Avalanches and other Hazards

Slides do happen - the big cornice off the peak

There is no avalanche control at Niseko-Hirafu. One of the reasons that ski patrol is so touchy about travelling out of bounds. All excursions away from the piste are done at your own risk and certainly any evacuation by ski patrol from these areas is carried out at your own cost.

Ski patrol forbid cutting under ropes but when conditions are reasonably safe they do permit you to enter some out of bounds areas either by climbing to the peak or through marked gates. When conditions are particularly unsafe (bad weather or immediately after a heavy dump) these areas are also closed.

Avalanche warnings are posted every day in Japanese. For the rest of us there was a warning in English when the conditions are at their worst. This sign was seldom out but it did take my fancy and consequently I named this article after that sign.

Examining the snow pack

With no new snow in sight for a couple of days and as a break away from the regular grind two of us decide to join six others in an introductory avalanche awareness program. This course is run quite often during the season by Luke Hanson and I would highly recommend it to anyone whether out of curiosity or plain safety. The split of two half day sessions run over two consecutive days was ideal especially when the weekend was coming up and we wouldn't care about those slightly longer lift queues. The first session was theory done inside one of the pensions with white board and printed notes. The second session consisted of field work and practical examples of what we had covered in the theory previously. We measured and examined critical angle slopes. Looked at terrain traps and the effects of wind, sun and shade. We dug pits examined different layers and strengths in the snow pack and finally did shovel sheer tests and a Rutschblock test.

Luke after the second slide

Luke certainly knew his mountain and on the slope where we did our strength tests we found weak layers at about 30cm below the surface and again about 40 cm below that again. Our Rutschblock test failed at the first jump when the upper layer of the test block broke away while the lower layer gave way on the third jump. Scary to see how unstable this slope was and that was inside the resort but not near any of the piste runs.

But there's more...

Apart from avalanches, trees and ski patrol there were other natural hazards to be avoided. No, not rocks, these were extremely rare. No the other hazard was fumaroles. These are volcanic vents where hot gases escape from fissures in the ground. The heat from these can result in a hole right through the multi metre deep snow pack. Something you don't want to drop a leg into whilst negotiating a slope. Fumaroles like crevasses could disappear after a fresh snow fall and reappear as soon as the snow above them has melted from the hot gases. There were some fumaroles inside the resort but they were fenced off.

Watch Out For The Zombies There is one large area to the south of the resort which is a totally no-go area. An area that even the hard-core locals keep out of. This extreme zone is very slide prone and many people have been killed in there. Anyone stupid enough to venture in is quickly hunted down by ski patrol and their lift pass privileges withdrawn. The sign below says it all ... and more. My favourite sign - beware of the undead.

Volcanic Fumarole - the ultimate skier trap