Secrets of the Snow: Visual Clues to Avalanche and Ski Conditions

Preface

Preface In 1969 I completed a book called Field Guide to Snow Crystals, published by the University of Washington Press. This book subsequently went out of print in the 1980s, but was revived as a reprint edition in 1992 by the International Glaciological Society and is still available today. The Field Guide told only half of the story, that of snow in the microscopic world. The present volume tells the other half, snow in the macroscopic world, where visible features of the snow surface delineate the external forces that have shaped it. In the same size and format as the Field Guide, Secrets of the Snow is intended as a companion volume to that book. The concept of this present book originated many years ago, when I worked on snow and avalanche studies for the U.S. Forest Service at the Utah ski area of Alta. One sunny winter morning, following a fall of fresh snow, my wife and I were seated at the breakfast table together with a visitor. Our view out the window took in many slopes of the ski area. She and I were discussing which ski runs would have the best snow, where skiing would be poor, as well as the general character of snow deposited by the previous night’s storm. Our visitor, puzzled at this conversation, asked, “But how can you sit here and know what the snow is going to be like?” We knew because experience had taught us to recognize from the visual appearance of the snow surface the whole story of its deposition and probable skiing character. During much of my professional career as a snow and ice scientist , I photographed snow features wherever I found them. About twenty years ago I compiled and annotated many of these photos as ix part of a larger work on snow and avalanches that for many reasons never saw the light of day. The photos and accompanying text gathered dust in my files until they turned up recently, suggesting that the long-delayed second half of the snow story could now be told. With the text and photo collection revised and enlarged, the result is Secrets of the Snow. Edward R. LaChapelle McCarthy, Alaska 2001 x Preface Secrets of the Snow Visual Clues to Avalanche and Ski Conditions ...