Are You Beeping? (2012)

Abstract

As members of Cascade Backcountry Ski Patrol (CBSP) and the Ski Patrol Rescue Team (SPART) of King Country Search and Rescue, we strive to increase avalanche awareness through extensive education of members in the rescue community as well as active participants in the avalanche awareness and education community. There has been an increase in media attention around local avalanche accidents in the Pacific Northwest in the 2011-2012 winter season. In combination with this media attention and the desire for more of the public engaging in winter backcountry recreation, we felt that a new public outreach campaign was needed in the Pacific Northwest.

In cooperation with King County Search and Rescue, Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center, the US Forest Service, Washington State Department of Transportation, and the Summit at Snoqualmie Ski Resort, and many others in the industry we were fortunate to launch our first pilot of new avalanche awareness signs around several of the common trailheads at Snoqualmie Pass. We secured a special use permit from the US Forest Service and worked in close partnership with many other public safety entities to develop a new trail sign. This was deployed to as many winter recreation entrance points in the surrounding Snoqualmie Pass Washington winter recreation area as possible.

In addition, we've also developed and launched the first proto-type of a beacon check station for the US Forest Service in the Alpental area. This new “Are You Beeping?” beacon check station includes simple public information, a solar powered BCA Beacon Checker™, trail beam and motion sensors, instrumentation for temperature/humidity, Zigbee wireless mesh capabilities, and a micro-controller for logging of all data. The first two months of data from the pilot was retrieved successfully from the logs showing the public entering a trailhead, triggering the beacon checker (if they were wearing a beacon), proceeding further up the trailhead, along with time, date, temperature, and humidity. Plans to deploy several more signs for the 2012-2013 winter season are already planned.