Ski and board technology has advanced to the stage where almost anyone can venture off piste with competence and enjoy the powder.
Unfortunately the down side is that a lot more inexperienced people are heading into danger.
Even worse I've seen lone surfers and skiers making for known avalanche areas, tempted by the fresh snowfall, when the risk warning is flagged high. If you get into trouble on your own, with no-one to track you or call for help, you're in real danger even if it's just 50 metres from the piste.
A mobile phone can help, but:
- can you pinpoint where you are?
- can you move to reach it? (avalanched snow turns into concrete)
- extreme cold reduces battery power
- mountains mess with phone reception
There is plenty of safety information around on the web (google: ski avalanche safety) - check it out, it can save a life.
The latest skis and boards can make you feel invincible off-piste, and it is a great feeling when it's going well. But it's not the whole story, and for some this comes out in the news reports every year.
A few precautions don't cost much and won't spoil the pleasure.
"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk
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Good advice but the data tells a different story in terms of awareness. In fact, mostly we can measure that avalanche awareness is much higher now than it was even 10 years ago, we can measure this quite easily by looking at the statistics for number of fatalities and see that not only are absolute figures lower and decreasing by number of skier days but we can see that more of the victims, fatal and non-fatal, are equipped.
There's no cause for complacency or not following your good advice but there's no need to hide under the bed either :lol: And certainly awareness is still lower than I'd like to see but it's not a totally bleak picture.
The point, frequently made, was that the increase in the number of fatter skis make skiing off-piste easier and therefore we see more accidents as a result. That's seems to be a reasonable point and anecdotally I see people who clearly lack experience in places they shouldn't be, but when I look at the figures I don't see that's happening which is surprising.
I would be, and in fact am, a lot more concerned about some ski forums (not this one) where people of clearly limited experience in slope assessment are comparing notes and sharing routes and egging each other on. It seems to be the case that people are turning up in locations far too committed to skiing a particular line based on some internet advice without sufficient regard to local conditions. I personally receive many, many emails from people trying to identify lines from my photographs and wanting information on how to access those lines. As a result, I don't even publish some of the steeper stuff anymore.
Or it could be that when the avalanche risk has dropped to 3 you've got 10 times as many people in exposed off piste areas? It suggests people are taking note of the general risk level, but not necessarily taking it a stage further to how the weather conditions are effecting particular slopes.
It's that point at which skiers concider they don't need a guide and they take a risk.
The thing that worries me is not so much the skis allowing people to access off piste areas, it's having the safty equipment but having very limited knowledge of how to use it.
Before venturing out, you should always ask yourself if the worst happens could I find and rescue someone, also do you have confidence in the people you're skiing with finding and digging you out should you get buried.
I'd be extremely careful of that figure, there's simply more days when it's risk 3 which skews the figures. People do seem to forget that 3 means "considerable" and assume it's medium but very few people actually understand what the levels mean anyway, they're used as some crude measure of chance of a avalanche which they aren't.
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Started by Alpine Pursuits in Avalanche Safety 20-Jan-2009 - 7 Replies
Ise
reply to '"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk' posted Jan-2009
Alpine Pursuits wrote:Ski and board technology has advanced to the stage where almost anyone can venture off piste with competence and enjoy the powder.
Unfortunately the down side is that a lot more inexperienced people are heading into danger.
Even worse I've seen lone surfers and skiers making for known avalanche areas, tempted by the fresh snowfall, when the risk warning is flagged high. If you get into trouble on your own, with no-one to track you or call for help, you're in real danger even if it's just 50 metres from the piste.
A mobile phone can help, but:
- can you pinpoint where you are?
- can you move to reach it? (avalanched snow turns into concrete)
- extreme cold reduces battery power
- mountains mess with phone reception
There is plenty of safety information around on the web (google: ski avalanche safety) - check it out, it can save a life.
The latest skis and boards can make you feel invincible off-piste, and it is a great feeling when it's going well. But it's not the whole story, and for some this comes out in the news reports every year.
A few precautions don't cost much and won't spoil the pleasure.
