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While reading a book is no substitute for avalanche courses with certified professionals, the foundation of knowledge about the science of snow provided in Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain is invaluable. Tremper’s excellent guide about how and why snow moves provides a strong foundation for backcountry adventurers that often find themselves in avalanche terrain. However, the book is no substitute for field experience, courses with professionals, practice, and continued studies. The ultimate rule of avalanche terrain is that if you have to use rescue devices, you have already failed regardless of the search and rescue out come. Knowing how to assess conditions and the human element is the best method of preventing avalanche accidents short of avoiding the terrain completely.

While this is not your typical book on Avalanche safety, the stories of Jill Fredston may just be exactly what over ambitious snow sport adventurers need to read to get scared straight. Snowstruck details Jill Fredston’s experiences as a foremost authority on avalanches in Alaska. Fredston’s knowledge, experience, and expertise is in heavy demand during the North American winter which often involves death and tragedy. After reading Snowstruck, I got the feeling that is the type of Job Security most people would not want.

Jill Fredston and her husband Doug Fesler are drawn to the magical white death both by its beauty and the tragic consequences of others’ bad decisions. The book details the lives of Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler including how they met and formed an inseparable partnership around the most tragic of winter accidents that claim dozens of lives every year. Several aspects of how avalanches impact outdoor enthusiasts and communities are detailed including skiers, hikers, road slides, housing destruction, community development, snow mobilers, and snow boarders. An excellent read that will give any one entering into avalanche terrain a second thought knowing the potential devastation and human tragedy of bad decision making.

Nicolas Howe’s eminently readable Not Without Peril does not strictly deal with skiing, but is packed full of history about Mount Washington. Much of that history is vital to mountaineers and backcountry skiers that visit the rock pile for earning turns. This richly researched book details several cases of outdoor recreationalists that decided to undertake an outing on Mount Washington that turned tragic and often fatal. Each case is meticulously reconstructed from start to finish by Nicholas Howe who uses a wealth of research to walk the reader through the most likely course of events based on recorded evidence and known details.

Recreational skiing only entered the Mount Washington scene during the past one hundred years with widespread use of the ravine only developing in the later third of the time frame covered by Not Without Peril. Despite only a few brief accounts of skier mishaps, backcountry skiers will gain invaluable wisdom about not challenging Mount Washington when the weather and/or snow conditions are not favorable. Turning back should always be the first option considered when plans go bad.