Item: FROM AWARENESS TO APPLICATION: TEN YEARS OF CONSUMER-FACING ATES IN THE UNITED STATES
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Title: FROM AWARENESS TO APPLICATION: TEN YEARS OF CONSUMER-FACING ATES IN THE UNITED STATES
Proceedings: Proceedings, International Snow Science Workshop, Whistler, BC, Canada, 2026
Authors:
- Andy Sovick [ onX Maps, Missoula, MT, USA ] [ Beacon Guidebooks, Gunnison, CO, USA ]
Date: 2026-09-28
Abstract: The Avalanche Terrain Exposure Scale (ATES) was designed as a communication tool to convey terrain complexity to backcountry recreationists through consumer channels such as guidebooks and mobile apps. Despite two decades of research into ATES mapping methodology, few empirical studies have examined how the general public receives and acts on ATES ratings delivered through US private sector products. In 2016, Beacon Guidebooks introduced the first significant consumer-facing ATES implementation in the United States, and for the following seven years it remained the only one. Three surveys conducted between 2018 and 2023 documented a shift in comprehension among this engaged, guidebook-buying audience: the share reporting low awareness of ATES dropped from 50% to 10%, and active use of ATES in trip planning rose from 15% to 48%. When onX Maps introduced ATES to a much larger and less self-selected backcountry audience in fall 2023, a different picture emerged. Across three winters of behavioral data, users consistently engaged with the simpler slope angle layer at a higher rate than ATES, and the gap widened even after accounting for a below-average snowpack year that suppressed engagement with all terrain layers. A survey of onX users conducted in August 2026 helps explain why. Self-reported comprehension of ATES trails slope angle by a wide margin, but the gap narrows steadily with years of backcountry experience, and use of both layers is concentrated in trip planning rather than in-field decision making. These findings suggest that understanding ATES as a classification and applying it dynamically in the field are separate challenges, and that slope angle's advantage may owe as much to its decades of pre-digital use with a hand-held inclinometer as to its simplicity. Together, this decade of US consumer ATES delivery offers the first empirical account of how the general public receives a terrain communication tool, with direct implications for how such tools are designed, taught, and evaluated.
Object ID: ISSW2026_FS2.5.pdf
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15788/1790098419
Language of Article: English
Presenter(s): Andy Sovick
Keywords: avalanche terrain exposure scale, autoATES, risk communication, terrain visualization, consumer behavior, backcountry recreation
Page Number(s): 2002 - 2006
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