shape of the
Speaker 1: snow itself, because that has an impact on what's you know,
Speaker 1: when the snow hits the ground, it's gonna form, it's
Speaker 1: called a snow pack, and how stable the snow pack
Speaker 1: is is depends on the snow that is that makes
Speaker 1: up the snowpack, and like how it bonds together depends
Speaker 1: on the actual shape of those little crystals. H if
Speaker 1: you have a six pointed crystal, um, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: steadier or more stable than like needle shaped crystals right
Speaker 1: packed together better. Yeah. Then, so there's different factors that
Speaker 1: contribute to what kind of snow falls, what kind of
Speaker 1: snow accumulates, and then snow undergoes um a metamorphosis once
Speaker 1: it becomes part of the snowpack, depending on conditions that's right.
Speaker 1: For example, the temperature gra gradient has a big effect
Speaker 1: on how snow within a snowpack, which is just these
Speaker 1: blankets and blankets of snow that build up over the
Speaker 1: course of a season. Um, if there's say a higher
Speaker 1: temperature gradient, so at the surface it's very very cold,
Speaker 1: but below towards the ground, it's actually warmer because of
Speaker 1: the heat, the radiant heat coming out of the earth.
Speaker 1: The larger the temperature gradient, the larger the difference in
Speaker 1: the amount of water vapor. So warmer air or warmer
Speaker 1: snow holds more water vapor. And water vapor likes homeostasis
Speaker 1: just like everything else, so it moves from one end
Speaker 1: to another, and that actually helps trigger metamorphosis of snowflake
Speaker 1: shapes within the snow pack by um taking what's already rounded,
Speaker 1: and that's what you want. That's a stable snowpack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I thought would be more unstable, but it packs
Speaker 1: together easier, right, Rounded snowflakes packed together easier. And when
Speaker 1: water vapor moves from one place to another, uh, it
Speaker 1: takes rounded snowflakes and actually makes them faceted, which are
Speaker 1: more angled, yes, like flat surfaces basically, and those don't
Speaker 1: lock together as well. So that's one form of instability.
Speaker 1: Is when you have a temperature gradient. Yes, and if
Speaker 1: you have a lot of those faceted flakes, it's going
Speaker 1: to be called a depth whore h O a R.
Speaker 1: And a horror is uh is the light like you
Speaker 1: can even kind of see them on like sunny days,
Speaker 1: this sort of shiny crystally surface um layer on top
Speaker 1: that's like not really bonded exactly. It's frost is another
Speaker 1: word for it, like horror. Like avalanche, we should name
Speaker 1: this avalanches the disaster with the most jargon because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of jargon involved in avalanches. There is. We've
Speaker 1: already skipped over some of it. Like rhyme, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: rhyme is when um, yeah, it's basically have you ever
Speaker 1: seen like a a ship going through the Arctic and
Speaker 1: it has like globules of ice, or like a tree
Speaker 1: collecting ice. That's rhyme where it's just basically a bunch
Speaker 1: of water turns into ice really quick and accumulates quickly.
Speaker 1: That's rhyme. Horrors frost rhyme is like globules of ice.
Speaker 1: What about a grapple? Uh, that is when you have
Speaker 1: deposits of rhyme that build up and form pellets of snow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're not stable even though they're pellets, like yeah,
Speaker 1: which kind of flies in the face because I thought
Speaker 1: round was more stable. I think they're larger though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they're like spherical, whereas round is like flat
Speaker 1: and rounded edges. So pellets are like yeah those things.
Speaker 1: You know, you get a handful of those yellow pellets,
Speaker 1: roll them around in your palms like so, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna see like it, there's no friction there. It overcomes friction.
Speaker 1: That's true. Uh, if you have you can also get
Speaker 1: rounding if if it's a low temperature gradient and you
Speaker 1: get a lot of um subfreezing going on, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna cause the rounding, which is actually good. That's gonna
Speaker 1: make it more stable. Like we were talking about UM.
Speaker 1: So you've got temperature gradient, you've got rounding from UM
Speaker 1: a low temperature gradiment. You have different types of snow
Speaker 1: that accumulate. If fascinating is can that be a verb?
