Backcountry Avalanche Safety by Tony Daffern is by far the best avalanche book in my humble opinion, and this book review article tells you why. I received the book for review already some time ago, but I’ve been too busy to read it. No wonder because it’s quite a “heavy” book with lots of information, so “speed reading” doesn’t make sense. During my vacation I had a good change to read the book and here’s what I think about Tony Daffern’s Backcountry Avalanche Safety.
Years ago I went to our local library to search for an avalanche book. I had already skied the backcountry of Chamonix and I had learned the basics of avalanches, but I felt I needed to know more. I was going to ski the classic route of Haute Route (from Chamonix to Zermatt) with my friends and I wanted to lower the risks by understanding more about avalanches. Unfortunately I found only books written in 70s. Although the basics of avalanches were understood already in the 70s it is clear that today we understand much more about avalanches, mountain weather, rescuing and avalanche gear. I wish my library had Tony Daffern’s Backcountry Avalanche Safety back in the day.
Tony’s book is comprehensive and well-organized. Even though there is a lot of detailed information like those related to mountain weather it’s all pretty easy to read and understand, even for people like me whose first language is not English. This book is already third edition and it focuses on two basic user groups: those who wish to avoid avalanche hazard by careful route-finding, and those who deliberately seek steep slopes to ski or ride.
Backcountry Avalanche Safety clearly explains the basics of snow and avalanches, identifies avalanche terrain, promotes trip planning, describes the skills needed for safe backcountry travel and provides guidelines for skiing and snowboarding steep slopes, all with an emphasis on managing risk.
Tony Daffern’s Backcountry Avalanche Safety book begins with the anatomy of an avalanche accident and a case story of a typical avalanche. It continues with a long discussion of mountain weather and snow structure which are essential information for understanding the behavior of avalanches. Next Tony gives detailed descriptions of various snow avalanches, and after that he focuses on describing different avalanche terrain. After 100 pages of detailed information of avalanches Tony Daffern’s Backcountry Avalanche Safety discusses about trip planning and avalanche gear, not forgetting the latest innovations such as Avalung and avalanche airbags. Finally Tony talks about traveling in avalanche terrain, rescuing avalanche victims and skiing and riding steep slopes.
There are over 200 pages of valuable avalanche related information in this book. As I said in the beginning Tony Daffern’s Backcountry Avalanche Safety is by far the best avalanche book available. There’s all you need to know about avalanches. Strongly recommended!
Tony Daffern himself is a climber, hiker and ski mountaineer with close to 50 years of experience on various mountain ranges throughout the world. Tony lives in Calgary, Alberta.
If you are interested in this book check the latest price and place an order in Amazon.
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