Decision Making Flowchart

Last fall my neighbor Luc Mehl showed me his decision making flowchart for packrafting. I grabbed his idea and made an avalanche decision making flowchart. It’s not a simple answer. A simple answer doesn’t exist. That’s why avalanches are so fascinating. Rather, it’s a way to structure the tools for making good decisions.

Avalanche decisions are on-going. Starting with your training, knowledge, and experience and continuing through learning from the debrief. Waiting until the top of the powder slope to make a decision is like learning to fly after launching on your first solo flight.

This is the fourth concept (see other posts here) I wrestled with while re-thinking the avalanche problem for my Avalanche Decision Making Field Book.

Are You a Red Flag Partner?

A People Checklist for the Avalanche Triad

Last post I talked about a different way of looking at the avalanche triad, with terrain in the middle and the condition of the snowpack, weather, and people around the outside.

Snowpack, weather, and terrain have known criteria where avalanches are more likely.

But what are the people conditions that make avalanches more likely? I spent the winter asking avalanche professionals, and narrowed it down to six people disaster factors. These are attributes of partners, or yourself, that increase avalanche risk.

In the absence of these disaster factors, the people are acting as a team. Teamwork is important for making good decisions. A group of people that are not working together as a team will make worse decisions and should consider avoiding avalanche terrain.

It looks like this in the triad:

This is the third of four posts on concepts I wrestled with while rethinking the avalanche problem for my Avalanche Decision Making Field Book.

Re-Thinking the Avalanche Triad

In the 1980’s the avalanche education powerhouse team of Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler organized avalanche information into an avalanche triad in their book Snow Sense. They describe snowpack, weather, and terrain coming together to make an avalanche. People, at the center of the triangle, turn the danger of avalanches into a risk for humans. Their triad, like all their work, has stood the test of time.

The avalanche triad from Snow Sense by Fredston and Fesler.

In the decades of thinking about the avalanche triad, I steered away from it because it felt stagnant. I wanted a system with a progression. Not a list. But in recent years, I’ve come back to the triad, realizing that a simple list, as a graphic, is a great starting point for an avalanche avoidance system. Cycling back to an idea, after exploring other options, tells me that I’ve found what I’m after. The triad works.

It needs a small tweak though. Terrain goes in the middle.

While planning before going into avalanche terrain we consider the condition of the snowpack, weather, and people. Based on those conditions we choose appropriate terrain to ski. This is how people think and talk about avoiding avalanches.

You are the person standing below the terrain that has its unique weather and snowpack.

People are just as fickle as the mountain weather and snowpack. Terrain, though, is our trusty old friend.

This is the second of four posts on concepts I wrestled with for my Avalanche Decision Making Field Book. Lucky for me, avalanche problem is far from being solved.

Would You Freeze?

Learning from the Tenerife Air Disaster

Your partner cuts into the golden powder. The slope cracks like ice. A river swallows her and she’s gone. Subliminal bliss to nightmare in five seconds. How would you react? 

I hope I will default to the teaching and practice I do countless times a season. But then, I’ve never done a real avalanche rescue. Imposter syndrome niggles at my teaching. Would I freeze?   

My sister Kate sent me the podcast Cautionary Tales, Frozen in a Burning 747 (Tenerife Air Disaster 2). In the podcast Tim Hartford describes the largest air disaster in history when two 747s collided on the runway in the Canary Islands. One plane sat burning on the tarmac. Inside numerous passengers survived the initial impact. A few jumped up and started helping. Most froze though. Alive, just looking calmly ahead. Unable to get out. They died. 

Evolution taught us to fight or flight in an emergency. Freezing is another common response to disaster. It’s an evolved survival tactic so a predator won’t see us, or maybe think we’re old dead meat. 

Hartford explains research done on two types of disasters: those we might encounter and train for, and those that are unlikely to encounter and are not worth training for. Us backcountry skiers might encounter an avalanche, so we can train for it. “Do drills again and again until the right response pops straight into your brain.” In other words, practice rescue every single year to avoid freezing. 

Hartford also explains how we might need help snapping out of a freeze. A thought popping into our head, or someone showing you the way. A few simple and directive commands to get us to revert to our training. I took that knowledge and simplified the rescue outline in my Avalanche Decision Making Field Book down to a few key phrases to unlock a freeze.

Avalanche Writing That Doesn’t Bury Your Readers

Avalanche Writing That Doesn’t Bury Your Readers

The Avalanche Review 43.3 printed this article in spring 2025. Minor revisions here.

Have you ever started reading an article about avalanches only to find your mind wandering to distant powder slopes? You wanted to know more, but the article wasn’t worth the effort. Why?

Avalanches are hard to understand because they are complex events. They result from a soupy mix of terrain, weather, and snowpack. Add humans to the mix and avalanches become even more complex. For these same reasons, the very nature of avalanches makes them difficult to capture in words. Like legalese (legal writing that is hard to understand) and academese (excessive jargon in some academic writing), avalanchese is difficult to read and fails to increase safety. 

Here is a real example of avalanchese:

By offering an interpretation tool for the PST, we aim at enabling the immediate assessment of PST outcomes and at facilitating comparability between different geographical locations, terrain features, snowpacks conditions, etc., enhancing the transferability of these stability tests to potential hazards.