Speaker 1: I just made it one. Yeah, fascinating, Yeah, fascinating is
Speaker 1: Basically it's another type of metamorphosis where snowflake undergoes a
Speaker 1: change in the snowpack after it's already fallen. It's just
Speaker 1: laying there like you think when snowfalls it's it's felt,
Speaker 1: but now it's going through some changes. Basically, a puberty
Speaker 1: of snow is what happens in the snowpack. And when
Speaker 1: fascinating happens, it's the opposite of rounding. Those edges become
Speaker 1: um more pronounced, more angular and um. A snowflake can
Speaker 1: turn into what's called depth or h O A R
Speaker 1: again uh, and it's pretty cool. Did you see the
Speaker 1: picture of depth hor It's the coolest looking snowflake you
Speaker 1: can find that it's pretty cool, Like it looks carved
Speaker 1: out like, UM, it looks three D printed, basically, doesn't
Speaker 1: it do? UM a piece of machinery or something. But
Speaker 1: from the looks of it, it looks like it would
Speaker 1: just totally lock in with any other snowflake. But for
Speaker 1: some reason that's not the case. So when you get
Speaker 1: depth Horor's is a very faceted snow packed snowflake. UM,
Speaker 1: it's not going to lead to a stable snowpack. None
Speaker 1: of these are basically everything except rounding UM leads to
Speaker 1: an unstable snow pack. That's right, And that's one of
Speaker 1: the triggers or one of the factors involved in an avalanche.
Speaker 1: That's right. What you have is if you have a
Speaker 1: failure level layer, and that's the weak layer inside the snowpack.
Speaker 1: It's called the failure layer because it fails you and
Speaker 1: causes the av inch. It fills everybody, but it can
Speaker 1: be caused by a lot of things. Uh, the things
Speaker 1: we're just mentioning and uh, depending on some other factors.
Speaker 1: Is how it's gonna deal with that failure level. UM,
Speaker 1: it can slough off the snow, and I think most
Speaker 1: people have seen that is when you see like the
Speaker 1: inverted V shape loose powdery snow coming down a mountain
Speaker 1: that is slough and that is not super dangerous. It
Speaker 1: usually doesn't do a lot of damage. Um, So that's
Speaker 1: not like the worst case scenario now, and slough is
Speaker 1: the result of Typically the failure layer is high up
Speaker 1: in the snow pack, so it's just some surface snow
Speaker 1: that's going to move as part of the avalanche. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If it's deeper, then you're gonna get the the bad
Speaker 1: boy of the avalanche scene, which is the slab avalanche.
Speaker 1: And that's when the failure layer is deep down and
Speaker 1: it's gonna bring obviously a lot more compact big chunks
Speaker 1: sliding down over that that bed layer, or it could
Speaker 1: be a huge chunk, a single chunk. Um reminiscent of
Speaker 1: when uh, you have a lot of snow on your
Speaker 1: windshield and the sun comes out and heats it and
Speaker 1: the glass becomes warmer, so the bottom of it loses
Speaker 1: friction and stability and slides down all at once. That's right.
Speaker 1: That's basically a mini slab avalanche happening on your car. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if if it's wet um your slab, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be slower, which sounds good. Um, but it's gonna hit
Speaker 1: with more force. It has more water to it has
Speaker 1: more mass and volume, more weight babe. Yeah. Um, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about that slope. If they generally happen between
Speaker 1: five and sixty and most common between and forty five degrees, uh,
Speaker 1: is when you're gonna get an avalanche. If it's more
Speaker 1: than that steeper than that, then it's just gonna be
Speaker 1: sloughing constantly and probably not be a danger. And if
Speaker 1: it's less than that, then it's not enough of the
Speaker 1: slope to cause any problems. Yeah, it's not really going
Speaker 1: to move very much, if at all. It's just called
Speaker 1: party time on the mountain. There's also other factors, um
Speaker 1: that contribute to whether an area's avalanche prone or not.
Speaker 1: To like, Um, if it's on the um sunny side
Speaker 1: of the mountain where it gets a lot of morning sun, uh,
Speaker 1: it will actually warm up and and basically settle. The
Speaker 1: ice pack settles and becomes more stable than on the
Speaker 1: shadier side of the mountain. Same with leeward and windward.
Speaker 1: Both of these I thought was the opposite of how
Speaker 1: it should be. I had that same problem too, because
Speaker 1: they say specifically, the Freese thaw cycle can can create
Speaker 1: like a layer of ice in the snowpack that will
Speaker 1: be a failure layer eventually. So if it's in the
Speaker 1: sun every day, I mean it's slightly melting a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: then you know, why wouldn't that also be the case.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to the bottom of that one. I
Speaker 1: have no idea, but that's what I kept coming across,
Speaker 1: and source after source the same thing with Like you said, leeward,
Speaker 1: it means it's it's on the opposite side of the wind,
Speaker 1: and I would think that being on the windy side
Speaker 1: would be more dangerous. Well, no, because that causes slough
Speaker 1: the wind like blood. Okay, I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 1: That one makes sense. It's the sunny side that's just confusing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I still say a strongest of wind could cause a slab.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna fly in the faces of the experts.
Speaker 1: And then um they also rate and not right like
Speaker 1: this is a five star avalanche, the best I've seen
Speaker 1: all season. They have um a rating scale from R
Speaker 1: one D one to R five D five And yes, nerds,
Speaker 1: there is an R two D two avalanche. I guess
Speaker 1: you mean me, because that was gonna be my first question.
