TheSnowpit.com News Blog

• Various articles provide closing thoughts to the past winter season
• New Zealand avalanche control program comes up for award
• Two fatalities in Pyrenees and one in India
• Avalanche road closure in Montana and snow predicted in the Olympics and Cascades

Summer is here in the Northern Hemisphere, and many are providing closing thoughts on the past season (linked also from Backpacker Magazine). I have my own opinions on the subject, but with the heat already arrived, it's probably time to turn thoughts to cooler topics.

After all, winter is just starting in New Zealand. Their avalanche prediction program for Milford Sound has been put up for an award, with the hopes of gaining international appreciation for the project. The program has been in place for a while, but Jordy Hendrikx, a recent graduate of the University of Cantebury, talks extensively about the program and how it can be improved, saying: "The meteorological data for the Milford Road is now of a sufficient time length and quality to allow a thorough statistical analysis, in particular the use of discriminant analysis or classification trees." Pretty cool.

However, sadly, avalanches continue to wreak their havoc. Two members of the
Halle Orchestra perished in a Pyrenees avalanche last Wednesday; both appeared to be avid outdoorspeople. In India on June 4, one fatality and nine injured were reported below the Gomukh glaciers outside of Gangotri. So sad.

And oddly enough, despite (or perhaps because of) it being firmly June weather in the States, an avalanche has closed Beartooth Highway in Montana. The avalanche occurred on June 1, and their transportation site has some pretty cool slide-clearing videos. Crazy. Along those lines, snow is being forecast for the North Cascades, with a few inches predicted for Stevens Pass and a couple feet for the Olympics! I guess winter never truly ends...