 Poster: A snowHead
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| boarder2020 wrote: |
| I don't dispute the numbers, I'm just not sure sure they are particularly helpful. They perpetuate the "well you'd have to be unlucky to die in an avalanche so don't worry about minimising risks" and "people that die in avalanches are just unlucky" ideas. |
I guess it depends on what angle you look at probabilities and luck. One could make multiple really bad decisions and survive, or one could make multiple bad decisions and be caught. The bad decisions have increased the probability but that doesn't mean that luck isn't a factor. As you say, risk on a 4/5 day is far higher, but there will still be people who take that risk and survive, same as you can still get caught in a 1/5 day.
I don't know if the analogy really fits but I've been watching a Youtube series on card counting. The counters use their ability/skill to turn the odds in their favour and turn a profit, but ultimately the game still relies on luck no matter how well they're playing the game. Obviously the probabilities/luck involved in Blackjack are completely different to skiing avi terrain, as skiers we are able to use knowledge and take many more precautions to improve our odds....but I'm not sure the risk is ever completely gone (y'know, other than when there's no snow or you're on flat ground etc. etc.)
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@pam w, no. I'm suggesting that both those things are common misconceptions that are not particularly helpful.
If you know the risk of something killing you is 1/50,000 you probably wouldn't think twice about doing it. But that stat is not really how avalanche risk works. There are people who will only go out on low risk days and mitigate all the obvious risks, who probably reduce their chance to 1/1,000,000+. Then there are others going out on high risk days, skiing dangerous slopes, who's risk may be 1/100.
The chance of dying in a car crash is pretty low. So why wear a seatbelt? If someone dies in a car crash because they were speeding, driving recklessly, and not wearing a seatbelt, are they just unlucky?
There is a huge amount of science, forecasting, and technology at our disposal to massively mitigate risks. Plenty of avalanche deaths were not simply "unlucky", but could have been prevented by better decision making. This isn't to blame or point fault, Humans are fallible. It's just saying it's not all about "luck", it's about shifting the odds in your favour and not making mistakes that can cost you your life.
Once you actually start educating yourself on avalanche safety you realise they are not particularly random. In fact they are very predictable. So I find using the word "luck" problematic.
If you can start showing me examples of where people did everything right, made no wrong decisions and still got caught I'd be willing to change my opinion. But in my experience the vast majority of avy deaths red flags were missed and mistakes were made (of course much easier to see in hindsight).
"Luck" just suggests too little control imo. If I'm reading risk is 1/50,000 and didnt know better, I'd probably agree - why bother educating myself I'd just have to be really unlucky to die. Which I think is a terrible suggestion.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| boarder2020 wrote: |
| ... If you can start showing me examples of where people did everything right, made no wrong decisions and still got caught I'd be willing to change my opinion. But in my experience the vast majority of avy deaths red flags were missed and mistakes were made (of course much easier to see in hindsight). ... |
I have given up multiple sports precisely because the risks were not amenable to careful management.
If I thought I was at risk of randomly riding off-piste without gear or buddies, I'd be doing other sports.
Hindsight... I don't agree with the "oh, well it's easy for you to say in hindsight that they should have been using transceivers/ shovel packs" concept.
To me, those things are well known in advance, by everyone. It's not something you work out after the fact: people deliberately ignore it, and mostly they get away with it.
If you're anti-mask, it's only with hindsight that you understand why surgeons wear masks, but that's not hindsight issue at all.
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| Quote: |
The chance of dying in a car crash is pretty low. So why wear a seatbelt? If someone dies in a car crash because they were speeding, driving recklessly, and not wearing a seatbelt, are they just unlucky?
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No, but if they drive like an idiot with drink or drugs inside them, without a seatbelt, and survive unscathed, were they lucky?
And if that drugged up idiot mounts a pavement and kills a child in a pushchair, was that child and his family unlucky?
Of course you can stack the odds to depend less on luck - good luck or bad. But you can't, as @SnoodyMcFlude says, eliminate luck altogether. There are, of course, some people who believe in Providence (like Oliver Cromwell). But most of us don't, and we factor luck into our every day, often unconscious, risk assessment. We don't demand to eliminate all risk.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| phil_w wrote: |
I have given up multiple sports precisely because the risks were not amenable to careful management.
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oooh you tease... Come on then I'll bite. My guesses:
1. Darts
2. Pub-pool
3. Ballet
Am I right?
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@red 27, if you can do it to 90% of your ability with a pint in your hand, it ain't a sport.
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And anyone who thinks ballet is without significant risks doesn't know much about it. 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Yes. Also foolish. I like watching Schirmer's videos but he a case study in how to fall into heuristic traps. Actually I think he just doesn't care enough. I've said it before - it's really sad - but I think he will die skiing. In several of his vids his partners tell him to back off or that they are going to back off and he doesn't.
