Adirondack Avalanche Community Project pursues opportunities to attend trainings, launch forecasting center
By Lauren Dorsey
Nate Trachte wants to change the Adirondacks’ laissez-faire approach to avalanches. After spending years as an avid backcountry skier out West, he was stunned by the way many East Coasters dismissed avalanches as a risk.
“I think there has been a real lack of understanding about how frequently these incidents occur in the High Peaks,” said Trachte. “It’s a pretty dangerous misconception among backcountry skiers, made even more so because this feeling–that avalanches are not something you have to worry about–also bleeds over into the general public.”
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Together with his friend and fellow backcountry enthusiast Caitlin Kelly, he founded the Adirondack Avalanche Community Project (Adk Avy) in 2022 to try and shift the local culture toward a more cautious and informed approach. “The big question was, ‘what would it look like to address this as just two people?,’” said Tratche. “What could we even do?”
To start, they launched a website, adkavy.org, where skiers could share snow observations and any avalanche risks they encountered.
Trachte said the website began “picking up steam pretty early on,” so they also started running occasional avalanche education courses and events. For example, Adk Avy has begun sponsoring avalanche awareness presentations during The Mountaineer’s annual movie night that marks the start of the backcountry ski season.
Professional level training
When East Coast Avalanche Education, the only organization that offers Pro 1 Avalanche certifications in the Northeast, suggested Adk Avy’s founders attend a certification course in February, Trachte and Kelly saw it as an opportunity to take their organization a step further. “Getting the Pro 1 Certification will really drive this organization forward by allowing us to increase the low- or no-cost avalanche education events we’re able to run,” said Trachte.
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Right now, Trachte and Kelly have to hire instructors with professional certifications to teach any educational events they offer. “We want the flexibility to run these courses ourselves but we’re not going to just wing it,” said Trachte. “This accreditation would allow us to do that responsibly.”
Ashley Murray, an instructor at East Coast Avalanche Education, said that his organization wanted to help Adk Avy because of its commitment to increasing the accessibility of outdoor spaces. “Our mission is to bring in people from all different backgrounds and make them feel welcome in the outdoors,” said Murray. “It’s important for our community in the northeast to have people with these skills and this training who are working to spread information.”
As of Jan. 18, East Coast Avalanche Education has raised $1,890 of its $3,898 goal to cover Trachte and Kelly’s Pro 1 Avalanche course taking place Feb. 17 -21. People wishing to contribute can make a donation to Adk Avy.
Working toward a forecast center
In addition to helping Adk Avy run more courses, the avalanche certification will bring Trachte and Kelly closer to their ultimate goal: creating an Adirondack avalanche forecast center.
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“Now, especially since COVID, backcountry skiing has exploded like crazy and there are just so many more people who are using these spaces,” said Murray. “It’s definitely relevant to be asking ourselves whether a forecast center in the Adirondacks is something to consider.”
Avalanche forecast centers release regional hazard-level estimates, snow information, and safety advice early each morning before backcountry skiers are likely to head out, all curated by forecasters with avalanche certifications.
While Adk Avy’s community-sourced observations operate as a stopgap, Trachte said they can’t replace the quality and speed of the data released by a proper forecast center. “Observations coming in from the public are just an individual recreationist’s sense of what’s happening, and it’s inherently going to be a retroactive reporting of conditions instead of a forecasting of them,” said Trachte.
“In the meantime, we will continue working to provide a community hub, more avalanche education, a place to share observations, and, hopefully, shift the culture around avalanche awareness and preparedness in our community,” he added.
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