Trailhead Safety Program

Background

The Utah backcountry is a dangerous place in the winter and the Utah Avalanche Center (UAC) is a public facing forecasting and educational non-for profit. In order to fully grasp and get a pulse on the users entering the backcountry to improve the educational and messaging goals of the UAC, we collaborated on a non-intrusive trailhead usage program to understand how, where, and what users are wearing as they enter trailheads

Solution

Custom trailhead monitor systems were designed and implemented with cellular modems for real-time monitoring. Systems were designed to be extremely low power to handle the harsh mountain conditions during winter and to run off of solar for the season. Systems were jointly deployed on UAC warning signs placed at the start of trailheads throughout Utah. Therefore the systems needed to be transported easily by snowmobile, ski, or snow cat and take a limited number of tools to deploy.

results

While the program and collaboration with the UAC and other stakeholders continues, the findings and products produced from the collaboration have been top-tier. A real time data dashboard has been developed and maintained to ensure high data quality and monitor usership and make messaging decisions on the fly.

merging data to undrestand backcountry loss of Life

Initial findings were shared amongst stake holders and published in The Avalanche Review, vol. 40, pg. 28-31, Quantifying environmental warning signs and human behavior for the deadly 2020-2021 avalanche season in the Central Wasatch, Utah. This work illustrated the power of merging the collected data with other available products to help understand messaging and work to keep the backcountry safe.