Psychologie

For a change, we immerse ourselves in theoretical thought processes relating to people, the psyche and snow. A fundamental assumption: the distinction between experience and knowledge.

For most freeriders and ski tourers, it is a matter of course to think about questions like: What does the situation report say? How is the weather, how is the snow? Was it windy, is there fresh drift snow? Is the snowpack structure favorable? We know that we have to be aware of our surroundings if we want to move safely in avalanche terrain. However, we often forget to consider ourselves and our behavior in the group. The SLF has developed a checklist to help prevent problems with group dynamics.

The human factor receives surprisingly little attention in current avalanche research. So-called "soft facts", such as group dynamics during freeriding or touring, are hardly studied scientifically. Benjamin Zweifel from the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF is one of the few people working on this aspect of avalanche research. In this context, he is also supervising Nicholas Wolken's diploma thesis together with Dr. Reinhard Tschiesner from the University of Bolzano.