Speaker 1: I sent you the chart, okay, but I'm still gonna ask.
Speaker 1: So the R is the size of the avalanche relative
Speaker 1: to the path that takes into account it's width, its length,
Speaker 1: its depth, the size of the avl lanch our. One
Speaker 1: is laughable. Our five is the whole side of the
Speaker 1: mountain just came down. What's an R two D two.
Speaker 1: It's a little above laughable. It's more like a woe.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like you would imagine R two D
Speaker 1: two is an avalanche, you know, all right? Uh? And
Speaker 1: then our five D five the D stands for destructive force,
Speaker 1: and that like in an R five D five, the
Speaker 1: D of that avalanche can like gouge the earth. It's
Speaker 1: it's moving with such power and intensity, and they can
Speaker 1: go up to I think one point nine miles um,
Speaker 1: traveling almost two miles at a at a solid with
Speaker 1: a solid chunk. Pretty scary stuff. Yeah, it's scary stuff.
Speaker 1: And before we get to even more stuff, let's take
Speaker 1: an message break. All right, Okay, so I believe we're
Speaker 1: talking scary things, and what can be scarier than avalanche
Speaker 1: triggered by a yodeler we've already said that's not the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's three times. Um. Usually, well, sometimes it can be
Speaker 1: Usually it's people, but sometimes it can be a natural thing,
Speaker 1: like if a tree falls, or if the weather really
Speaker 1: changes quickly. Um, what else, Um, the big chunk of
Speaker 1: ice falling off a tree could trigger it. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: cornice Um, basically, a an ice pack can build up
Speaker 1: over a cliffs edge and just kind of hang there,
Speaker 1: and then eventually that the it'll collapse under its own
Speaker 1: weight and it can fall onto a ridge line below.
Speaker 1: That can definitely trigger trigger an avalanche. But in most
Speaker 1: cases it's people. Yeah. And apparently in most fatal avalanches,
Speaker 1: the person who dies in the avalanche triggered it in
Speaker 1: most cases. Oh yeah, karmic nature. I guess it seems
Speaker 1: a little a little harsh, Yeah, a little imbalanced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. Uh. All right, So let's say you have
Speaker 1: an avalanche happening. There are gonna be three parts to
Speaker 1: this avalanche. You've got your starting zone, which is above
Speaker 1: the tree line, and that's where the slab actually, that's
Speaker 1: the top part where it breaks free. It's also known
Speaker 1: as a crown. A crown that makes sense. Then you
Speaker 1: have your track and that's basically just the path that
Speaker 1: it takes. Uh. You're gonna if you go to like
Speaker 1: these mountains in the summertime, you might see that track
Speaker 1: uh as a big open area of green grass between trees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the avalanches wipe the trees off of that slope.
Speaker 1: So like if you're if you're unclear on whether avalanches
Speaker 1: are powerful, Yes, they take out trees on their way
Speaker 1: down and houses and ski condos and yeah, skiers, which
Speaker 1: is another reason why they're so dangerous for someone caught
Speaker 1: in the avalanche because it's not only the snow that
Speaker 1: may or may not bury you, you're also getting pummeled
Speaker 1: across against stuff on your way down because of the
Speaker 1: force of the avalanche bouring you along, like being whacked
Speaker 1: into a tree or something. Yeah. Uh. And then you've
Speaker 1: got your run out is the third segment, and that
Speaker 1: is where it comes to a sliding slow stop and
Speaker 1: that is bad news because it's it's they liken it
Speaker 1: to concrete in this article and it just sets up
Speaker 1: super hard and if you're underneath it, h you've got
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen minutes or so to get yourself out
Speaker 1: of there, or it's bye bye to life. Like the
Speaker 1: clock is ticking. Yeah, apparently most people say that you
Speaker 1: can survive buried in an avalanche for about eighteen minutes.
