Do climbers typically take avy beacons?

[rbw1966]

Does anyone know of specific instances where someone was buried in an avalanche in the PNW and successfully rescued?

 

Not a body recovery.

 

Edited December 19, 2006 by rbw1966

[Mr_Phil]

Having said that, last year we took them up Hood in February but later decided (for various reasons) that it would have been better not to bring them.

Unless the beacons are giving you a false sense of security (possible, but totally mental, and something that needs to be avoided), I can't imagine that you'd have been "better off" without them.

 

They're small and unobtrusive, so I don't really understand what negitive effect they could have beyond the mental aspect. Would you care to elaborate? After I got buried last year (not in the PNW) I began skiing with mine nearly every day, in bounds and out.

 

Beacons are another piece of gear that one has to buy, maintain, and carry. And is only useful after you screw up. Not every day of climbing is in avy conditions or avy terrain. Skiers head directly for snow loaded bowls. Climbers can choose to avoid them in many instances.

 

Sounds like you could use an avy class which focuses on risk assessment instead of reliance on gear.

[knelson]

Does anyone know of specific instances where someone was buried in an avalanche in the PNW and successfully rescued?

 

Not a body recovery.

 

 

I know of two people, personally, who were dug out alive. Two separate instances. One had a transceiver, the other didn't.

 

If I know personally of two people, I'm sure there are tons of instances where it's happened.

 

Personally, I carry one pretty much all the time during the winter. As mentioned earlier, they're pretty unobtrusive. The only time I might not carry one is if I'm with only one other person, with no one else around. In a group of two, in a remote area, most likely if you're wiped off something by a slide - both will go. But as mentioned earlier, the best safety device is education and avoidance.

[wfinley]

Beacons are another piece of gear that one has to buy, maintain, and carry. And is only useful after you screw up. Not every day of climbing is in avalanche conditions or avy terrain. Skiers head directly for snow loaded bowls. Climbers can choose to avoid them in many instances.

 

Sounds like you could use an avy class which focuses on risk assessment instead of reliance on gear.

 

Oh come on... you all know as well as I do that every year a number of climbers get killed by avalanches. The table in the back of Accidents in NA Mountaineering shows 278 ave deaths in the US from 1951-04 and another 125 in Canada in that same time. In 2005 there were 8 avalanche deaths. Granted the table does not differentiate between ski mountaineering and say, an ice route - but plenty of climbers out for a day of "real climbing" have been killed by avalanches.

 

I think a better position / explanation is to say that climbers try very hard to avoid avalanche prone areas and because of this they are willing to take the risk of sometimes traveling through avalanche terrain without beacons so as to not have to deal with the added weight and gear. I suppose it's dumb but so is riding your bike to the liquor store without a helmet.

[knelson]

Beacons are another piece of gear that one has to buy, maintain, and carry. And is only useful after you screw up.

 

Maintain? How hard is it to replace the batteries now and then?

 

I agree that they're only useful after the fact, and that avoidance/education is the best thing. But you don't have to be directly on the slope itself to get screwed. As someone else mentioned, stuff can be happening high above you and eventually catch up with you. At that point though, with the amount of snow coming down, it's going to be recovery and not rescue, but they way I look at it, at least I'll make it easier for folks to find me and lighten the load on the SAR folks. Oh... and I might just get lucky too. Hard to get lucky if you're not wearing one.

[Mr_Phil]

Beacons are another piece of gear that one has to buy, maintain, and carry. And is only useful after you screw up. Not every day of climbing is in avalanche conditions or avy terrain. Skiers head directly for snow loaded bowls. Climbers can choose to avoid them in many instances.

 

Sounds like you could use an avy class which focuses on risk assessment instead of reliance on gear.

 

Oh come on people... you all know as well as I do that every year a number of climbers get killed by avalanches. The table in the back of Accidents in NA Mountaineering shows 278 ave deaths in the US from 1951-04 and another 125 in Canada in that same time. In 2005 there were 8 avalanche deaths. Granted the table does not differentiate between ski mountaineering and say, an ice route - but plenty of climbers out for a day of "real climbing" have been killed by avalanches.

