both current and days prior, according
to Brewer.
“What were the conditions like on
that slope yesterday? What were the
conditions before the last snowfall? Was
the sun on it, and made it icy? You need
to look at the mountain and know how
to read it,” he said.
“Many would agree that it’s tough
to cover everything in training ses-sions
and have it all sink in,” said Miller.
“Therefore, a strong belief in mentors
and mentorship is key, and includes dai-ly
meetings about occupational health
and safety, the environment, weather
forecasts and the shift objectives being
well understood by the crew and espe-cially
the foreperson.”
Training and protocol for each re-sort
depends on myriad factors, such
as which mountain the resort is on,
the location of the resort on the moun-tain,
and where the resort is located
within the snow belt. For resorts that
have grooming within avalanche-prone
areas, it is imperative to have an ava-lanche
safety plan (ASP) that’s specific
to your resort.
“Some mountains require a compre-hensive
ASP relating to grooming and
snowmaking operations; others may
have no avalanche exposure, and there
are some in between,” said Miller. “At
Lake Louise, our grooming avoids most
avalanche terrain. When they don’t
avoid avalanche terrain, we address
them in a daily meeting and red light
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
RONNIE CHUA/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
16 September 2017 | snowopsmag.com