Pro Guiding Service - Avalanche Rescue 101

Avalanches. For backcountry skiers they are a fact of life, not to mention a cause of death. You can make these phenomena your life's work and still not know all you need to know. That's why, over the years, a fair number of avalanche experts have been snuffed by the Big White. And that's why you--who are probably not an expert--should carry some extra insurance whenever you ski the backcountry.

Start with an avalanche transceiver. Skiers who survive a slide but end up buried are in a grim race against suffocation. Half of those who are alive when the slide stops will be dead within 30 minutes, and at the two-hour mark less than 20% will still be kicking. That means, YOU (not the Ski Patrol or Search and Rescue) need to locate your partner. And you need to do it fast.

Everyone skiing the backcountry should be wearing a transceiver, a 3" X 5" electronic device that transmits an electronic beep. If a buddy gets buried, you turn your transceiver to "receive" and home in on him by following his transmission signal to its strongest point.

In the United States, the Pieps 457 Opti Finder (which transmits on the new European frequency of 457 kHz) is a popular, idiot-proof unit. This unit transmits and receives its signal farther than the competition, straps nicely to the body, and when transmitting cannot be accidentally knocked into the wrong mode or turned off. When the unit is switched to receive (or search) mode, a loudspeaker (amplifying your partner's beep) and flashing indicator lights (telling you when to switch to lower receive settings) will lead you quickly to that point where the signal is strongest.

Unfortunately, transceivers are not cheap (street price is $250 to $300) and because a moderate number of skiers still own old units operating on the old standard of 2275 kHz, there is still a chance you will occasionally link up with skiers carrying units that are incompatible with yours. The solution? The Ortovox F2, a unit that transmits and receives both the newer frequency of 457 kHz and the older one of 2275 kHz.

The Ortovox F2 uses an earplug to amplify a buried partner's signal. The earplug is cumbersome compared to the Pieps' built-in loudspeaker. The F2 also lacks the indicator lights of the Pieps 457 Opti Finder, a feature which helps inexperienced users home in on a buried victim with greater speed. With a few hours of practice, however, you can become extremely adept at finding buried units by sound alone.

A transceiver, of course, is of no value if you locate a friend but can't move the icy cement pinning him in his icy tomb. Yup, that means everyone in your party should be carrying a shovel. (Note: More units are reviewed in the transceiver article published in 1998).

Those shovels must be light and compact (so you'll actually ski with them) and they've gotta be tough (so they don't disintegrate during that hour of need). An excellent lightweight aluminum shovel with a telescoping handle is the HMX made by Life-Link. Life-Link's 3DX, a Lexan shovel, is lighter, more compact, and actually tougher in the throat (the place where most snow shovels fail) than its aluminum kin. Because the Lexan scoop is thicker along the cutting edge of the shovel, however, it doesn't chop all forms of avalanche rubble as easily as its metal brother.

Either one of these shovels will move loads of snow fast. Unlike steel garden shovels, however, they require proper use. The fused snow of an avalanche should be chopped before the loose debris is scooped away. Sinking a lightweight shovel into unchopped snow and prying vigorously at the mass puts a killing amount of strain on the throat of the tool.

Finally, because shoveling tons of snow to find a buried companion is slow work, knowing EXACTLY where to dig is vital. If your partner is buried deep, your beacon may have narrowed down the search to a 40-square-foot area. But in this race, shoveling a few feet off the mark could waste five minutes. And five minutes could be the difference between unearthing a buddy or a body.

Hence the importance of a probe. Ski poles whose handles and baskets pop off and whose shafts screw together into a long probe provide an excellent option--especially since your ski poles are always with you. The Variant Probe Pole made by Life Link is a particularly good product for pinpointing a body in avalanche debris.

Used as a ski pole, it adjusts in length(from 44" to 58"), but unlike some adjustable poles whose cams either freeze-up or slip, the Variant Probe's non-slip grip and minimal taper on the lower shaft minimize these problems. Furthermore, while this pole's upper shaft is made of aluminum alloy (weight savings), the slim lower shaft (the part that takes a real beating) is made of chrome moly steel. Pro patrollers at many ski areas have abused these poles for years and the product stands up to the licking.

Should the pole need to be used as a probe, the lower shafts unscrew from the aluminum uppers. These shafts then screw together to form a slim, seven-foot probe that is devoid of the bulging knobs and ferrules that make some probe poles less functional. And with a sticker price of $85, the Variant Probe Pole delivers what may be the best bang for the buck at this price point. If you want to upgrade to a pole that's lighter (though not quite as durable) and has a beautiful swing weight--look at the Variant Composite Probe Pole. It has the same features but the chrome moly lower shaft is replaced with a carbon-fiber shaft which shaves the ounces.

Rather than buying probe poles, many backcountry skiers carry a dedicated probe. Such probes have notable advantages: They�re longer, cheaper, assemble faster, and penetrate chunky avalanche debris better than most probe poles. Such advantages influence many serious backcountry skiers to carry at least one dedicated probe per party. Ortovox makes several excellent lightweight probes from 16-inch segments of aluminum tubing that are connected by a thin steel cable running through the center.

To assemble the probe, you drop the segments, pull on the cable's end (which snaps the segments in place), and lock the segments together by tightening a thumb screw on the cable--a process requiring all of 15 seconds. An 8-foot probe costs $60, a 10-1/2-foot probe $80.

You may feel invincible once you're tooled up for the white tsunami, so remember that a quarter of all skiers caught in avalanches are dead when the slide stops--getting hit by a freight train of snow, grated over rocks, and smashed against trees doesn't do a body good. Avoidance (last month's article) is still the best defence.

MORE INFORMATION:

Pieps 457 Opti Finder Transceiver: 800-443-8620
Ortovox F2 Transceiver and Probe: 603-746-3176
Life-Link Shovels and Probes: 800-443-8620