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Very lucky . . .they were buzzing after 'getting away with it twice' . . . the folly of youth
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| pam w wrote: |
| Quote: |
The chance of dying in a car crash is pretty low. So why wear a seatbelt? If someone dies in a car crash because they were speeding, driving recklessly, and not wearing a seatbelt, are they just unlucky?
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No, but if they drive like an idiot with drink or drugs inside them, without a seatbelt, and survive unscathed, were they lucky?
And if that drugged up idiot mounts a pavement and kills a child in a pushchair, was that child and his family unlucky?
Of course you can stack the odds to depend less on luck - good luck or bad. But you can't, as @SnoodyMcFlude says, eliminate luck altogether. There are, of course, some people who believe in Providence (like Oliver Cromwell). But most of us don't, and we factor luck into our every day, often unconscious, risk assessment. We don't demand to eliminate all risk. |
I agree with all of that but your early commentary on risk sounded much more fatalistic and questioning of the value of risk management approaches.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@SnoodyMcFlude,
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but I'm not sure the risk is ever completely gone (y'know, other than when there's no snow or you're on flat ground etc. etc.)
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If you stay on ground below 25 degrees which is not overlooked by steeper terrain then you are vanishingly unlikely to get avalanched. It's not as bad as you suggest.
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| Quote: |
No, but if they drive like an idiot with drink or drugs inside them, without a seatbelt, and survive unscathed, were they lucky?
And if that drugged up idiot mounts a pavement and kills a child in a pushchair, was that child and his family unlucky?
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But one the person has complete control over, the other is an almost completely random act done to them.
I think that's my issue with using the word "luck", it makes it sound like just random chance. But avalanches are far from random, as I said before they are actually fairly predictable. I feel like this is something that you are vastly underestimating. But unless you've done some decent training and/or got into the snow science books its maybe unfair to expect you to fully comprehend this.
If you want you can pretty much reduce your odds to zero (25 degree slopes with no overhead hazard). Most of us have slightly more risk tolerance and are happy reducing our odds to near zero using the plethora of tools and tech at our disposal to reduce risk.
Like I said before, show me the avy reports of these hypothetical "unlucky" people, that mitigated all the the risks missed no obvious red flags and still died in avalanches. I just don't think they exist. The people getting caught tend to be the Nikolai Schirmers who seemingly have very high risk tolerance and/or don't understand or completely ignore numerous red flags (I say this as someone who loves his videos, but hes completely reckless).
I will give you that "good luck" probably accounts for the likes of Nikolai not having had a serious accident. But I don't think "bad luck" really accounts for many deaths. Most could have been avoided with better decision making.
@phil_w, when I say easier in hindsight I mean we can often spot things that may have been easier to miss/ignore on the day. If someone needs hindsight to know going off-piste without avy equipment is a mistake they shouldn't be there! Some things are just reckless, and need no detailed analysis.
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You know it makes sense.
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There seems to be a bit of loose talk on here confusing zero risk (which doesn’t exist in the literal sense) and reducing to an acceptable risk, which is totally achievable.
Someone even talked about zero risk using Munter, which makes no sense. Munter is a risk reduction technique and the intention is to reduce the risk of skiing a slope to the equivalent of walking on a mountain trail in the summer
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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Yes.
Really fascinating video. Decision making seemed compromised by:
- early season stoke
- Good snow in lower section driving "stoke"
- reluctance to recognize increased risk due to the aspect driven changes in the snow
- post slide embarrassment leads to laughing it off?
with a dose of heuristic traps:
- new young camera man points out the full width crack, others don't give his warning the equivalent weight they would each others comments, camera man seems not to push it.
I really like his vids and I think it is good to put this out into the wild as hopefully it will highlight thepoor decision making. Fell sorry for the camera dude though!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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^ Nicholas Schirmer : good skier but clearly an absolute bombscare. Amazed he is still alive (only by chance rather than learning from his previous well documented errors).
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I remain bothered by this. Mainly by the poignancy of that photo of the two life loving victims, mother and son, but also from a selfish perspective of trying to understand how two experienced skiers, familiar with the area, with a guide, could die on an risk 2 day.
Was there any local enquiry? I think @davidof previously linked to an online archive of avalanche incidents. I can't remember was there some very obvious terrain trap or something and don't want to go through the 7 pages again.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Thanks. I think I actually read that (probably in this thread) at the time. It doesn't look like a great place to be, though I'm not saying I wouldn't have skied something similar over the years, and I'd probably have felt safe at risk 2.
