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Avalanche - The kit

ust have

You'll need three essential pieces of kit which should always be carried whenever you travel off-piste. This applies even if it's just a simple jaunt within the pisted area - plenty of people have died within a few yards of the lift system and all too often they lacked one or more of these vital pieces of kit. If you don't have all three - don't go off piste.

Avalanche transceiver: the transceiver (or "bleep") is a relatively recent but essential safety device. A transceiver is a small electronic radio transmitter/ receiver. In "normal" mode it emits a steady pulse on an agreed international frequency (487MHz - throw away any older device using a difference frequency). In "search" mode it acts as a radio receiver to detect the signal from another transceiver. The idea is that everyone in the group sets off with their transceivers set to transmit. If anyone gets buried in an avalanche, the others immediately switch their transceivers to search mode and (hopefully) find the victim in time to dig them out. Don't forget that a transceiver needs to be worn under your clothing not slung over the top or carried in your backpack!

Shovel: finding a victim is not a lot of good unless you have the equipment to dig them out. Skis, poles, snowboards, twigs, bare hands and so on don't work. You need a shovel. Most skiers carry lightweight plastic shovels with detachable aluminium handles that fit easily into a backpack. Metal-bladed shovels are a little heavier but a lot more effective is cutting through hard snow or ice. These are now our personal choice.

Probe: for detailed searching - or searching for a victim with no transceiver - a probe is your best hope. This is a thin sectional aluminium pole, like a tentpole, which assembles into a 2-3m spike which can be used to "probe" the area to search for the victim.

With avalanche gear perhaps more so than any other type you need to learn and practice its use. The various techniques are covered in the following sections.

Nice to have

Other stuff that can be useful is:

Inclinometer: simple plastic device like an old school protractor for measuring the angel of a slope. Most avalanches happen on slopes of between 30 and 45 degrees so this helps to spot a dangerous slope. Advantages: quick to use and very light-weight. Disadvantages: ski pole test (see later) does just as well.

Avalung: relatively recent invention. Essentially it’s a mouthpiece that sucks in air from a wide area of a harness you wear over the top of your jacket. The idea is that it enables you to breathe even when buried in dense snow and thus prolongs your chances of rescue before suffocation. Advantages: if it works, could save your life. Disadvantages: not cheap, could be a bit awkward to wear and too early to be sure how effective these are. You also have to have the wherewithal to get the mouthpiece into your mouth before being buried. Certainly hasn’t become standard kit yet.

Snow saw: useful for doing research, digging snow pits, and making snow shelters. Advantages: makes cutting snow much faster. Disadvantages: extra weight to lug around. You hardly ever see anyone carrying these.

Recco or similar passive systems: “passive” tags that are designed to perform a similar function to transceivers. Advantages: lighter, much cheaper (often free if they’re sewn into ski clothing), don’t need batteries, and require no intelligence to use. Disadvantages: you need huge bulky equipment to search for one which few ski-resorts keep and no-one carries off-piste. Effectively useless outside a pisted area and of questionable value within it. There is no record of anyone ever being saved through wearing one of these.