Transceiver practice

gavin2020 I've taken a couple of your comments from the thread about RECCOS because I think they're worth some more comment and that it's a pretty important thing to understand. It looks a bit like I've singled you out there for which I'm sorry, I think you're obviously thinking about the hazards and what you can do about them and that's a really, really good thing.

gavin2020 wrote:, but in practice never takes more than a couple of mins.these are only any good however if all in your group wear one, know how to use it and carry shovels and probes.

If your practice isn't taking more than a few minutes then I've got to say that you're not testing realistic scenarios. We ran an exercise yesterday with multiple burials in a steep slope (in excess of 45') include one burial at nearly 2m and it's simply not possible to locate beacons in a couple of minutes in these conditions. Unless you test and practice in these conditions then you're not really fully prepared.

Burying transceivers in snow near the piste is good practice but you need to build that scenario to being on a 30' plus slope up to your waist in snow with multiple burials. Until you move to that type of terrain you're effectively practicing in two dimensions alone, it's gets very 3D on a steep slope.

gavin2020 wrote: if you only ski on piste, really dont need it, but if you go off, is essential, and peace of mind.i also carry a recco, cant hurt to...

Anyone that runs scenarios in the conditions as I've described doesn't share that peace of mind I'm afraid. Yesterday even though we pulled the first burials out in under 12 minutes it was a full 38 minutes before we'd located and pulled out the deep burial. As searchers we'd both got some previous advanced training in avalanche awareness and snow analysis, we had state of the art equipment and some experience using it. You absolutely cannot get peace of mind from that experience, the only possible conclusion you can get is that you never, ever want to do it for real.

There's a whole series of common denominators for fatalities in avalanches and one of them is a perception of awareness of risk from the victims, an unrealistic confidence in their ability to analyze snow stability and an unrealistic confidence in their ability to use transceivers. We all (I include myself) need a reality check from time to time on this really. What this means is that typically when interviewed surviving members of a party nearly always know the avalanche risk that day, are carrying transceivers and material, have practiced with that material etc. It's rare that they are not equipped or can't use the material and oblivious to the risk as we like to think

Take a look here : http://www.slf.ch/avalanche/avalanche-en.html and follow the links for previous accident reports. Take note how long it takes to locate victims at various burial depths. Again, it's just great that you're practicing with the beacons but if you think you can locate victims in a few minutes you really need to think again.

I highly recommend taking real training and I recommend particularly these people : http://www.alpineguides.info They're very good and members of the Leysin Rescue team as well with real experience. That's who I was with over the weekend in fact (http://snowslider.net/)

I absolutely know how this works, everyone's aware of the figures, 75% of people die from asphyxiation, of the those buried that survive initial trauma 92% survive if recovered in under 15 mins, people take that 15 minute figure, bury a transceiver, find it in around 10 mins and are confident they're safe, it's just not true though.

i'd agree with all you say, and hold my hands up to not being, by any stretch, an expert. our practice, as i live on the beach where it hasnt snowed in 10 years is clearly not mountain conditions. about the peace of mind comment, i did an avalanche course in canada and try and read up a bit on it and am a whole lot more scared of avlanches now than i was in my ignorance! now id be very scared venturing off piste without my tranceiver much like driving a car without a seat belt.
we do have a go at block test slides, and and checking the snow pack, forget the technical terms. this is generally the part i get confused with interpreting the temperature changes and so on. i will, when we do this, do a practice as you suggest with multiples on a steep slope.

gavin2020 wrote:i'd agree with all you say, and hold my hands up to not being, by any stretch, an expert. our practice, as i live on the beach where it hasnt snowed in 10 years is clearly not mountain conditions. about the peace of mind comment, i did an avalanche course in canada and try and read up a bit on it and am a whole lot more scared of avlanches now than i was in my ignorance! now id be very scared venturing off piste without my tranceiver much like driving a car without a seat belt.
we do have a go at block test slides, and and checking the snow pack, forget the technical terms. this is generally the part i get confused with interpreting the temperature changes and so on. i will, when we do this, do a practice as you suggest with multiples on a steep slope.

You make a good point there, there's a danger that an amount of knowledge can make you so concerned of the dangers you end up hiding under the bed, conversely I think some people deal with the overload by just blanking it out.

i dont know if they still run the course, but while i was in whistler they offered a free, with lift pass, avalanche awareness course. the instructors were giving 2 half days a week for a season lift pass. both were very knowledgable and was a great course. however, myself and 2 friends were the only one's on the course and instructors said quite often there wasn't anyone. if they do still run the course i highly recomend it. and its free! and they showed us some great places to go.

wake up the thread ... I wanted to type something like this in the other one but this english keyboard is a pain

ise wrote:wake up the thread ... I wanted to type something like this in the other one but this english keyboard is a pain

Use your english fingers silly :roll:
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