Item: Educating Ski Patrollers at Chimbulak (Shymbulak) Ski Resort, Kazakhstan
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Title: Educating Ski Patrollers at Chimbulak (Shymbulak) Ski Resort, Kazakhstan
Proceedings: Proceedings, 2012 International Snow Science Workshop, Anchorage, Alaska
Authors:
- Alexander Prokop [ Institute of Mountain Risk Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering and Natural Hazards, BOKU, University, Vienna, Austria ]
- Peter Dirninger [ SNOW-CONTROL GMBH, Grabenweg 68 , 6020 Innsbruck, Austria ]
Date: 2012
Abstract: Chimbulak ski resort, located close to the former capital city of Kazakhstan, Almaty, has challenging preconditions to make their resort avalanche safe. (1) No official avalanche bulletin is available (2) Using explosives to trigger avalanches is not allowed (3) There is no complete avalanche safe piste under hazardous condition. Therefore a 10 days avalanche safety and decision training course for the ski patrollers was planned to overcome those difficulties. The training consisted of a safety training including beacon search, organized search and a competition against the groups of the ministry (who search for victims outside of ski resorts). A training how to make their own avalanche bulletin, including weather forecasting , snow physics and snow pack stability evaluation using stability tests such as CT, ECT, and Rutschblocktest. Together with all members of the resort a hazard map as well as an inclination map of the resort was produced so typical avalanche triggering zones and avalanche run out length were determined. Further on a Daisy-Bell was used to trigger avalanches, as releasing avalanches not using dynamite is allowed. To help the ski patrollers applying the new gained knowledge one expert of SNOWCONTROL stayed at the resort for the whole winter season.
Object ID: issw-2012-831-833.pdf
Language of Article: English
Presenter(s): unknown
Keywords: ski patrolling, avalanche risk management, artificially triggered, snow control
Page Number(s): 831-833
Subjects: avalanche education ski area management avalanche safety
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