Speaker 1: That's tops. And the best way to survive an avalanche
Speaker 1: is to never start one. And there's techniques that um well,
Speaker 1: basically government local governments that um where mountains and ski
Speaker 1: slips are situated, and then ski resorts will higher ski
Speaker 1: patrols basically go out and test. And there's actually people
Speaker 1: who are called avalanche avalanche forecasters and they I guess,
Speaker 1: study the snowfall, the the atmospheric conditions, like if there's
Speaker 1: been a freeze thaw cycle, and they can predict roughly
Speaker 1: like when or where an avalanche may happen, and they say,
Speaker 1: point the howitzerer that way, and they'll make sure people
Speaker 1: are off of the slope, and they shoot artillery at
Speaker 1: slopes that try to trigger avalanches. That's one way to
Speaker 1: do it. And that's why that's where it reminded me
Speaker 1: of wildfires, um doing controlled burns and stuff like that, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they'll actually set off an avalanche to keep
Speaker 1: an avalanche from happening. But that's really don't wait. Well,
Speaker 1: there's also ski checking, which seems kind of but that's
Speaker 1: almost like, um yeah, uh, I guess it is a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's it's a mind bogglingly dangerous sounding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a job where you on purpose get on your
Speaker 1: skis and ski along the fracture line, um, to see
Speaker 1: what happens, to try to trigger trying to trigger it,
Speaker 1: and then they're gonna quickly try and outrun it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and they're hopefully skiing at the fracture line at the
Speaker 1: top of it, like around the crown, rather than inside
Speaker 1: the avalanche zone. You don't want to be there, so
Speaker 1: it would it would fall out below them rather than
Speaker 1: carry them down. And if you're ski checking, you're you're
Speaker 1: never ski checking alone. You're always part of a team
Speaker 1: and everybody's watching you, and you have a beacon on
Speaker 1: and all the other stuff that you're supposed to have.
Speaker 1: But it's still one of the more dangerous things I
Speaker 1: think you can do in snow. Yeah. I hope we
Speaker 1: have a listener that does this because I'd love to
Speaker 1: know more about it. Ski checking, Yeah, yeah, I'd like
Speaker 1: to hear that too. Some of the other things they
Speaker 1: can do to prevent uh or interrupt an avalanche that
Speaker 1: happens is to put the like physical objects in place
Speaker 1: to prevent it, like nets and anchors and fences and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and that if an avalanche starts, at
Speaker 1: least they can divert it or stop it quicker, or
Speaker 1: maybe prevent it from happening to begin with. Sometimes they'll
Speaker 1: hire local teens to just stand there and link arms,
Speaker 1: stand in the Yeah, the red rover approach. It depends
Speaker 1: on where you live. Estonia is huge on that level prevention. Uh,
Speaker 1: they can happen anytime. They're most common in the winter obviously,
Speaker 1: but they can happen in any month. And um, usually
Speaker 1: in the first like twenty four hours after a big snowfall,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a little more likely. I guess
Speaker 1: things haven't settled in quite yet. Yes, And um, heavily
Speaker 1: logged areas, areas that have been denuded of trees because
Speaker 1: trees all taken together can kind of serve as anchors
Speaker 1: for a snowpack. So they're trying to reforest areas is
Speaker 1: a big, a big thing now And I wonder I
Speaker 1: didn't find this out, But I wonder also if trees
Speaker 1: represent a kind of a crack in a large snow
Speaker 1: pack too, In that like if there was a piece
Speaker 1: that was coming off, it would take less with it
Speaker 1: because it would eventually reach a tree. In that tree
Speaker 1: would represent a break in that connectiveness in the larger snowpack.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say yes, I would say yes to
Speaker 1: that just makes sense. Yeah, But the problem is people
Speaker 1: like to do things like what are called back country
Speaker 1: sports in places where there aren't trees. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: the majority of avalanche victims are youngish dudes who, let's
Speaker 1: be honest, they're out there with their snowboard. They're getting
Speaker 1: dropped in by a helicopter where there's plenty of Dowdets.
Speaker 1: Who's who snowboard too? Yeah, that's true. But they did
Speaker 1: say males is the most one, so I think that's
Speaker 1: a fact. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, Um they're bros, you know,
Speaker 1: they're ski bros. Um Man, I can't believe. I guess
Speaker 1: I do believe that. But the person who causes the
Speaker 1: avalanche is the person who most likely dies. It's just yeah.
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because when you're when you
Speaker 1: accidentally trigger trigger this avalanche, it doesn't you're not you're
Speaker 1: on a on a line, a fault line basically that
Speaker 1: you're triggering. But It doesn't necessarily mean that everything's gonna
Speaker 1: happen below you. You could be skiing right through this
Speaker 1: slab and the stuff above you is gonna come down too,
Speaker 1: So like this whole slabs is gonna come down with
Speaker 1: you in the middle of it. Which, so you're the
Speaker 1: one who triggered it. You're the one who got buried
Speaker 1: alive too. All right, Well, we don't want that to
Speaker 1: happen to anybody, So, uh, how can we? I guess
Speaker 1: we should talk about how to do your diligence as
Speaker 1: a back country bro. Yeah, well you should do so basically, Um,
Speaker 1: you before you go out, you want to check with
Speaker 1: any local UM message boards or websites that have avalanche warnings,
Speaker 1: the bro hotline, right yeah, you want to call be
Speaker 1: like is there going to be right? Um? And there's
Speaker 1: like people who are paid to monitor this kind of
Speaker 1: thing and alert the public. So step one is to
Speaker 1: know whether there's a high likelihood of an avalanche happening
Speaker 1: where you are. Um. You also want to have taken
Speaker 1: a course in surviving avalanches. If you're doing this hardcore
Speaker 1: back country stuff, then hopefully you've done that beforehand. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot to learn to like this isn't we're
Speaker 1: just kind of scratching the surface here. Like there is
Speaker 1: a lot too to know to understand avalanches, to be
Speaker 1: able to forecast them, and to test like doing field tests. Um,
Speaker 1: so you want to really know what you're doing before
Speaker 1: you go out. You always want to go with somebody else.
