Seasonal Freeze
How a national budget crisis exposed vulnerability in U.S. avalanche forecasting.
By Greg M. Peters
Near-fatal avalanche on King Solomon Mountain in the San Juan National Forest. Unceded Pueblos, Diné Bikéyah, Núu-agha-tuvu-pu̱ (Ute) lands. Photo by Isaiah Branch-Boyle from Connor Ryan’s (@sacredstoke) “Surviving Our Story.”
This write-up was originally featured in our Spring 2025 Trail Break issue.
In October 2024, Simon Trautman’s professional world flipped upside down. Trautman, based in Bellingham, Washington, is the director of the USDA Forest Service’s National Avalanche Center (NAC). The NAC (www.avalanche. org) provides leadership, technical knowhow, and web-based resources that help avalanche forecasters across the country do their work.
Late fall is typically when Trautman’s work ramps up, but the Forest Service was operating under a continuing resolution (CR) due to decisions made in Washington, D.C., far from the snowcovered mountains, which made much of that work difficult.
Randy Moore, the chief forester in the Washington Office (WO) had issued a directive to pause hiring for the 2025 fiscal year for seasonal, non-fire employees for whom offers had not yet been made. This decision was made to navigate the dynamic and limited budgetary environment leading into fiscal year 2025. There are 70 positions within the Forest Service Avalanche Program, of which 15 are temporary seasonal, or ‘1039’. Staffing levels at each center may fluctuate based on requirements, resulting in varying impacts on temporary seasonal staffing.
“For public avalanche forecasters, the timing couldn’t have been worse. We hire some positions and start our forecasting and field work in the late fall, which is right around when the freezes were announced.”
– Simon Trautman
Avalanche forecasting is a difficult and technical job. Forecasters work early in the morning, during winter storms, and in remote terrain that makes their commute very different from most people’s. It takes years of training and experience to be able to craft forecasts that synthesize snowpack conditions, weather, and terrain into a short, informative product that’s accessible and understood by the public.
Lead avalanche forecaster, Andrew Schauer, and center Director, Wendy Wagner forecasting in the Chugach National Forest. Unceded Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) lands. Photos by U.S. Forest Service.
When tragedy strikes, avalanche forecasters often help local search and rescue crews move safely through dangerous conditions. Their well-crafted incident reports help the public stay safe, form a database of important avalanche accident information, and help bring closure to grieving families and communities.
Most avalanche forecasts in the U.S. are produced by one of fourteen Forest Service avalanche centers, which together cover almost 50,000 square miles. Collectively, during the 2023/24 season, they produced more than 10,000 unique backcountry avalanche forecasts. The state of Colorado runs its own avalanche center covering the 28,000 square miles of the Colorado Plateau. (When federal budget cuts in the 1980s forced the closure of the Forest Service’s Colorado Avalanche Warning Program – the agency’s first center and the first to issue public avalanche forecasts in the U.S. – the state of Colorado took over, operating it as the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC).)
According to Trautman, data demonstrates that about 98% of avalanche fatalities occur on public lands that experience heavier levels of winter recreation, and those areas do tend to primarily be National Forest System lands. There are also eight non-profit avalanche centers that fill forecasting needs currently unmet by the Forest Service (an important contribution of an additional 4,200 square miles, according to Trautman). These non-profit centers would ideally have partnerships with the Forest Service to create essential new Forest Service Avalanche Centers.
Most of the 70 avalanche workers employed by the Forest Service are, in agency parlance, “permanent seasonal,” and one-quarter are “temporary seasonal.” Temporary seasonal employees can work no more than 1,039 hours in a year. Permanent seasonals do not have to reapply each year, while temporary seasonals do. Using seasonal employees makes sense given that avalanche hazard is typically a seasonal phenomenon.
The limited budget under the Chief’s CR reduced the Forest Service’s capacity to hire additional temporary seasonal employees for the avalanche centers, which constitutes about one-quarter of their workforce. It also required permanent seasonal employees to cease work upon reaching their appointment cap, typically 1,039 hours. Avalanche forecasters are active during storms, avalanche-related incidents, and throughout the avalanche season, which usually spans from October to May. Consequently, the hour cap resulted in fewer forecasts late in the season, diminished spring and summer maintenance for essential equipment, and caused an overall reduction in capacity.
When the directive came through, Trautman, one of the full-time Forest Service employees, began working with Forest Service leadership to find a way to get the seasonal employees exempted from the regulations. Each avalanche center worked with their respective unit to request exemptions for each employee through each forest’s regional office (RO) due to the variations in partner agreements and staffing requirements.
