Multiple Facets

By Derek Meier,
Graduate Student

The day was quite warm—if you are used to Jackson winters. The sky was blotched with blue and white with a few stray stellar dendrites floating down landing on our clothes allowing a quick inspection of these delicate intricacies before being blown away. Our graduate class was out with a local avalanche expert Ron Matous to learn about the snow pack, avalanche safety, and instructional strategies regarding snow science.

For most of us snow science was a new concept. For all of us we were bundled with anticipation with a beautiful winter day spent in the Teton backcountry. As we snowshoed and skied out to a favorite slope frequented by skiers and avalanches we were able to acclimate to our new surroundings and awkward devices on our feet. Examining the snow pack along route we noticed terrain traps, 38 degree slopes, and susceptible starting pockets. Our first pits were relatively shallow for this time of year—three feet deep.

Looking at a snowpit is like looking at a the rings of a tree. You can see events, patterns, periods of growth and decay, and if skilled interpret the history of the winter. Ice layers, depth hoar, surface hoar, faceting, deconstructive metamorphism, capped columns, stellar dendrites. Using these descriptors we were able to interpret the clues that allowed us to read the history of this winter in the Tetons. The snowpack is always changing. Temperature, pressure, and humidity all contribute to the stability or instability of the snowpack. We learned that no matter how simple something looks on the surface, if you get down on your knees, get out a magnifying glass, and look hard, the snowpack is like an onion, like a tree—composed of layers, always changing in response to the interplay between external and internal forces. Some layers provide stability—a gathering at a friend’s house, a successful week teaching fifth-graders. Others provide instability—a stressful week where nothing went right, burdens from home on our mind—where avalanches are likely to occur.

The complexities of the snowpack affects the sub-nivian life that depends upon it throughout the cold winter months. The trees change, the animals resist it, sleep through it, or take a vacation. The facets that form within the snowpack also form outside of it. Facets seem to play with light. Bounce it around, break it down, and separate it into a rainbow of components. Cold, yes. But spring is right around the corner. The flowers wait patiently underneath the snow, like the pika. The trees’ buds start to swell, ready to burst open. And through our time spent outside and inside during this early winter class, we learned to view the winter in a different light too. Like diamonds in the air, the snow settles down, warm on our minds, warm on our hearts.