Inaugural event at ski basin teaches avalanche safety and rescue
Feb. 11—Izzy the avalanche rescue dog dashed across a field of knee-deep snow at the Santa Fe ski basin, frantically sniffing to find a woman buried under the cold, icy powder.
Once he caught the right scent, the highly trained hound dug the volunteer victim out of the snowy pile as part of a demonstration for New Mexico's first Beacon Bash Southwest.
The event, organized by the Weston ski and snowboard company, aims to teach people about avalanche safety while raising money for the Taos Avalanche Center. The center monitors and records avalanche conditions in the Taos Ski Valley, providing vital information to winter sports enthusiasts who hope to head out into the backcountry.
"In the winter months, there's a lot of avalanche terrain that exists within Santa Fe and the area around it," said Aaron Rice, an instructor for the Silverton Avalanche School. "I really believe that education empowers people to go explore, and it also gives them the necessary skills and knowledge to navigate the mountains in the wintertime, which are particularly complex."
Throughout the day, attendees got to watch avalanche scenario demonstrations and learn how to use a beacon to find someone who has been buried in the snow.
During the Taos Avalanche Rescue Dogs demonstration, attendees learned about the pooches that are an important part of the ski patrol crew. These canine heroes begin training when they are puppies to learn how to sniff out the scent of a human buried under snow.
By the time they are about 2 years old, the dogs are certified and ready to head out to the rescue if there is ever an avalanche.
Throughout the day people also got to learn about the three most important tools for backcountry explorers to save themselves, or others, during an avalanche: a beacon, a probe and a shovel.
Volunteers explained the beacon is used to send out a signal and tell rescuers where to find victims. They then plunge the long metal probe into the snow until they hit something, or someone. At that point, it is a calculated effort to dig out the victim as quickly as possible and get them to help.
Ben Healey, a spokesman for Weston, explained it is important for everyone who goes into the backcountry during the winter to wear a beacon.
"You know, if you're in an avalanche, and you don't have a beacon on, the chances of you surviving are not good," Healey said in an interview. "So we just want to get a message across to people to enjoy the backcountry, but do it as safely as you can."
Rescues need to happen quickly after an avalanche buries someone. Demonstrators explained that chances of survival drop dramatically after being under the snow for just 15 minutes.
An average of 27 people die in avalanches each winter in the United States, according to records from the last 10 years from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
The last time someone in New Mexico perished in an avalanche was in January 2019, when a skier triggered a snowy landslide at the Taos Ski Valley. Both 26-year-old Matthew Zonghetti of Massachusetts and 22-year-old Corey Borg-Massanari of Vail, Colo., died after being pulled out from under seven feet of snow.
Jay Coghlan, a longtime skier who watched the demonstrations, said he thinks these are important skills for adventurers like him to learn, though he hopes he never has to put them to the test.
"More and more people are going out into the backcountry," Coghlan said in an interview. "When I started, there was nobody out there; it's not like that anymore. So by definition, if there's more people out there, there's going to be more accidents and rescue scenarios, so part of this is just to be responsible and to be prepared."
