Snow patrol: Keeping Scots safe when avalanches strike

Avalanches are more common in Scotland than you might think. Hundreds are recorded every year, killing five people last year alone, and vigilance and education are essential. Nick Drainey heads for the hills to meet the team helping to keep us safe

• Mark Diggins out working on the hills with colleague and forecaster Kathy Grindrod. Picture: Jane Barlow

MARK Diggins usually likes to walk to work, he gets to see more along the way; but the weather is foul so he decides to take the train. Alighting at his station he adjusts his coat and hat to the wind and heads off for the last stroll to the office, about 25 minutes away.

The office is a hole he digs himself in the snow about a kilometre above sea level (3,500ft), near the top of one of Britain's highest mountains, Cairn Gorm; the wind is forecasted to reach 50mph, and whiteout conditions (where it is difficult to see where the ground ends and the sky starts) are all around; the train is the Cairngorm Mountain funicular.

There is a dress code for Mark – who is Sportscotland Avalanche Information Service's (SAIS) co-ordinator – crampons and ice-axe. But what makes him and his team of 11 brave such fierce elements for nearly half the year in order to forecast the risk of deadly avalanches?

To Mark it is a challenge rather than a dangerous job. For the seasoned mountaineer and climber, danger is something that happens when you are not properly prepared. It also provides a unique service for skiers, climbers and walkers. Last year there were 220 recorded avalanches in Scotland – 14 triggered by skiers and boarders, 21 by climbers and walkers, leading to five deaths.

He says: "Having people go out is fantastic because it enables us to provide good information. I enjoy being in the hills and going out every day, and I actually enjoy bad weather and blizzards and things like that. I don't mind because I am comfortable with it and I can navigate, I am used to those conditions. Nonetheless, you have got to treat the mountains with respect, absolutely – you have got to be wary of it."

Eight years ago he joined the avalanche information service and he views his life in many ways as "normal". He lives with his wife, Nicki, and has a son and stepdaughter. Does his job not cause her concern? "I think she worries about me but I worry about her driving to Inverness every day," he says. "I think there is more chance of her getting wiped out on the road than me. But I think it is just natural to worry about somebody. She is a climber and an outdoors person so she understands, and she also understands that I work in the Cairngorms, I can go home at night – we have a normal existence."

Mark, who is 54, has been in the hills since his teenage years, when he explored the crags and mountains of North Wales. At 17 he made his first trip to the Alps and hasn't turned his back on high places since. A career as a mountain guide took him to Switzerland and later saw him travel to Glenmore Lodge – Scotland's National Outdoor Centre, near Aviemore.

He works from a small office, going out every day in the winter – including Christmas Day, covering the Northern Cairngorms – one of five areas staffed by the SAIS. The weather is taken into account when deciding where to go to help make a forecast, but gales and blizzards are a normal encounter.

Over time the team build a picture of how the snow is changing due to more falls and, importantly, wind speed and direction. Mark says: "Things change in Scotland really fast so it is matter of keeping vigilant and keeping on top of it. When we do an avalanche hazard evaluation we try to pick up as many clues as possible." Each day the forecasters pick an area which represents an example of the worst kind of avalanche conditions. For example, if the wind is blowing from the west they will go to the east side of a mountain, where snow will have accumulated.

It is then a question of digging down to look at the layers, as it is these layers (or slabs) that can break off and form an avalanche. Amid a whiteout to the east of Cairn Gorm's summit last week, Mark, with the help of forecaster Kathy Grindrod, begins his work, first probing the depth of the snow with a large stick best described as a collapsible tent-pole. Satisfied that 2.7m is enough to work with, he begins to dig down and looks at three layers which have formed – an ice-solid bottom one and two softer ones above. In Scotland, a lack of permafrost means that at 0C the ground is always warmer. As the heat rises, the softer layers can form extra crystals – if these are rough and don't allow the snow layers to bond, there is a risk of avalanche – either natural or triggered by people walking on it.

It sounds complicated and there are a lot more measurements, such as temperature, depth and incline to be carried out, but the science is essentially simple. As snow forms an extra icy layer on his Gore-Tex jacket Mark demonstrates this by trying to make a snowball – to see if the snow binds. With measurements done it is time to retreat as the cold begins to bite. Turning round it seems impossible to know which way to go – all is a curtain of white in a howling wind. But with a compass Mark confidently points the way and begins a march back to the welcoming lights of the railway station.

Then it is back to the office to write up the report and upload it to the SAIS's website. This is the hardest part of the day for Mark. He has to get the tone just right – not too cautious, or too lax. "We are very conscious about how we are seen by people going into the hills, we are relied on. So as a group we do wrestle with what we are going to say.

"We want to be as accurate as possible. It would be very easy to cry wolf and say, 'There is a really high hazard, don't go here,' but people need to trust us and if we are not accurate, people won't trust us." Last year, the SAIS website forecasts were viewed more than 400,000 times. Warning of the risk of avalanches is extremely important, says Mark, because of a surprising amount of ignorance about the dangers posed by the mountains. "People literally don't realise that avalanches happen; they don't think that it is a danger, they just think it is an extremely rare occurrence."

He says 90 per cent of avalanches involving people are triggered by people themselves. But that the dangers should not be viewed as a reason not to go into the hills and mountains, as that would be a great shame, and that as long as people are prepared those risks can be avoided: "It is a hazard, a normal hazard that has always been there."

He is keen to stress that in the tens of thousands of trips made into the mountains the number of incidents, as tragic as they can be, is relatively small. It is when climbers and walkers set out determined to do a particular route that problems can occur, because of a lack of willingness to change plans according to the conditions.

"When you are driven and excited by something, that often can mask hazards which maybe you should be taking note of. If they (skiers, climbers and walkers) consider the hazard before they start they are on the road to being safe. Most people involved in avalanches trigger the avalanches themselves, so by taking on board the information we provide and using their own observations they can avoid getting caught. I think most people do."

Simply, he says, most avalanches occur around the time snow has fallen or been pushed into place by the wind, so by leaving a trip for 24 hours after a period of change like that can be a good rule of thumb.

Gazing out of the window, spotting fresh avalanche debris not far from the summit, Mark accepts that although many aspects of his life are normal, his job is definitely not. "It's weird, it's so unusual," he says with a smile.FACTFILE:

• In recent years, Scotland's worst death toll from avalanche occurred in a gully on Aonach Mr on 29 December, 1998, when four were killed, although three others survived despite spending many hours buried under snow.

• Britain's worst avalanche actually occurred in Lewes, Sussex, when snow fell more than 300 feet from a cliff onto workers cottages below, killing eight.

• The greatest death toll from an avalanche was estimated to be around 20,000, it was triggered on the Peruvian mountain Huascarn by an earthquake.

• A series of avalanches on 10 and 11 February, 1954, killed 57 in the Austrian Alpine village of Blons.

• In February last year a freak storm in the Hindu Kush sparked a series of avalanches north of Kabul in Afghanistan, which killed 172 when a large sections of road were buried.