New App helps make better terrain choices

Aspect Avy claims to help users make better decisions in the back country. This app has been created by a team including Jeff Banks, an IFMGA mountain guide for the last 18 years. When discussing avalanche problems, it is generally understood that "terrain is the answer". What this app does is to make it easy to see the terrain that is above a certain slope angle, and make it easy to see. This gives a really clear picture of avalanche terrain, allowing the user to plot a route that avoids it. Unfortunately, as an Android user, I was unable to download the app to use it myself on my next tour.

The next piece to the puzzle in avalanche terrain is group decision making. Aspect Avy has created a real time decision making app. The user can be warned about changes in the forecast, and even submit observations on the fly to help make good choices. The creators of the app stress that their reasoning behind creating it is to enable backcountry users to be safer. Having done an AST course, you can then use this app as a script to run through the processes that have been learned in the course. This should enable a step by step script to follow and cut down on the sublectivity of making a go or no go decision.



This Apps seems to be a useful aid to making decisions to go or not go, as well as helping to make good terrain choices. I'm hoping it comes out on Android soon, for those of us that are not Iphone users, so I can try it out.