Understanding Travel Behavior In Avalanche Terrain: A Crowd Sourced Approach for Sledders

Once you have downloaded and installed this application on your GPS enabled smart phone or tablet, then go into the settings and setup your email address preferences. If you need help see the user guide online

You can also use a handheld GPS device / GPS watch etc., if you don't want to use a smartphone.

 

NOTE: Step 1 and 2 only need to be completed once. Steps 3-5 need to be followed for every trip that you want to submit to us.

*3.Track your trips.

Every time you go out for a ride, simply start this application and click “Track Ride” and log your track.

While you are out, take photos of any key decision points – e.g. Did you see an avalanche and then decide to ride elsewhere (take a photo of the avalanche). Did you dig a snowpit and find out more information about the nature of the instability (take a photo of the snowpit). Or did you stop and discuss the route ahead (take a photo of the route ahead).

Once you have finished your trip, end by saving it. When you are back in cell phone or internet coverage, please send us your track and any photos (go into “Rides”, click on your tracked rides and share via email (click the track to go to ride details, then click up arrow in the bottom right to email it to us). Please email your file to [email protected].

*4. Automatic reply
Once we receive your track, we will send you an automatic email reply with a link to the post trip survey.

*5.Complete a short, post-trip survey.

Click on the link for the post trip survey from your smartphone, tablet or computer and complete the survey. We need you to complete this survey after every trip, so that we have both the track and the survey data. Together, these data will provide insights into decision making. Here is that link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sledtrips

Or bookmark the website so you can easily navigate to the survey following every trip. 

Confidentiality

We will not share your email address with anyone outside of the immediate research group. We will only use your email address to link you track information with your survey responses. We will also use your email address to contact you, should you win one of our spot prizes. Good luck!

More information

If you want to learn more about our project aims and research questions and approaches, please visit our web pages and review our FAQs: www.montana.edu/snowscience/sleds

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Do I need to use RiderX?

No. We will certainly accept GPX files from GPS units and / or other smart phone apps. Please email these to the email address [email protected] as you will then receive an automatic reply with a link to the post trip survey. We have suggested that people use the RiderX application only because it makes it easy for people to share their files with us - a standalone GPS or another app works just as well for data collection, it's just that you need to connect / download and then email the track (which is more work than sharing their track via the RiderX app).
As a side note - no one working on this project is affiliated with the developers of RiderX. This application is just one on the market that does most of what we need it to for our project.

What about battery life?

If using RiderX then to reduce power usage, you will be tracked using triangulation from cell towers (if within range), and by GPS if out of range. Regardless of the method of tracking, RiderX will check battery life and stop tracking once the level gets below a predefined threshold (20% by default). This ensures that you will always have sufficient battery power to make emergency calls. You can adjust this threshold to a lower value if you wish (e.g. 10%). Based on testing using a range of phones, we have managed to track continuously for between 8 and 12 hours. Older phones, with older batteries may manage less. You also need to keep your phone warm.

What about interference?

There has only been only a limited amount of work on this issue, however it does seem that electronic devices (e.g. cell phones, radios, headlamps, MP3 players, GPSs, etc.) can affect avalanche transceivers. The electronic devices affect the searching beacon more than the transmitting beacon. Most manufactures of electronic equipment do not mention possible interference between their electronics and avalanche transceivers. However, a few diligent manufactures, such as Petzl, mention avalanche transceivers specifically. This note that comes with the Petzl Tikka XP2 headlamp: "Warning, when your lamp is lit and in close proximity to an avalanche beacon in receive (find) mode, it can interfere with the operation of the beacon. In case of interference (indicated by static noise from the beacon), move the beacon away from the lamp until the noise stops, or switch off the lamp." In search mode, irregular readings and decreased range can also be caused by other sources of electrical interference, such as power lines, lightning, and electrical generating equipment. Based on one, very limited study (Barkhausen 2012), the distance between the electronic device and the avalanche transceiver seems to be the key issue. Various avalanche transceiver manufacturers suggest 30cm (12 inches) to 50cm (20 inches) and based on the results from Barkhausen (2012) you should attempt to keep them at least 40cm away from one another to minimize the impact of the potential interference of your phone or GPS on your avalanche transceiver. Further work is needed to examine issues around orientation / transceiver to device combinations / smart phone sending or receiving data etc etc. However in the meantime, we suggest that the top pocket of your pack, or a thigh pocket on your pants might be a good location for your phone or GPS.

Have other questions?

Please email us at [email protected] and we will respond to your questions. Happy riding and tracking!

Results To Date

Hendrikx, J., and Johnson, J., 2014. Using global crowd-sourced data to understand travel behavior in avalanche terrain. Proceedings of the International Snow Science Workshop, September 28 - October 3, 2014, Banff, Alberta, Canada.  PAPER  

Hendrikx, J., Shelly, C., and Johnson, J., 2014. Tracking heli-ski guides to understand decision making in avalanche terrain. Proceedings of the International Snow Science Workshop, September 28 - October 3, 2014, Banff, Alberta, Canada.  PAPER / POSTER 

Hendrikx, J., Johnson, J. and Southworth, E., 2013. Understanding Travel Behavior in Avalanche Terrain: A New Approach. Proceedings of the International Snow Science Workshop, October 7-11, 2013, Grenoble, France. PAPER / POSTER 

 

This project has undergone MSU Human Subjects Review

 

A schematic showing our data flow for this project, with an example of a GPS track (shown in blue) overlain on Google Earth (Image courtesy of Google Earth, 2013); and example output data from this track showing the distribution of slope angles traveled on this days; and the resulting decision making process.