Speaker 1: Gotta have a brow, buddy. The thing that I think
Speaker 1: you would just have to be a total idiot to
Speaker 1: not have is a beacon, yes of functioning beacon on
Speaker 1: you at all times, beneath your clothes so it can't
Speaker 1: be swept away. Uh yeah. And you want that set
Speaker 1: to transmit if you're the uh the person the transmit
Speaker 1: tour um, so they can find you when you're buried
Speaker 1: dying in fifteen minutes. They're not expensive, they're not um,
Speaker 1: they're not hard to come by. And you if you
Speaker 1: go out doing anything in any bad country sport and
Speaker 1: you don't have one on again, Josh Clark thinks you're
Speaker 1: an idiot. And well we may as well go ahead
Speaker 1: and talk about a couple of other pieces of equipment
Speaker 1: that you should have if you're into this. Um. They
Speaker 1: have these little backpacks now that have air bags in them.
Speaker 1: Um that you basically like pull a little ripcord in
Speaker 1: a big pillowy bag erupts sort of like a car
Speaker 1: airbag outside the top of it. And what that's gonna
Speaker 1: do is take up a bunch of space so you
Speaker 1: have air to breathe um once you're buried, and you
Speaker 1: have you know, a big hole of air at least right.
Speaker 1: Plus it also has the effect of um. If you
Speaker 1: ever have a like a canister of mixed nuts and
Speaker 1: you shake it, you'll notice like the bigger nuts, the
Speaker 1: brazil nuts all moved to the top. Yeah. Uh, same
Speaker 1: thing with you and an inflatable vest, you become bigger,
Speaker 1: so you will move towards the top of the avalanche
Speaker 1: slab and some padding in case there's debris. And then
Speaker 1: the other cool thing is called the the avalon a
Speaker 1: V A l U NNG and those are usually built
Speaker 1: into your backpack two And it's super simple. All it
Speaker 1: is is a it's sort of like a little scuba
Speaker 1: mouthpiece that you breathe through. And what it does is
Speaker 1: it diverts your exhalation down through the backpack and out
Speaker 1: like your where your butt is. Because the danger there
Speaker 1: is if you're trapped under snow and we'll get there
Speaker 1: in a second. Um, you're gonna have a small like
Speaker 1: pocket of air and one of the ways you can
Speaker 1: die is from poisoning yourself with with your CEO two.
Speaker 1: That's right. So if you got the avalon and you
Speaker 1: got your air bag and your backpack, your beacon, your
Speaker 1: beacon and maybe an inclinometer to see what that slope
Speaker 1: is before you go tackle it with your snowboard and say, bro,
Speaker 1: that one's degrees. Well, what do you want to be
Speaker 1: above sixty? Yeah? Geez I know that's awfully close to Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe then go towards the slope. You also want to
Speaker 1: do some tests too, like where you're going to be skiing, snowboarding,
Speaker 1: high marking. Yea, be proactive. You want to dig what's
Speaker 1: called a quick pit, which is basically you become an amateur. Um,
Speaker 1: what is this snow person like smell a sense of
Speaker 1: snow Avalanchiologists. No, no, snowologists. It is a snow ologist.
Speaker 1: But there's a word. Right, you want to become an
Speaker 1: amateur Santa clause. You dig a pit. Um that affords
Speaker 1: you a view of all the layers of the snowpack,
Speaker 1: so you can basically visually inspect it for a failure layer. Um.
Speaker 1: There's other tests you can do as well, um that
Speaker 1: we won't get into. But if you're going to go
Speaker 1: out there, they should be teaching you this in your
Speaker 1: UM in your back country survival class. Yeah, of course class, sure, um.
Speaker 1: But you can also familiarize yourself on the U. S.
Speaker 1: Forest Service UM website. They have a bunch of step
Speaker 1: by step instructions with pictures for testing for avalanches. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we looked at these and it's just no, it
Speaker 1: doesn't do any good to try and describe it. We
Speaker 1: would just get you killed and go look at the diagrams. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you also wanna, you know, prick up your ears
Speaker 1: and listen for wamping noises or hollow sounds and avoid
Speaker 1: shady or it is like, just keep your eyes peeled.
