{"id":27806,"date":"2024-05-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-does-colorado-avalanche-information-center-address-stress-of-the-job\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:12:16","slug":"how-does-colorado-avalanche-information-center-address-stress-of-the-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-does-colorado-avalanche-information-center-address-stress-of-the-job\/","title":{"rendered":"How does Colorado Avalanche Information Center address stress of the job?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jeff
Jeff Davis has spent nearly a decade working as a forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. The agency has increasingly tightened its procedures around the way it investigates and responds to accidents, more cognizant than ever of the mental health toll repeated incidents can have on first responders. (Courtesy of Liam Doran)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Avalanche forecaster Jeff Davis couldn\u2019t tell you how many accident reports he has written on slides that killed or injured someone. Nor could he tell you how many bodies he has taken out of the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been quite a few, but I think something that\u2019s important to me is that I don\u2019t keep track,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Davis, who forecasts in the San Juan Mountains, began work at the Colorado Avalanche Information Center a decade ago, at a time when the industry was led by and filled with a hardened group of professionals who, in Davis\u2019 words, kept \u201ctheir emotions in a box\u201d and \u201cjust dealt with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CAIC is responsible for issuing daily forecasts for avalanche conditions across the state and producing reports on avalanches that injure or kill people.<\/p>\n

The investigations that<\/a> inform those reports<\/a> are exhaustive and often demand lengthy conversations with mourning families and adventure partners about the decisions that led up to the incident. Sometimes they involve contact with bodies, and sometimes forecasters themselves are assisting in body retrieval.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very intimately involved with \u2026 the moment of the accident, and then I relive it for a week along with the people involved,\u201d Davis said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s really challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for forecasters to know people connected directly or indirectly to an accident. Or perhaps the investigator has themselves skied the terrain where an accident occurred.<\/p>\n

The emotional load of accident investigation piles onto the baseline stress that is inherent to a forecaster\u2019s daily workload, which stems from the fatigue of regularly making consequential decisions about the forecast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know some people will struggle to sleep or go to bed (wondering), \u2018Is it going to be considerable tomorrow or moderate?\u2019\u201d said Ian Fowler, a CAIC forecaster in Colorado\u2019s northern mountains.<\/p>\n

When Fowler joined the CAIC in 2021, there was nothing formal in the way of mental health resiliency programming at the agency. He put the question to Deputy Director Brian Lazar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we kind of check in on each other,\u201d Lazar responded.<\/p>\n

Fowler saw an opportunity.<\/p>\n

\"When
When Fowler joined the CAIC in 2021, there was nothing formal in the way of mental health resiliency programming at the agency. (Courtesy of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Like many forecasters, Fowler came to the CAIC with a background in ski patrol. It was through his work at Eldora Mountain that he first became acquainted with Laura McGladrey, a national expert in trauma and stress resiliency and founder of the Responder Alliance. <\/a><\/p>\n

McGladrey has adapted existing models used to gauge and address stress to apply specifically to outdoor recreation professionals, such as search and rescue teams and ski patrollers.<\/p>\n

Her work, which as implemented at Eldora, became the basis for the program that Fowler spearheaded at the CAIC, which implemented stress-resiliency tools specifically targeted at avalanche forecasters.<\/p>\n

Formalizing the conversation<\/div>\n

The CAIC piloted its stress-resiliency program during the 2022-23 season. Fowler, Lazar and CAIC Executive Director Ethan Greene were co-authors to a pape<\/a>r, alongside Gabriel Benel, an avalanche technician with the Snowmass Ski Patrol Snow Safety Team who piloted a similar program at the Aspen resort, and McGladrey to present at the International Snow Science Workshop in October 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty adamant that we address both acute stress, which is the obvious stuff like a gory accident scene \u2026 but then also chronic stress buildup,\u201d Lazar said.<\/p>\n

The 14-year veteran of the CAIC has observed the buildup of fatigue in workers who are part of a round-the-clock operation. Unlike a ski resort, where the customers go home when the lifts close in the afternoon, avalanche forecasting can feel never-ending.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be a hard job to unplug from,\u201d Lazar said from his car, parked on the side of Berthoud Pass before a mission into the field.<\/p>\n

Working with the Responder Alliance, the CAIC modified the stress continuum used by the U.S. Marine Corps and superimposed it onto the North American Public Avalanche Danger Scale<\/a> \u2013 the five-tiered color-coded spectrum used to communicate avalanche likelihood, severity and requisite travel advice.<\/p>\n

