The Avalanche Hour Podcast cover image

The Avalanche Hour Podcast

6.13 Peter Barsevskis

Feb 1, 2022
51:34
This episode features Peter Barsevskis. Peter is a pro patroller at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort and lives in Golden BC. Peter is working through his Masters degree in Environmental Science at Thompson Rivers University. His research is focused on snow and avalanche mechanics with a tool called the Blade Hardness Gauge. Tune in to hear more about Peter’s project. A summary of his research: "The blade hardness gauge (BHG) is a promising new technology for avalanche forecasters and recreational backcountry users. A key predictive tool used in avalanche forecasting is snow hardness, which is a measure of the snow’s resistance to penetration by an object. The hand hardness test has been the standard test for measuring snow hardness since its introduction in 1950. The BHG provides avalanche practitioners a way to quantitatively measure snow hardness without the known biases of the hand hardness test. An important part of avalanche forecasting is predicting the size of potential avalanches. The size of an avalanche corresponds with the hardness of the slab. As the slab hardness increases it is expected that the avalanche size increases according to fracture mechanics and field observations. The purpose of the proposed research is to continue the work in validating the BHG as a superior and reliable tool for measuring snow hardness predicting avalanche size. Studying in the field of natural and environmental sciences this research will search for a relation between BHG measurements and avalanche size by comparing BHG measurements with avalanche size, snow density, snow stability tests and hand hardness measurements." Peter Barsevskis: p.barsevskis@me.com Fraser Pogue: fraser8@gmail.com Blade Hardness Gauge: https://form3.com/portfolio/snow-density-guage/

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode