Book It Danno — Hacksaw’s New Tome
The book comes with a clear plastic photo pocket you can stick anywhere. I stuck it on the cover with some family photos, to remind me why I'm being careful.
Longtime avalanche educator Halsted “Hacksaw” Morris came up with a nice solution years ago when he first published his “Backcountry Skier’s Field Book.” The idea was to provide something with waterproof paper along with content such as forms and crib notes.
Hacksaw’s original book is out of print. Snow pros such as guides and snow safety folks wanted a field book with more content, so Hacksaw went back to the drawing board and came up with his new “Professional Snow Data Field Book.”
I really like right hand page, with the -5 Lemons- method of evaluating how weak the snowpack is. Another page has an “Obvious Clues Method” for figuring out your travel style.
This is a structured notebook, every page has a professional style chart/form you fill out with your observations. Depending on how your brain works you'll like this more or less. If you want an “emptybook” style field book, other options are available from different companies.
Features:
* Pocket size, 5×7 inches
* “Rite in the Rain” – all weather pages.
* Sturdy waterproof plastic covers
* Small group rescue checklist
* Phone number page
* International 5-level danger scale
* Snow Stability Rating System – SWAG compliant
* Avalanche Classifications – SWAG compliant
* Stability Tests – Rutschblock, Boardblock, Shovel Shear, Compression, Stuffblock, Shovel Tilt, Extended Column, & Slope Cutting
* Shear Quality – SWAG compliant
* Fracture Characteristics
* 5 Lemons – Ian McCammon’s danger rating system
Shop for this book at Hacksaw’s website.
Comments
9 Responses to “Book It Danno — Hacksaw’s New Tome”
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Hey Lou,
Can you use pen or pencil with those weatherproof pages?
I admire your idea of posting pictures of family on the cover of your journal. Ultimately, loved ones the reason to make good avalanche decisions and a reminder while out in the field is never a bad thing.
Junky, anything works but an outdoors pen such as Inka is best.
http://www.writeanywhere.com/inkapen.html
Junky/Lou,
I do a fair amount of writting (in the rain) on rite-in-rain paper. It’s wonderful stuff. I’m not familiar with the Inka pen but I find pencil to be better than most other ink pens. Sometimes the ball of regular bic style pens doesn’t spin properly over the paper resulting in spotty lines. Far worse are felt tipped pens that release lots of ink. It sometimes beads up on the paper and doesn’t dry quickly, just like rain, and can be a mess. Fine tipped Sharpies work alright but I prefer pencils.
Wow, did I just write an entire paragraph espousing the benefits of pencils? What a geek.
Shoot, I was going to do a 2,000 word blog on that same subject, you almost beat me to it (grin)!
Thanks Lou for posting about my new field book.
The Professional Snow Data Field Book is the next generation of field books from Hacksaw Publishing. Yes, the older Backcountry Skier’s Field Book is out of print.
The new book design had a lot of input from some backcountry ski guides and ski patrollers.
The new small group rescue checklist was developed with Dale Atkins, formerly of the CAIC.
Not only is the book geared towards keeping operational snow safety program data, but Level 2 students will find the book very useful. For aspirant ski guides that are working towards their certifications, it is a great book for documenting field experience. A couple of ski areas have already bought the new field book.
I see that you’ve placed the attachable clear vinyl pocket on the cover of your book. The pocket can be mounted basically, where ever the user wants. I have found that you can even fit one of Doug Scott’s avalanche maps (the smaller scale ones = Berthoud Pass and Loveland Pass, etc…) into the pocket. It’s a cool idea to have photos of you’re significant other in the pocket to remind you what’s important.
I have used both ink pen and pencil in my field books. The “Rite in the Rain,” paper works with both. I write in my phone numbers with ink, and use the pencil for my field ops and snowpits. A #2 pencil fits inside the wire spiral binding.
Cheers,
Halsted
That looks good. I think I will give them for Christmas gifts to my friends in the Republican Randonnee Club. : )} : )}
bump….
Its early season, order your books…
I’ve noticed that you use McCammon’s “lemmons” in qualifying snow pack structure. Why did you choose this over the “yellow flags” described by Jamieson? What is you opinion of these methods? Which do you prefer? Are differences between the two negligible? The “yellow flag” method seems to have more recent references. Is this a consideration?