\"The
The CAIC developed the North American Avalanche Stress Continuum using the familiar North American Public Avalanche Danger Scale. (Courtesy of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A \u201cconsiderable\u201d or \u201corange\u201d avalanche danger would indicate dangerous avalanche conditions and advise that backcountry travelers carefully evaluate the snowpack and make conservative decisions; a \u201cconsiderable\u201d or \u201corange\u201d stress level would indicate that a forecaster is losing sleep, unable to disconnect from work when they should be resting, barely on time or late for forecasting, and communicating in an aggressive or defensive manner.<\/p>\n

The co-optation of the familiar avalanche danger scale was \u201cpretty cheeky\u201d said Davis, a somewhat stoic skier.<\/p>\n

CAIC staff members take a monthly survey asking them to describe stress levels and symptoms, which gives the organization a snapshot of the overall mental health of their forecasters (since the first season, staff members have the option to take a survey daily, although few do). Increased stress levels would prompt increased check-ins from managers and stress \u201cbuddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re using it as kind of a self-reflection tool, a way for people to check in and take their temperature,\u201d Lazar said.<\/p>\n

To address acute stress, generally in the wake of potentially traumatic incidents such as the investigation of fatalities or high-stress highway events, the CAIC borrowed two tools from the Responder Alliance: the incident support tool and the 3-3-3 exposure protocol.<\/p>\n

The incident support tool<\/a> allows both the exposed person and an unaffected staff member to score elements of a response, such as the level to which children were involved, complexity or extreme exposure, on a scale of one to 10. Things like interaction with a victim\u2019s family or prolonged contact with a body might lead to higher scores.<\/p>\n

A moderate or high score will trigger a 3-3-3- protocol (which can also begin at the request of the incident responder).<\/p>\n

The 3-3-3 system is designed to review and address the mental health impacts of a traumatic event on the job. It consists of check-ins from another peer or supervisor at the three-day, three-week, and three-month waypoints, with corresponding action items at each point depending on the level of trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe protocol promotes awareness and mitigation of depletion stress, forward connection and validates the predictable trajectory of exposure stress,\u201d the paper says.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cYou
\u201cYou might think you don\u2019t need it, but that doesn\u2019t mean it doesn\u2019t help,\u201d said Jeff Davis, left. (Courtesy of Liam Doran)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
You might not need it, but it still might help<\/div>\n

Davis took the 2022-23 season off from forecasting and worked as ski guide instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the reason I stepped away was because of accidents \u2013 dealing with accidents,\u201d he said. \u201cI was burned out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Davis comes from a generation of snow professionals who don\u2019t wear their emotions on their sleeves, and he was wary of the program at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been someone who\u2019s good with fluff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When Ophir resident Dr. Peter Harrelson was killed in an avalanche outside <\/a>town in January, Davis got a call in the middle of the night. The next morning, he passed the search and rescue team extricating Harrelson\u2019s body as he traveled to the accident site.<\/p>\n

Davis knew Harrelson \u2013 Dr. Pete, as many, including Davis, called him \u2013 from the tiny mountain town, and built a house next to Harrelson\u2019s last summer.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t Davis\u2019 first go-round investigating an avalanche that killed someone he knew. In 2022, he led the investigation into the avalanche that killed Devin Overton<\/a>, a 29-year-old snowboarder from Telluride.<\/p>\n

The investigation into the slide that took Harrelson\u2019s life was not particularly traumatic, Davis said. Still, his exposure prompted his supervisor to begin the 3-3-3 protocol check-ins.<\/p>\n

In most cases, the protocol is ended after three weeks, as respondents\u2019 stress has decreased.<\/p>\n

Davis said he has not experienced huge impacts of the CAIC stress mitigation program \u2013 but he recognizes the value of its presence.<\/p>\n

\"Chris
Chris Bilbrey, a CAIC forecaster, and Rebecca Hodgetts, southern mountains lead forecaster with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, skin toward Andrews Lake near Molas Pass in 2023. The agency has increasingly tightened its procedures around the way it investigates and reports on accidents. (Reuben M. Schafir\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cYou might think you don\u2019t need it, but that doesn\u2019t mean it doesn\u2019t help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the program\u2019s simplicity, its introduction is part of an evolution as the CAIC shores up its professional bona fides.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur procedures for going through the accidents have just been tightened up over the years,\u201d Lazar said.<\/p>\n

The organization is more considerate of who responds to traumatic events, logistics allowing, and has formalized the way its staff members conduct interviews and write reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, as soon as something like that happens, we start a calendar,\u201d he said. \u201cEssentially, this 3-3-3 check-in protocol, you know, never took place even as recently as four years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A resiliency program piloted in 2022 continues through a second season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[377,28,746],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-avalanche-landslide","tag-headlines","tag-mental-health"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80204,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27806\/revisions\/80204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27806"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}