Speaker 1: If you're experienced out there, then you you're probably gonna
Speaker 1: know what to look for. Yeah. And then there's one
Speaker 1: other thing too. If you see tracks already in a snowpack,
Speaker 1: that does not mean that it's already been tested and
Speaker 1: is safe. No, that means you can go that way right, No,
Speaker 1: it means that the person who went before you is
Speaker 1: lucky technically possibly and the last one never never travel
Speaker 1: above your partner, Like, oh yeah, that's a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If your partner gets above you, then they're being very selfish, yes,
Speaker 1: or to kill you or you Yeah, yeah, you should wonder.
Speaker 1: Wait that travel insurance policy I signed, Now I get it.
Speaker 1: So if you've done all this, you do you you
Speaker 1: know how to do a rash block test, and you
Speaker 1: know how to dig a quick pit faster than anybody else,
Speaker 1: and you're you never travel above your partner and you
Speaker 1: still just triggered an avalanche. You've done everything right. But
Speaker 1: it's it's real, right, you're the person, you're the victim.
Speaker 1: Let's say, yes, all right, we're gonna give advice for
Speaker 1: two people, the victim and then the person who sees
Speaker 1: it and goes, oh my gosh, the witness. That guy
Speaker 1: just got buried. Um, all right, So if you're one
Speaker 1: of the brow victims, you're three ways you can die
Speaker 1: u physical trauma. Like we said, let's say you get
Speaker 1: smashed by a tree on the way down. You can
Speaker 1: suffocate in the snow or die of hypothermia. Pick. None
Speaker 1: of those are good. Uh, if you find that the
Speaker 1: avalanche is happening. This is before you're buried alive. Uh.
Speaker 1: And let's say you're a skier or a snowmobile or
Speaker 1: or some other extreme sports person. Um they say to
Speaker 1: try and like outski it and outright it if you can, um,
Speaker 1: you know, get the little rear view herreor going and
Speaker 1: hit the gas as quick as you can, um ski
Speaker 1: off the slab. And if you can do that, then great.
Speaker 1: If you can't, then you may be buried. And the
Speaker 1: first thing you want to do is block your mouth
Speaker 1: so it doesn't fill up with snow. And you want to,
Speaker 1: you know, try and like put your arm over it
Speaker 1: or block it as much as possible if you don't
Speaker 1: have one of those air bags, because whatever little space
Speaker 1: you create in front of your mouth is your breathable air.
Speaker 1: You want to use one arm or your hand or something,
Speaker 1: and with the other arm or leg or whatever you can,
Speaker 1: you want to thrust it toward whatever you think is
Speaker 1: up trying to get some sort of visual cue of
Speaker 1: where you are two people and they see just a
Speaker 1: swimming motion that's on your way down. You're trying to
Speaker 1: basically swim your way to the top of the of
Speaker 1: the pile of the slab that's carrying you down. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then once you start to come to a stop,
Speaker 1: then you throw your hand in front of your mouth
Speaker 1: and you try to thrust the leg up or something
Speaker 1: like that. What I read though, is you're gonna be
Speaker 1: so disoriented you'll have good luck with any of this.
Speaker 1: That's like punching a shark. Yeah, but some people can
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, it happens. Some people have the presence
Speaker 1: of mind to do it. Those people are the ones
Speaker 1: who these instructions are for. Right. Uh. They advise you
Speaker 1: to bail on your ski gear. Um, if you have
Speaker 1: one of those backpacks though, Um, with all your emergency gear,
Speaker 1: obviously you want to hang onto that. Um. Here's the
Speaker 1: hardest part. Why stay calm, Yeah, stay calm um. They
Speaker 1: advise you, if you are honest snowmobile and you get
Speaker 1: removed from it. I don't know how you would do this,
Speaker 1: but try and get out of the path of the
Speaker 1: snowmobile as well, because that will kill you. But again,
Speaker 1: this is all happening so fast. It's just I guess
Speaker 1: you rely on instinct. I guess, so you turn into
Speaker 1: a steely nerved dude. Brouh. And then again staying calm,
Speaker 1: stay calm, You're now buried under snow, and the best
Speaker 1: advice is to stay home. You don't start screaming because
Speaker 1: you're burning your oxygen. No one's gonna hear you because
Speaker 1: they're still pretty far away. Hopefully they have they watched
Speaker 1: you the whole time. We'll get into that in a second, um,
Speaker 1: And you just have to do what you can by
Speaker 1: conserving your energy, conserving your breath, and conserving your voice
Speaker 1: until you hear somebody above you. Then you can start
Speaker 1: screaming as loud as you want, but there's no sense
Speaker 1: in screaming whatsoever until you hear somebody. Um, and then
Speaker 1: you better have that beacon on. If you have that
Speaker 1: beacon on, you set to transmit. You're with one or
Speaker 1: more other people who were with you when this happened.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they're not buried to your chances are actually pretty good.