Good advice but the data tells a different story in terms of awareness. In fact, mostly we can measure that avalanche awareness is much higher now than it was even 10 years ago, we can measure this quite easily by looking at the statistics for number of fatalities and see that not only are absolute figures lower and decreasing by number of skier days but we can see that more of the victims, fatal and non-fatal, are equipped.
There's no cause for complacency or not following your good advice but there's no need to hide under the bed either :lol: And certainly awareness is still lower than I'd like to see but it's not a totally bleak picture.
Tino_11
reply to '"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk' posted Jan-2009
I am not sure but I think the OP was driving at the point you just made, that being well equipped does not make you safe. Indeed as awareness gets better the stats look better, but the fact that equipped persons increasingly get injured or killed in proportion to the non-equippped means that the sense of safety is heightened amongst those not fully informed, by the availability of equipment and (sad to say) modern marketing of aforementioned equipment.
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The Only Way is Down
http://towid.blogspot.com/
Tino_11
reply to '"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk' posted Jan-2009
Scratch that. I made the link from skiing/boarding equipment to avalanche equipment subconsciously. If this was intended by the OP I would agree from a logical standpoint, but I don't think that's what he/she meant.
www
The Only Way is Down
http://towid.blogspot.com/
Ise
reply to '"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk' posted Jan-2009
tino_11 wrote:I am not sure but I think the OP was driving at the point you just made, that being well equipped does not make you safe.
The point, frequently made, was that the increase in the number of fatter skis make skiing off-piste easier and therefore we see more accidents as a result. That's seems to be a reasonable point and anecdotally I see people who clearly lack experience in places they shouldn't be, but when I look at the figures I don't see that's happening which is surprising.
I would be, and in fact am, a lot more concerned about some ski forums (not this one) where people of clearly limited experience in slope assessment are comparing notes and sharing routes and egging each other on. It seems to be the case that people are turning up in locations far too committed to skiing a particular line based on some internet advice without sufficient regard to local conditions. I personally receive many, many emails from people trying to identify lines from my photographs and wanting information on how to access those lines. As a result, I don't even publish some of the steeper stuff anymore.
Wanderer
reply to '"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk' posted Jan-2009
One stat that I saw recently really gave me a bit of a wake up call - IIRC it said that more people were killed in avalanches when the risk was classed at 3 than when the risk was higher. It seems that a lot of people will be fairly careful when its up at 4 or even 5 but throw caution to the wind when the risk level drops to 3.
Andyhull
reply to '"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk' posted Jan-2009
Wanderer wrote:One stat that I saw recently really gave me a bit of a wake up call - IIRC it said that more people were killed in avalanches when the risk was classed at 3 than when the risk was higher. It seems that a lot of people will be fairly careful when its up at 4 or even 5 but throw caution to the wind when the risk level drops to 3.
Or it could be that when the avalanche risk has dropped to 3 you've got 10 times as many people in exposed off piste areas? It suggests people are taking note of the general risk level, but not necessarily taking it a stage further to how the weather conditions are effecting particular slopes.
It's that point at which skiers concider they don't need a guide and they take a risk.
The thing that worries me is not so much the skis allowing people to access off piste areas, it's having the safty equipment but having very limited knowledge of how to use it.
Before venturing out, you should always ask yourself if the worst happens could I find and rescue someone, also do you have confidence in the people you're skiing with finding and digging you out should you get buried.
Ise
reply to '"Go anywhere" equipment increases the risk' posted Jan-2009
Wanderer wrote:One stat that I saw recently really gave me a bit of a wake up call - IIRC it said that more people were killed in avalanches when the risk was classed at 3 than when the risk was higher. It seems that a lot of people will be fairly careful when its up at 4 or even 5 but throw caution to the wind when the risk level drops to 3.
I'd be extremely careful of that figure, there's simply more days when it's risk 3 which skews the figures. People do seem to forget that 3 means "considerable" and assume it's medium but very few people actually understand what the levels mean anyway, they're used as some crude measure of chance of a avalanche which they aren't.
Topic last updated on 21-January-2009 at 16:04