 

You bet.

 

Climbers can make the same mistakes as skiers. There has already been one avy death this ice season near Canmore, as the bowl above released, swept over the upper climber, and buried the lower climber. A beacon was unnecessary, as the rope trailed to the victim.

 

Again, two years ago three Seattle area climbers were killed on Mt Wilson as bowls above released. Again, beacons would not have helped as all three climbers were buried and there was no one else around.

 

Of course, if you're going to carry a beacon, then each party member should be carrying a probe and shovel as well.

[Mr_Phil]

Beacons are another piece of gear that one has to buy, maintain, and carry. And is only useful after you screw up.

 

Maintain? How hard is it to replace the batteries now and then?

 

Maintain is short hand for practice as well.

[knelson]

Beacons are another piece of gear that one has to buy, maintain, and carry. And is only useful after you screw up.

 

Maintain? How hard is it to replace the batteries now and then?

 

Maintain is short hand for practice as well.

 

Well... OK then. I agree that carrying one does no good (to someone else) if you don't know how to use it. But once you understand how to use your specific transceiver - inside and out - it's not like you have to train every other month or something. Once every couple years should be a good enough refresher and a good thing to do with friends on a sucky weather day.

[tvashtarkatena]

Of course, if you're going to carry a beacon, then each party member should be carrying a probe and shovel as well.

 

That's true, although many tests have shown that a searcher who is proficient with their beacon does not need a probe to pinpoint the location of a victim.

 

A shovel per person is as important as a beacon. It's really hard to dig someone out with your teeth, although kicking with crampons isn't a bad digging method...until you hit the victim.

 

For winter parties on extended trips who are not wearing beacons, at least one shovel per party to dig in, if necessary, is not a bad idea.

 

Beacons are maintenance free, batteries excepted. 2 AA batteries can last a full week or more of constant use.

 

There seems to be some confusion as to what an avy course teaches. Avy courses do not just teach beacon search, they focus very heavily on assessment of avy conditions, and any winter traveller, whether they plan on sporting a beacon or not, would benefit from taking one.

 

Relying on following a rope to find a buried victim in time is false security. Ever try to pull a rope out of freshly set up avalanche debris? Good luck. I guess it's a good method if your victim doesn't mind waiting while you dig a 20 meter diameter hole to find them. In any case, it's best to unrope and separate at least 50 ft in avy terrain, if possible.

 

Edited December 19, 2006 by tvashtarkatena

[ptavv]

Beacons are another piece of gear that one has to buy, maintain, and carry. And is only useful after you screw up. Not every day of climbing is in avy conditions or avy terrain. Skiers head directly for snow loaded bowls. Climbers can choose to avoid them in many instances.

 

Sounds like you could use an avy class which focuses on risk assessment instead of reliance on gear.

I'll ignore the personal dig about what sort of training I need and tackle the bigger issue here, I'd just caution you to not presume you know anything about my experience, knowledge, or preparedness.

 

It's obvious that the first, and most important, step towards avalanche saftey is avalanche avoidance, but there's absolutely no reason that I can think of, or has been proposed, that beacons are a hinderence.

 

If you have the time to be in the back country climbing/skiing/mountaineering, you have the hour or so per season to spend reacquainting yourself with your beacon.

 

I haven't proposed any sort of reliance upon beacons, but it seems that beyond being an important team self rescue tool, it can be a tremendous aid to SAR teams, whether for rescue or recovery.

 

I'm honestly stunned at how offended the tone is in many of these posts to even propose that climbers would equip themselves with beacons.

Edited December 19, 2006 by ptavv

[skykilo]

Generally speaking I'm not going to be climbing anything steep anyway if avvy hazard is higher than low. I have only taken a beacon once when winter climbing.

 

Avalanches seldom release on slopes shallower than 25 degrees (of course an avalanche running from a slope high above could still cross such a slope). The angle most likely to avalanche is 38 degrees, while the probability of release at higher angles decreases drastically because of constant sluffing. It's the approach that'll get you.