One of the challenges that confounded Trautman’s efforts is that Forest Service avalanche centers are funded, managed, and operated locally. Another is that, institutionally, the avalanche programs fall under recreation, not public safety, despite the obvious public safety service they provide.
Lead avalanche forecaster, Andrew Schauer, testing the snowpack in the Chugach National Forest. Unceded Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) lands. Photo by U.S. Forest Service.
“It took two months for us to work through all the different positions and scenarios for spending partner dollars,” he explained. “That time and effort came at an opportunity cost to all the other work we needed to be doing to prepare for the season.”
Trautman is quick to note that the Forest Service is largely supportive of this winter’s avalanche operations—in large part due to internal advocacy by the avalanche centers and external advocacy from winter recreation groups like WWA. That said, the fix is temporary.
“In the current situation, there is not a mechanism to ensure this would not happen again and we could be facing this again next season. This scenario has revealed how vulnerable the avalanche program is and demonstrated a need for these positions to have priority in hiring.”
Part of the program’s vulnerability stems from how it was first created. After World War II, the U.S. ski industry took off. Many of the new resorts, like Vail, Jackson Hole, and Palisades (then “Squaw Valley”), lay on national forests, and Forest Service staff, called snow rangers, were the first avalanche safety workers in the U.S. They designed and managed avalanche mitigation programs, served as de-facto ski patrollers, resort ambassadors, and trained resort employees. Over time, as backcountry use grew, these snow rangers began a network of backcountry avalanche hotlines that evolved into today’s Forest Service avalanche centers.
But because local forests developed their respective centers individually, the result was a decentralized system that was never incorporated into a national program, like wildland firefighting or law enforcement.
Today, the NAC is funded through headquarters, but local forests are responsible for funding their respective forecasting programs. All in, the centers cost the agency about $2.5 million in staffing. That money is matched by local Friends Groups, making the total staffing budget about $5 million. Trautman says that this is especially motivating to him because it demonstrates the importance of this work and its impact on communities as well as the commitment of partners to actively participate in carrying out the work—a point that is emphasized by the fact that communities often approach the Forest Service to establish new avalanche centers after experiencing a loss due to an avalanche.
According to the NAC, between 25 and 30 people die from avalanches each year, nearly all of them on national forests. But even as backcountry use has exploded over the last several decades, the average number of annual avalanche deaths have remained steady. In 2017, the then director of the NAC, Karl Birkeland, penned a response to a paper analyzing avalanche deaths in the U.S. that was published in the Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Education. His analysis showed that without the avalanche forecasting program, the U.S. would be experiencing close to 200 avalanche-related fatalities each year, and that was eight years ago.
The programs also help pinpoint where more forecasts are needed. Cataloging and analyzing avalanche incidents, something the local centers do regularly, shows where new or expanded forecasts could save lives. For example, a cluster of recent fatalities in southeastern Idaho have occurred outside of existing forecast boundaries. With a small amount of additional federal funding (Trautman estimates less than $100,000), the local forest could expand its forecast zone into that area, likely saving lives. Unfortunately, the current scenario not only precludes any additional hiring, but since the local unit is responsible for funding, the Forest would have to take money from other programs to support additional avalanche work.
Hilary Eisen, WWA’s policy director, said that for its part, WWA wants to see a long-term solution. “We need the Forest Service to allow local avalanche centers to operate fully staffed, ensure they can hire the professionals they need to expand forecasting to new hotspots, and for leadership to demonstrate the agency’s commitment to this critical public-safety program.”
Both Trautman and Eisen are quick to note that avalanche forecasting isn’t the only service impacted by the Forest Service’s recent hiring and spending freezes.
“Things like trail maintenance, campground maintenance, hazard tree removal, and even tree-planting are subject to the same budget constraints.”
-Simon Trautman
“The avalanche forecasting program is effective—continuing to reduce avalanche fatality rates in the U.S.. We know this is a good investment and we operate extremely efficiently. Lastly, we know communities are asking for this service, helping pay for it, and helping staff it. The Forest Service has been doing some version of this work for more than 80 years—we have the expertise; we have the partnerships. What we really need is stability in funding and hiring moving forward to ensure we are showing up in the same capacity as our partners in this endeavor.”
GREG M. PETERS is a Maine-based writer. If he’s not roaming through the mountains of paper on his desk, he’s probably roaming through actual mountains—or wishing he was.
Find more of his writing at gregmpeters.com.
