AAS — Who we are. Where we are going: Nancy Pfeiffer interview
2016 marks the 40th anniversary — in all its different iterations — of the Alaska Avalanche School. We are among the oldest avalanche and snow safety schools in the U.S.
In celebration of our upcoming anniversary, we’ve decided to profile a number of staff over the coming season. These folks are the current core, a few beacons from our past, and those that represent our shining future. Sharing with you who we are serves the dual purpose of showing you where we have come from and where we are going.
We also want to use “Medium” as a platform to discuss current snow safety research, decision making while traveling in avalanche terrain, and the overall state of avalanche education.
Engage with us by using the space at the bottom of our posts to write a response. Or maybe you have a question you want answered, or stories you want to hear? Jump in and make your voice heard. Share these posts. And stay tuned throughout the winter for exciting news from the Alaska Avalanche School!
Nancy Pfeiffer: AAS Lead Instructor, Former Director, Mentor, Guide, Lover of Snow
This interiew was held at our Anchorage office on 12/17/15 and conducted by Jeremy Allyn, AAS Executive Director.
JA: When did you move to Alaska?
NP: I moved to Alaska in 1979 from Colorado.
JA: You met Doug Fesler and Jill Fredston in 1980. What were your first impressions of them? I imagine Jill was quite inspiring given the fact that there were very few women involved in the snow and avalanche world at that time?
NP: I took a Level 2 avalanche class from the Alaska Avalanche School as a student. Jill later became a great mentor of mine. Doug was the guru. After my avalanche class, I asked Doug Fesler for a job! I had two avalanche classes under my belt and he pretty much laughed me off the block. I think in the bottom of his heart he didn’t think I was going to live to be 20. I had already gotten caught in a number of avalanches and he had interviewed me as a survivor and a number of other things. At the time, I didn’t think a whole lot about us [she and Jill] both being women, or being in a field where there’s not a lot of woman. When I moved to Alaska I fell in with a bunch of woman who liked to do the kind of things I did. It was moving to Alaska that helped me find that crowd.
JA: You and Blaine Smith are AAS’s longest standing instructors that are still involved with the school. What’s it been like to have been present through all of the major transitions?
NP: It’s been great and it’s been challenging. I think rapid change is a hard thing. Snowpacks don’t like rapid change. I’ve been a little bit resistant to rapid change — there’s a lot of bandwagons in outdoor education, in general, and I’ve seen a lot of them come and go, so I’m a little reluctant to jump on every new one.
JA: Blaine and I have talked a lot about the major transitions the school has had over the years. How would you describe the main ones?
NP: The Alaska Avalanche School was originally part of the Alaska Mountain Safety Center, a state-funded avalanche forecasting and education program. In 1986, the state funding was cut and AAS continued as a private non-profit. In 2004, when Doug and Jill moved on, Blaine and I took over completely.
JA: Do you feel like the changes that the school has made have been in response to overall changes in avalanche education in the U.S.?
NP: Ya, I’ve actually done a fair bit of research about that recently. Next TAR (the American Avalanche Association’s publication, “The Avalanche Review”) that comes out is going to have an article that I think very well sums up how I’ve seen the last 30 years of avalanche education in the U.S… from my viewpoint here in Alaska. I’ve talked to a lot of educators “outside” and got their viewpoints as well.
JA: Give us a sneak preview?
NP: I think it’s been a pendulum swing. I remember days spending an entire day looking at a square meter of snow with your toes freezing in the snowpit. Now we’ve gone quite far towards more soft skills, more human factors, very little actual talk about snow and the scientific aspects of snow. I see the pendulum swinging…I think we’ve probably gone too far, and we’ll come back to presenting more information about snow.
JA: Is the AAA Professional-Recreational split in avalanche education going to be beneficial in this light…to deepen the recreational side with more snow science? Or do you think it will be the death nell [ of snow science in avalanche education for recreationists]?
NP: The aspect I’ve been focusing on in this article is “how much snow science in a Level 1?” The Level 1 [is, or is going to be] the preperatory course of both recreational and professional [tracts], and that’s another point for keeping the science and snow science. I’m saying it’s our job to present these things, these scientific things, in a simple manner that people can relate to. That’s our job. I don’t think we want to, or have to, make it complicated, or something people can’t understand. I think we as an industry, in the nation, have steered away from the science aspects of avalanche education and, to some extent, the snow pit.
JA: You’ve been teaching since 1990. How have you maintained your passion?
NP: I do it because every snowpack is different, every group of people is different. I love teaching. I love upping people’s observational skills about snow. I feel like that’s a lot of what that second day is [on a Level 1]. Snow is not just all that white stuff…it has a different texture, it has a different color and feel. In general, teaching people and helping them have a better connection to the outside world…it’s what keeps me going.
JA: Describe a memorable day in the mountains that you’ve had recently.
NP: Recently…since I just came back from Mexico [lauging….]. No, I’m going to say, Fredrik’s birthday. My husband and I went up and skied a run affectionately called, “Wimp Bowl.” We skied it twice, in very good powder, and then we came home [laughing…].
JA: For me, as I’ve gotten older and more experienced, one of the things I’ve become particularly attuned to is my “confirmation bias” [the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s beliefs, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities]. These days, how do you facilitate this discussion with more advanced snow practitioners or partners?
NP: It’s very helpful to know who you are talking to and what their background is. To know what kind of snowpack they came from — that’s a question I ask all of my students that come into a class. If they came from Colorado, they’re going to come in with a different look at snow than if they came from Washington State. To be able to help them catch their biases — and if they know where you’re coming from, to be able to help you catch your biases.
JA: What kind of changes have you observed up at Hatcher Pass over the years? You spend more time up there than almost anybody.
NP: The biggest change at Hatcher Pass has been an increase in snowmachine use. It’s been a long hard struggle to have some kind of designation between ski zones and snowmachine zones. Like at Turnagain Pass, it’s really cut and dry — it’s the highway, it’s one side or the other. At Hatcher, there’s a corridor. As snowmachines have gotten more powerful, they have tended to go up both sides of the mountains from the corridor.
From a skier standpoint, people go bigger earlier in the year than they used to. “April Bowl” was named “April Bowl” because people didn’t used to go into there until April. And now, of course, people ski there all the time.
JA: The Extended Column Test is 10 years old now. Are we over-using it?
NP: Well, I am so glad to be done with the shovel shear test [laughing…]. I am forever thankful that we don’t do that one anymore! I think the ECT is a good test. I think it very well might be the best all-around test that we have going right now. But, I don’t think we have to have one test. I don’t want us to forget about other tests that are good for other types of instabilities. Some tests are better for things than others.
JA: So, do you think we are over-using it? And I use that term precisely. Not over-emphasizing it. Do you think people are using it too much, too often, as too much of a go-to test, all the time, everywhere?
NP: The bottom line is that it is one test and everything that [people] observe and learn…from what comes up from the bottom of their feet, to what came in through their eyeballs and their ears, is part of the decision…not just the test.
JA: You’re planning a trip to ski powder in Japan this season. What are you most looking forward to?
NP: Snow monkeys! For sure, snow monkeys! [very emphatically]. That’s my one word answer.
JA: In 10 years, what will the Alaska Avalanche School look like?
NP: My biggest goal will be to have a really solid curriculum that we believe in that’s based on measured student outcomes. I don’t think there is any school out there that is really measuring their student outcomes and basing their curriculum on that.
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Alaska Avalanche School, 2015