 

Your statement doesn't really make sense.

 

I typically take a beacon, but I consider myself primarily a skier. While a beacon may someday help, it is a very poor insurance plan.

 

SKIERS SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO SKI POWDER WTF!? THE DANGER IS TOO HIGH!!!

[tvashtarkatena]

Generally speaking I'm not going to be climbing anything steep anyway if avvy hazard is higher than low. I have only taken a beacon once when winter climbing.

 

It's the approach that'll get you.

 

 

or the snowfield above the gulley you're front pointing up...

[skykilo]

True. Approach/deproach. Stick to the steeps!

[Mr_Phil]

I'm honestly stunned at how offended the tone is in many of these posts to even propose that climbers would equip themselves with beacons.

 

And I am stunned how incredulous you are that anyone suggests not taking a beacon while climbing. You start off asking the question, but followup that anything less than doing as you do is stupid.

 

Try rereading a little more carefully.

 

My position is this. Beacons aren't always necessary for winter mountaineering. Climbers should make an informed choice before heading out.

 

 

[skykilo]

I have ditched the beacon many times for the hallowed one-day push. It's a delicate balance equation with risk and weight both being important factors.

[tvashtarkatena]

ebbybody got to do dey own ting

[montypiton]

Answers to several questions in this thread:

 

short answer to basic question - yes I usually carry a beacon; there are very few places in the Cascades that are not, at one time or another, avalanche prone. Case in point - I once assisted in the rescue of the occupants of a car that was buried when a road-cut sluffed on US 2 near Stevens Pass.

 

I ski-patrolled professionally at three Class A (significant danger to lodges & lifts) Alpine Ski areas for twelve winters, including a a stint as lead avalanche tech at Stevens Pass. Pros were required to document two beacon searches per week with recovery times under 5 minutes in order to be eligible to participate in avalanche control missions. Most veterans regularly posted recovery times under two minutes.

 

I have two close personal friends who have endured complete burial and been found by beacon searchers, and a third who assisted in the beacon-assisted recovery of a heli-ski guide who was buried last winter. (My friend was one of this guide's clients) The two were buried and recovered were a USFS Snow Ranger and a Canadian Certified Alpine Guide. In 1981, I myself triggered a small soft-slab at 16500' on Denali's Cassin Ridge, and was fortunate not to ride it - I was held on belay.

 

In my experience, most winter mountaineers are blissfully unaware of the true avalanche risk they subject themselves to. Not enough carry beacons and shovels, and of those who do, most are woefully inept in their use.

 

Asking this question indicates, to me, that you probably ought to be carrying a beacon and shovel. Training is widely available. I have great respect for Paul Baugher (you can contact him through Crystal Mountain) who offers a full spectrum of training courses.

[dmuja]

They're small and unobtrusive, so I don't really understand what negitive effect they could have beyond the mental aspect. Would you care to elaborate?

 

Hard to explain cuz I think it falls under a "personal preference" category kinda thing. Its not like they don't weigh anything at all and i consider them bullky and sometimes distracting. Unpacking, I just thought, "Im smarter than that and when I climb I want to be smarter" (ie smarter then a mindset of relying on electronics). I like the mental game. For me thats a big part of climbing, its just how I think/feel. I don't like to carry cell phones either, and Im not that fond of bolts. If utter safety was what I was after I would do something else. Your free to carry them if you want but for me its different.

[tbunch]

I can see a well-equipped team perhaps taking along one avy beacon on a climb, even if you don't expect avy conditions, and leaving it turned off.

 

No disrespect, but sharing one beacon (and let's assume you mean tranceiver) is about as useful as sharing one pair of pants. If nobody in your party has a receiver when you're buried, your beacon won't be useful until someone arrives with one, by which time you're dead. Your odds of survival are roughly halved every thirty minutes.

 

I wonder if anybody else has this rule... if my partner shows up without a shovel for any backcountry activity where it's pretty clear requirement, I make 'em carry mine or we do something else.