In contrast, if the writing is good—easy to read, relevant, and concise—avalanche professionals can share information more effectively to increase the safety of backcountry skiers. Written better, the avalanchese above might look like this:

We present a method to interpret the propagation saw test for different locations, terrain features and snowpacks. This method can help forecasters compare results and use those results to better predict avalanche danger. 

Write for Your Readers

Good writing requires that you write for your readers. Unless you’re journaling for yourself, keep your readers' level of knowledge in mind as you write. Doing this is difficult for experts because of what Steven Pinker in A Sense of Style calls the curse of knowledge. “It simply doesn’t occur to the writer that her readers don’t know what she knows. And so she doesn’t bother to explain the jargon, or spell out the logic, or supply the necessary detail.” Avalanche professionals, who know the topic well, often forget what it’s like to not understand avalanches.

The following are specific ways to avoid the curse of knowledge so that your readers will actually read your stuff (article, paper, post, or observation), and have a better chance at applying it to their own practice. 

1. Avoid Zombie Nouns

Unintelligible academese, legalese, and avalanchese are full of zombie nouns. Zombie nouns are simple words (e.g. compact) that have been turned into longer, more abstract words (e.g. compaction) by tacking on “-ion” or “-ize.” 

Documentation of observations is important when ski guiding. →  Ski guides should document what they observe. 

Compaction and stabilization of the slope is necessary. → The slope must compact and become more stable.

Zombie nouns tend to make your readers struggle to understand what you are saying. Your potentially life-saving writing will collect dust in the avalanchese stacks. Strive to use the simplest form of the word, which is the easiest to read and understand. Avoiding these zombie nouns also helps you avoid the passive voice and other pitfalls of writing—more on that below. 

2. Avoid Abbreviations

Sure, pack your notes and emails to cohorts with abbreviations, but when writing for the rest of us, please spell it out. Words instead of abbreviations let the sentence flow, pulling your readers through your writing. Unless an abbreviation is part of mainstream language—ETA, LSD—write it out the first time you use it, for example, “extended column test (ECT)”. Write it out again if it hasn’t been used in a while. If it’s short when written out, then just write it out every time. 

We measured ECTP on SW. →  The extended column test propagated on southwest aspects. 

I took a Rec 1 from OMS. →  I took a recreational level 1 avalanche course from Oregon Mountain School. 

3. Use the Active Voice

When possible, avoid passive verb forms of “to be” —is, was, were, there is, and there was. Speak directly to the reader in the active voice. In the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action expressed by the verb. Get rid of the verb “to be,” rearrange the sentence, and it becomes direct and vigorous. Also, if you, the writer, are doing the action, using the pronouns “I” or “we” will give your sentences life and make them easier to understand. For example, 

The food was eaten by the cat. → The cat ate the food. 

The observation was conducted... → We observed... 

Pits are dug by the forecaster. → The forecaster digs pits. 

Write as you would speak to your readers. Read aloud what you’ve just written. If it sounds turgid, pompous, or incoherent, fix it. Change the wording so that it flows in a natural way. Speaking your written words also helps detect when to switch to the active voice. 

4. Use Simple Words

If several words have the same meaning, use the simplest, most specific, and familiar, and use it consistently. Avoid ambiguous and abstract words in favor of concrete words that explain ideas in terms of human actions and sensory information. For example,

AIARE 1 → level 1 avalanche course

manage → reduce, avoid 

mitigate → get rid of 

Other ways to simplify wording include,

at this point in time → now

due to the fact that → because

a large quantity of → many

Writing with concrete and simple words shows that you know the subject, want your topic to be understood, and care about your readers. Add a few words to define technical terms. Even knowledgeable readers find comfort in already knowing some of what you are telling them. Plus, your writing will actually be readable and applied. 

5. Rewrite, Let it Cool, and Share

Putting words on paper is just the start. First drafts are rarely clear enough to get your message across. The meat of writing is rewriting, followed by rewriting, and then rewriting again and again. Eventually, your writing will appear perfect. It will make total sense and you’ll understand exactly what you’re trying to say. The problem is you’ve become blind to your writing. Let your article cool off for a day or two, then revisit it with fresh eyes. Better yet, let it sit for a week or a month before rewriting. You’ll be surprised by the gobbledygook you wrote earlier. 

Another important step is to share your draft with readers who you respect, partners or coworkers. They don’t need to be experts in your field; you simply want them to be able to understand your writing. Listen to what they say. If you feel like you need to explain something to them, go work on that sentence. If they say, “I think I understand what you’re saying,” they don’t. Go work on that part of your writing. If they only say, “Looks great!,” thank them and go find a more critical reviewer who will help improve your writing. 

References

• Chip Heath and Dan Heath, 2007, Made to Stick. 

• Steven Pinker, 2014, A Sense of Style. 

• William Strunk and E. B. White, 2000, The Elements of Style. 

• Helen Sword, 2012, Nominalizations Are Zombie Nouns, The New York Times.

Thank you for helping with this article: Emma Walker, Lynne Wolf, and Molly Stock.