Avalanche Safety for Skiers and Climbers. Rev. ed.

Susan Brown is a B.C. horticulturist, permaculture designer, and early
childhood education instructor.

More and more people, many with little or no avalanche-awareness
training, are venturing into steep mountain terrain. This comprehensive
and well-organized book condenses a vast amount of information that is
normally available only to specialists and interprets it for the
back-country skier and climber. The avoidance of avalanche hazard is
stressed through chapters on finding good routes, recognizing avalanche
terrain, and evaluating hazard. Also included are techniques that can be
used by those who insist on skiing steep slopes away from monitored
areas. In addition to expected topics—avalanche safety equipment and
rescue procedures—there are chapters on snow and mountain weather that
should interest curious snow country inhabitants, whether adventurers or
not.

Lucid writing, an effective layout, and well-chosen black-and-white
photos, charts, and diagrams make the book accessible, while first-hand
accounts of accidents (many of them involving fatalities) and
near-accidents add immediacy. Widespread availability of this book
(particularly in high-school, college, and public libraries, and in
recreation centres and sporting-goods stores) might very well avert
catastrophes of the kind described in this important book.