Sawtooth Avalanche Center opens for season
KETCHUM, Idaho (KIFI) — The Sawtooth Avalanche Center began daily backcountry avalanche forecasts for the 2022-2023 winter season Wednesday.
This season, the center welcomes some new faces, embraces new forecasting tools, and offers some additional products.
Jon “J.P.” Preuss has joined the forecasting team this year. Preuss, who moved to the Wood River Valley to pursue a career in mountain guiding after graduating from Northern Vermont University, is an American Mountain Guide Association-certified ski and rock guide. He’s also worked as an operations manager, a search and rescue member, and educator.
Also joining the team this year as part of the Forest Service International Visitor Program is Manuel Genswein. A native of the Swiss Alps, Genswein comes to the center from Lenzerheide, Switzerland. Genswein is a published rescue researcher who has developed rescue products and techniques that have been applied around the world. He has joined the Sawtooth Avalanche Center team as part of a multi-year effort to research and create international best practices for many avalanche-related topics.
Among the technological developments this season, center forecasters are in the initial stages of developing a national public field observation platform that will streamline the way field observations are gathered and displayed at avalanche centers across the country. Additionally, forecasters have redesigned the weather station map and data visualization page on its website.
New products are also on tap for the 2022-2023 winter season. In conjunction with the Forest Service National Avalanche Center and neighboring avalanche centers, the Sawtooth Avalanche Center staff conducted a feasibility study on bringing avalanche information and education products to eastern Idaho. Center staff, who are members of regional avalanche information working groups, plan to expand their study to the Boise and Trinity Mountains in 2023.
Friends of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center and center staff continue their commitment this season of providing avalanche information and education opportunities in Spanish. In addition to publishing and broadcasting Spanish avalanche warning information, which began last season, center staff will be adding an Introduction to Avalanches course in Spanish and will present Avalanche Awareness classes to Spanish-speaking snow removal workers. Center staff are also working on an Avalanche Awareness video in Spanish.
