Avalanche dogs: Your best hope in the snow
Ralph makes a dogged debut in his new role at Mt Ruapheu, Karoline Tuckey reports.
Afour-legged expert sprang into action when an avalanche big enough to swallow a small town slid through Tu¯ roa’s popular skifield in the central North Island. The skifield team believed no-one was caught by the powerful wave of snow on August 6 but Ralph the labrador was rushed to the scene and crisscrossed the slope at a run, sniffing for any sign of people trapped under the snow.
And after a thorough search, his handler Toby O’hara gave the all-clear.
Ralph is one of two highly trained Land Search and Rescue avalanche dogs based at Mt Ruapehu. There are eight in New Zealand – the rest in the South Island.
Avalanche Advisory Association guide Jamie Robertson says an avalanche rescue dog is probably the quickest way rescuers can find you if you are caught in one.
About half of people swept up die of trauma from the massive forces and, if buried, the rest face the likelihood of death after about 15 minutes because of lack of air and the weight of the snow. There is no way to move enough to dig yourself out.
Ralph uses his incredible sense of smell to find anything unusual, then digs quickly to uncover it before eagerly hopping about waiting for his reward of a toy.
‘‘Our dogs don’t know they’re looking for a person. They think they’re playing a game with us,’’ O’hara said.
O’hara is one of the Ruapehu Alpine Lifts ski patrol team at Tu¯ roa. They are responsible for keeping the skifield safe and Ralph goes with him on most of his duties, managing safety fences and signs, helping injured skiers, checking for risks and doing regular avalanche-control explosive blasting before the field opens in the mornings. The pair also respond to alpine rescues in unmanaged back-country areas with the Land Search and Rescue team run by police.
One of those blasting sessions had unintended consequences earlier this month, setting off a big avalanche that damaged a chair lift and sent a snow plough about 200 metres down the slope.
O’hara and Ralph are based about 2000m up the mountain, in the ski patrol room at the top of the highest chair lift.
‘‘We’re in a fast position to respond downhill from there,’’ O’hara said.
Ralph gets lots of attention from skiers. ‘‘Most people, when they come up here, they just don’t expect to see a dog. As soon as he jumps out of the van in the morning he’s rolling around in the snow and getting excited, and he’s a real people-person dog. He loves attention from people and getting stroked, and he’s a real greedy guts trying to get the hot chips that everyone’s dropped.’’
Since he was a pup, Ralph has been used to skifield sights and sounds. He is at home working on busy trails, catching chair lifts, riding in helicopters, and being carried across O’hara’s shoulders as they ski down the slopes.
Labradors don’t need snow shoes, O’hara says, but, to protect their knees from too much impact on the steep terrain, handlers are careful not to run them too far in a day. Ralph often cruises on O’hara’s back.
Phil Couch works beside O’hara with his third avalanche rescue dog, Wha¯ ia.
Couch was part of the crew that built the Tu¯ roa skifield in 1978, and remains an integral part of the team. He introduced the first Tu¯ roa avalanche rescue dog in 2000.
‘‘I went to an avalanche incident at Whakapapa where I saw police dogs searching. I was on the end of a probe poking holes in the snow, and decided that sucks and thought the police dogs were much more advanced than what we were doing.’’
The team found the person buried but it was too late. He was dead. Couch got a pup soon afterward, and police welcomed him into their trainin.
‘‘There’s a very good chance of finding someone [without a dog], but it’s the time it takes. If you have an area, that’s 100 metres square, that’s a lot of pokes in the snow to find someone.’’
The dog handlers say listening to Avalanche Advisory condition warnings is the best way to avoid the danger. Back-country skiers should also tell people where they’re going, travel in groups, and each carry transceivers, probes and shovels.
O’hara loves the job. ‘‘I just really like the idea we’re in a position to make a difference if somebody needed it. It’s really neat to be up here in the mountains with our working dogs but they’re also our pets.’’
‘‘Our dogs don’t know they’re looking for a person. They think they’re playing a game with us.’’ — Toby O’hara