Respect The Conditions

I don't disagree, I'd just guess that loads of people have RECCOs in their ski boots/jackets/trousers and don't have a clue what they are there for. You are probably right in that there will be very few cases where someone will be saved using RECCO unless something happens with the technology soon. I did read that the RECCO detectors were getting smaller and smaller but remain too big to carry about.

Unfortunately the coin falls on tails more often than heads :twisted:

ise wrote:There's not much achieved by trying to slice a particular risk level into sub-levels, it's sending entirely the wrong message. There were different national systems for categorizing risk levels and these were simplified to the five levels we've got today. The whole point of that was to give people in the mountains a simple way of assessing the dangers when leaving secured areas.

Henry's Avalanche Talks provide a very comprehensive service to skiers and snowboarders, in person, through DVD's and by regular emails.

I believe that they are pretty experienced at interpreting the Meteo France data, and making the information readily accessible to the holidaymaker.

If their team are concerned enough to make a public statement about precisely how they see the conditions, then, if one person takes heed and avoids mishap, would that be worthwhile enough for you?

Pablo Escobar wrote:I don't disagree, I'd just guess that loads of people have RECCOs in their ski boots/jackets/trousers and don't have a clue what they are there for. You are probably right in that there will be very few cases where someone will be saved using RECCO unless something happens with the technology soon. I did read that the RECCO detectors were getting smaller and smaller but remain too big to carry about.

Bear in mind this is the perfect clarity of hindsight ) RECCO has been around for 25 years or so and it's not worked out too well. I thought it sounded a great idea personally, maybe 15 years or so back I'd get new RECCO's if I got new boots and stick them on. Sometime over those years I've learnt a bit more about snow and realized that RECCO hasn't worked too well in practice.

RECCO have a thing called the White Book (http://recco.com/avalanche/safety.asp) which is well worth a look and there's a movie, their advice is pretty clear, if you're away from the piste you're going to need a transceiver. Even then, I'm not very impressed with the state of skiers with transceivers and their use, it's pretty obvious to me that people are spending too much time agonizing over which transceiver to buy and then comparing them to work out who is a couple of seconds quicker finding a buried rucksack and nothing like enough concerned about route selection and understanding the conditions under their feet.

ise wrote:

Pablo Escobar wrote:I don't disagree, I'd just guess that loads of people have RECCOs in their ski boots/jackets/trousers and don't have a clue what they are there for. You are probably right in that there will be very few cases where someone will be saved using RECCO unless something happens with the technology soon. I did read that the RECCO detectors were getting smaller and smaller but remain too big to carry about.

Bear in mind this is the perfect clarity of hindsight ) RECCO has been around for 25 years or so and it's not worked out too well. I thought it sounded a great idea personally, maybe 15 years or so back I'd get new RECCO's if I got new boots and stick them on. Sometime over those years I've learnt a bit more about snow and realized that RECCO hasn't worked too well in practice.

RECCO have a thing called the White Book (http://recco.com/avalanche/safety.asp) which is well worth a look and there's a movie, their advice is pretty clear, if you're away from the piste you're going to need a transceiver. Even then, I'm not very impressed with the state of skiers with transceivers and their use, it's pretty obvious to me that people are spending too much time agonizing over which transceiver to buy and then comparing them to work out who is a couple of seconds quicker finding a buried rucksack and nothing like enough concerned about route selection and understanding the conditions under their feet.

Agreed, there aren't any substitutes for knowledge and experience putting your skills to practice. Oh, except the Ortovox S1!



Jokes :lol:

Response from HAT on the use of the term "high 3" to describe the avalanche risk factor.

ise makes a valid point that the risk level was clearly a 3 on the day that we reported on. The conditions did meet the criteria for level 3 as accurately described in your posting.

I would also accept your point that sub slicing the risk factor can encourage people to second guess the experts and this may be risky.

So why did we do this in the ezine?

One of the criteria for differentiating between a risk level 3 and risk level 4 is whether the risk is localised or widespread. On that day, the professionals on the mountain judged the risk to be at the top end of localised and looking really quite widepspread.

We coupled this with the fact that off piste skiers with less experience of making these judgements, can view level 3 as "medium" (which it is not). This idea that 1 is safe, 2 is low, 3 is medium, 4 is high and 5 is dangerous is a worrying and dangerous concept that we are continually trying to warn against. Our use of the term a "high 3" was to provide an additional warning to casual user of these ratings.

On this day we felt the risks were high enough to justify an additional warning about the likelihood of triggering a slab avalanche and that risk existed in many places especially above 2300m.

Any other comments on this very welcome. I will also be posting this commentary on our blog http://www.getoffpiste.com

Chris

Hi Chris welcome to J2ski :D Thanks for stopping by and clarifying your rationale, it's much appreciated :D

Local news have reported the on piste avalanche in Anzere, Valais as having been started by 3 skiers off piste. The slide then caught up two skiers who were on piste. The 3 who caused the avalanche are being sought by Cantonal Police.

Henry Schniewind from the HAT team was on a lift in Le Fornet, Val d'Isere today and captured some iphone images of a skier setting off, and getting caught in an avalanche.

http://www.getoffpiste.com/2010/01/my-entry-1.html