Ben Ranson Coaching

Safety Briefs

They’re so common I’m starting to think we’ve become impervious to noticing them. They’re there when we get on planes, they’re there written down when we buy anything, they’re definitely there at the start of an instructor led session; but when it’s all said and done, what’s in a safety brief?
 
Conditional favourability is the measure of how friendly our surroundings are from a warm summer’s day at a single pitch crag through to hour 17 battling a Scottish blizzard. It has a considerable impact on how much we can learn in one go. Our summer time climbers can potentially handle five new pieces of information at a time (three plus two for conditional variability) whilst our blizzard smacked winter mountaineers can realistically only take one at a time (three minus two). 
So the question about what to include in a safety brief is highly dependent on the group, the situation and the conditions. These factors interplay and a good coach should be able to judge what information they need. The problem lies in the fact that this is a learned skill, and not something coaches often practice.
I was talking about safety briefs on a recent Security on Steep Ground workshop for ML Trainees. Given the scenario of ascending a steep rocky section and then bringing up a client on a rope I asked them what kind of a briefing they might give. The answers revolved around lengthy explanations of anchors, communication signals and instructions. Talking to them about the mental state of someone needing to be roped, where there conditional favourability has plummeted, their client wouldn’t have stood a chance of taking in all the information they were trying to put across. The simplest safety brief in this situation would be to say “when the rope goes tight, climb up the way I did”. It’s simple, easy to remember and leaves little room for error.
I am a strong believer in briefs. By this I mean that explanations should be brief, and they should be multiple. As coaches we should be looking to give information across in the simplest possible way and at the right time. So the next time you’re about to give a big long safety brief at the start of an activity, consider what they actually need to know at this point.

Free Development Workshops 2012

Frosty Mondays

With the arrival of spring there's normally an expectation of warming temperatures, but the weather this year has remained unsettled to say the least. Climbing on Raven Crag (Langdales) last Monday with Preet and Angus I began to realise how under dressed I was when the wind chill brought the temperature down below zero and hot aches ravaged my hands when I got to belay. Dropping out from leading the next pitch fearing my fumbling fingers would result in all our gear being littered at the bottom of the crag I figured that this was going to be another sharp learning point.

Put simply, you should get too old or too experienced to ignore the signs.

I go on about data collection and interpreting the environment a lot when talking about avalanche safety, the same should be just as true of the weather in the mountain environment. With it being one of my local crags, one I visit a lot after work and often inventing new lines on I got to complacent. There's a learning point in that for us all.

Security on Steep Ground Workshop

Confidence in Avalanche Terrain

The Canadian Avalanche Centre's blog released a really great visual diagram for how our confidence on avalanche terrain varies with the category of avalanche hazard.

(http://www.avalanche.ca/cac/bulletins/forecaster-blog)

The link it implies between decision confidence and fatalities is really very straightforward. In times of low avalanche hazard, as categorised by the avalanche forecast, we are confident moving around on slopes in the 30-45 degree slope angle spectrum as there is a low likelihood of an avalanche. The same is true of our confidence in high and extreme avalanche danger conditions, we make terrain decisions to avoid 30-45 degree slope angles out of fear of it'll slide. 
What the Canadian Avalanche Centre have identified as the danger zone for people operating in avalanche terrain are the considerable danger, category three, days. Over a winter season in Scotland the avalanche danger is considerable for over 60% of the time.
More than any other category, the considerable danger, category three days demand good judgement. I've had some outstanding days climbing during considerable avalanche hazard conditions, but this has been as a result of appropriate terrain choices, thoroughly understanding the avalanche bulletin, constantly checking for changing in the conditions, and openly sharing and discussing our field observations with one another while we're out. 
I remember standing eagerly, looking at the bulletin in my first winter season, category three, I wondered if this meant I could go out at all. Two climbers walked up, took one look at the printout, shrugged, "it's only considerable" one muttered to the other and they were off. That was all the information they felt they needed. There is a risk that we spend so much time walking, climbing or working in a considerable avalanche risk environment that we become desensitised to the reality of the hazards. It goes a long way to explaining the high fatality rate of the considerable zone. That's why even now, six seasons later, I'm still reading the avalanche bulletin it in as much detail as I did back then, I might think it's another day of considerable, but it's never another day of only considerable.