Speaker 1: There's something like a survival rate um for people who
Speaker 1: are dug out with in the first fifteen minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty quick though. So I guess that brings us
Speaker 1: to if you are the other bro and you see
Speaker 1: this happen to your friend, Um, this is what you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to do because you were there first. Help
Speaker 1: like you may not have enough time. You know, you
Speaker 1: got fifteen to eighteen minutes. You may not have enough
Speaker 1: time to ski to the rescue unit to get word out.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of up to you to try and
Speaker 1: uh get your buddy out. Yeah. If you're in a
Speaker 1: larger group, then yeah, you send some people back for help,
Speaker 1: and then some other people stay to conduct the search
Speaker 1: and rescue themselves. If it's just you, Basically, every bit
Speaker 1: of advice is, if you have any idea of where
Speaker 1: they went down, where do you think they might be,
Speaker 1: go straight there. Yeah, And it's sort of like, uh,
Speaker 1: following your golf shot, Like if it starts to happen,
Speaker 1: you don't want to look around for help or anything.
Speaker 1: You want to lock your eyeballs on your buddy and
Speaker 1: follow that as long as you can until he completely disappears.
Speaker 1: And wherever he disappears or she, that is your last Uh,
Speaker 1: that's the point of reference you're gonna want to hit first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to just keep your eyes on that point
Speaker 1: and go straight to it. Um you uh, basically you
Speaker 1: want to wait a second. Well, it could be another avalanche. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to make sure the snow is settled. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you go over to the area where you
Speaker 1: last saw the person and you take your own beacon.
Speaker 1: Because the cool thing about beacons is not only do
Speaker 1: they transmit, they receive, So any anybody with a beacon
Speaker 1: can transmit for help and receive to lend help. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when you do that, if you're just one person,
Speaker 1: you go to the last place you saw the person
Speaker 1: and you start your search using your transponder and you
Speaker 1: start doing zig zagging motions down the mountain. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: you do a sweep of the avalanche area. You do
Speaker 1: a sweep. You might have something called an avalanche probe
Speaker 1: on you, and that's super long ten or twelve foot
Speaker 1: pole that collapses down to a couple of feet so
Speaker 1: you can have it in your low backpack and you know,
Speaker 1: it's basically a big poker that you can poke down
Speaker 1: in the snow. If you hear your buddy go, then
Speaker 1: that's great. And then um, some ski poles also have
Speaker 1: like like the bottoms come off so that they can
Speaker 1: be turned into um avalanche pokers. And hopefully you have
Speaker 1: a shovel on you, because that is highly recommended as well.
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever pointed that out. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can shovel a lot faster. You can move snow a
Speaker 1: lot faster with a shovel with your hands. So if
Speaker 1: you have a beacon, a probe, and a shovel, you
Speaker 1: could be Okay, that's a T shirt. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: other side is a guy like falling off the snows. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you said zigzagging if you're by yourself. If you're
Speaker 1: with a group of folks, they recommend that you lock
Speaker 1: arms and um sort of like you know, when you're
Speaker 1: searching for a dead body in the woods, you just
Speaker 1: set up a line of people to cover as much
Speaker 1: ground as possible, and then if you find your body,
Speaker 1: dig them out and uh, treat them as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: They may need a little CPR, they may need a
Speaker 1: little t So turn on our CPR podcast your friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: remember staying alive. Oh yeah, and just pump the chest
Speaker 1: to the beat of staining alive and everything will be
Speaker 1: all right. That's right. Uh. And I've got nothing else
Speaker 1: do you I don't either, Um no, that's about it.
Speaker 1: Or if you want to avoid this stuff altogether, you
Speaker 1: do like me and don't ski? Yeah, no bad country
Speaker 1: sports for you. Huh No, I mean I used to ski,
Speaker 1: but I was never very good. And uh, once you
Speaker 1: hit a certain age and you're not a great skier,
Speaker 1: it's like, why why even go out there. I've got
Speaker 1: a fifty percent chance of injuring myself. I would say
Speaker 1: you'd probably have a higher percentage chance than that. You think, Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I took a I was in Vermont skiing one time
Speaker 1: and I took a spill that It was sort of
Speaker 1: like Chevy Chase and Christmas Vacation. I slid. I had
Speaker 1: to have slid half a mile down this mountain without
Speaker 1: being able to stop myself on my butt without my skis,
Speaker 1: and a little twelve year old maybe snowboarder snowboarded down
Speaker 1: with my skis. Stuck him in next to me and said, dude,
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone slide that far in my life.
Speaker 1: And he snowboarded off, and I said, well, you're pretty young,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was pretty entertaining to see. I'm sure,
Speaker 1: and this is when I was younger. It would be
Speaker 1: much funnier now even Oh yeah, you know, like when
Speaker 1: the old guy falls, it's always funny. That's I mean,
Speaker 1: like you said, Chevy Chase movies. I do have one
Speaker 1: more thing, Chuck. It turns out the St. Bernard as
Speaker 1: a mountain rescue dog with its whiskey your brandy cask
Speaker 1: around its neck, supposedly as a myth like they did that.
Speaker 1: They did have St. Bernard's in the Alps and all that,
Speaker 1: and um, they did use them to like carry supplies
Speaker 1: and stuff and sometimes even spirits around their neck, but
Speaker 1: whatever uses like, they were never used as like ski
Speaker 1: patrol avalanche rescue dogs. They were just in the same
Speaker 1: area that avalanche has happened in a lot and they
Speaker 1: just happen to have booze around their necks. I call
Speaker 1: that confirmed. M all right, Well, just the popular conception
Speaker 1: that is St. Bernard is going to run up to
Speaker 1: you and dig you out and then yeah, yes, it's
Speaker 1: not correct. It's a napoleonic lie. I am going to
Speaker 1: say that has happened once, okay, because I want to
Speaker 1: think it happened. It's pretty cool and St. Bernards are
Speaker 1: cool dogs, to be sure. Uh, if you want to
Speaker 1: know more about avalanches, like we said, if you're serious
Speaker 1: about back country sports, you better go take a course.
Speaker 1: You better go to the park services website on avalanches.
Speaker 1: Get that beacon, dude, Yes, or else Josh Clark thinks
Speaker 1: you're a dummy. Um. And you can also go to
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and type in Avalanche in
Speaker 1: the search bar there. And since I said all that,
Speaker 1: that means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this defiling history. And this dude purposefully said, if
Speaker 1: you read this, please don't show Josh because I I
Speaker 1: want to hear his reaction. So here we go. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I was listening to the Fourth of July Extravaganza from
Speaker 1: a few years back, uh, and realized I might have
Speaker 1: ruined a piece of American history a few years ago
Speaker 1: about a thicker, older book, looking to hollow it out
Speaker 1: so I could keep money and other important items in
Speaker 1: there that I wanted, uh, that I didn't want to
Speaker 1: keep in my personal safe. He's not. A few days ago,
Speaker 1: I was listening to the part two of that Fourth
Speaker 1: of July extravaganza and on the way back to University
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin, Go Badgers, and I heard you talking about
Speaker 1: the book Epic of America. Do you remember talking about that? Vaguely? Yes.
Speaker 1: As we had guest hosts, we had Joe and Dazzo
Speaker 1: and Wyatt Senac in Joe Garden and Halle Haglind so
Speaker 1: they may have reference that book, but I don't remember that.
Speaker 1: I knew that was the name of the book I
Speaker 1: bought to hollow out, but thought, surely it wasn't the
Speaker 1: same book. I got home, took a closer look, and
Speaker 1: it turns out I was wrong. Upon further research, I
Speaker 1: found I had bought a first edition, uh one bona
Speaker 1: fide copy of Epic of America by James tres Low Adams,
Speaker 1: and I cut a hole in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: I thought it's somewhat ironic I chose to fill the
Speaker 1: Epic of America with money. Nonetheless, I'm distraught with my
Speaker 1: lack of knowledge and accidental disregard for one of the
Speaker 1: great analyzes of the American dream, that is from Grant.
Speaker 1: Hermit's here we go, Grant. That's this reaction, Grant indignation.
Speaker 1: He's ticked. You know, we got um hollowed out books
Speaker 1: from the guys who make Rick and Morty Yeah, adult swim, Yeah,
Speaker 1: hollowed out to fit perfectly a flask, the Rick and
Speaker 1: Morty flask. It was pretty neat. Thanks for that. Why
Speaker 1: don't you get one of those? Grant and I thought
Speaker 1: when I saw that book, I thought, well, that's neat.
Speaker 1: They sent us a book and it was called like
Speaker 1: interesting science stuff or something like that. I think it
Speaker 1: was called boring Science. Of boring Science's ward people away
Speaker 1: from the book. You want to want to read that
Speaker 1: all right? Then you open it up and you're like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: I've got it on my bar right now. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Where else would it be? I guess on my shelf.
Speaker 1: You're at work, in your work bag with you at
Speaker 1: all times. H If you want to tell us about
Speaker 1: some bonehead thing you did with a piece of Americana
Speaker 1: or anything else we want to hear about it, you
Speaker 1: can tweak to us at s Y s K Podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on our Facebook page at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send
Speaker 1: us email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
Speaker 1: as always, hang out with us at our home on
Speaker 1: the web, the Ill Chill Crib Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how Stuff Works dot com