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@8611, the problem last year was the lack of snow so I guess the group thought risk 1 / 2 and a nice snow filled gulley. They were being relatively cautious waiting out of the gulley for others to ski (at the direction of the instructor friend?) but a reminder that you should always have a beacon if traveling in avalanche terrain and ski one at a time - although given the depth of burial this may not have enabled them to be recovered alive.
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I don't want to sound unfeeling here, but they went down a gulley without proper equipment - while transceivers etc may not have saved them, it seems naive and a bit cavalier.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I talked to a Chamonix guide about it a couple weeks later. Despite the terrain trap he didn't think the slope above the gully was an unreasonable spot to ski on an avi 2 day. Doing so without avi kit is a different story, of course.
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| 8611 wrote: |
| ...trying to understand how two experienced skiers, familiar with the area, with a guide, could die on an risk 2 day. ... |
My bold. Neither of those linked reports say "Guide", they say: "The group were with a local ski instructor but it is not known if he was acting professionally."
It would be remarkable for a guide to act unsafely; that skiers in general might do that - happens all the time. They all have families, but it's their choice.
--- massive drift --
I did just take a look at the CASI and BASI training guides, to see if "instructors" have "rules" about taking clients off piste. CASI don't, but then... the assumption is that their stuff is all within the resort (that employs them...) and therefore it's all controlled. There is probably some rule about not being on closed stuff, but I didn't find it. BASI... has some basic safety stuff, but doesn't seem to mandate what their instructors may and may not do. Any instructors working in the EU here care to comment? Do you have to avoid uncontrolled terrain, or at least make sure your party is properly equipped & trained for it? If you lead a group off piste without gear and someone goes down, who's liable?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| phil_w wrote: |
| BASI... has some basic safety stuff, but doesn't seem to mandate what their instructors may and may not do. Any instructors working in the EU here care to comment? Do you have to avoid uncontrolled terrain, or at least make sure your party is properly equipped & trained for it? If you lead a group off piste without gear and someone goes down, who's liable? |
BASI follows local laws. A fully qualified French authorized instructor (including BASI instructors) has a very wide remit which only excludes glacier travel and rope work which are exclusive to guides. It is up to the instructor to use their judgement but clearly the instructor is going to be in the firing line if there is an accident. In this case we don't know in what capacity the instructor was skiing with the other people.
Across the border in Switzerland things are more restrictive even for top level instructors. It is one of the reasons the French won't give Swiss instructors Carte Pro without further training/work experience.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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It happened that we walked up Mont Joly in the summer, so I saw the location of the avalanche in question from above. It is completely separated from any avalanche-controlled pistes. There had been speculation about ski tourers above disturbing the snow, but actually the path along the ridge to the Les Contamines ski area is narrow and extremely exposed in places and consists of a boulder field at the relevant point; it really didn't seem like a place for ski touring.
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| GreenDay wrote: |
| I don't want to sound unfeeling here, but they went down a gulley without proper equipment - while transceivers etc may not have saved them, it seems naive and a bit cavalier. |
Have you actually seen where it happened, unless you have I think it would be prudent to withdraw that comment
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You know it makes sense.
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| Jonny996 wrote: |
| GreenDay wrote: |
| I don't want to sound unfeeling here, but they went down a gulley without proper equipment - while transceivers etc may not have saved them, it seems naive and a bit cavalier. |
Have you actually seen where it happened, unless you have I think it would be prudent to withdraw that comment |
It's all pretty clear from the pics on davidof's site. They skied into a terrain trap without beeps. As a result they massively reduced their chance of live rescue and one of them took a while after dark to recover. Entirely possible given depth of burial they were gonners anyway but it's not an outlandish suggestion that lack of beeps corresponds with underanalysis/awareness of avy risk factors.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Jonny996 wrote: |
| ... Have you actually seen where it happened, unless you have I think it would be prudent to withdraw that comment |
The location within the terrain trap is marked with a big red cross on the reports, we can all see where it happened.
Riding in uncontrolled ski terrain without safety gear is foolhardy and dangerous.
The guy who did have safety gear looks no better: how did he expect the other guys to locate and dig him out exactly?
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Poster: A snowHead
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@phil_w, yes, its not clear and probably more likely an instructor from the description, albeit there are unfortunately plenty of instances of fatalities with actual mountain guides also, some of them criticised quite heavily here as I recall (St Anton a year or two ago I think?)
Maybe just comes back to the roll of the dice thing as well. 2 does not mean it is completely safe. I suppose another key factor would be did they trigger it or not. I mean you're closer to act of god / rockfall territory if a slope above you randomly slides on a low risk day at the exact moments you're in a gully.
My heart goes out to them either way. Our kind of people evidently.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| davidof wrote: |
Across the border in Switzerland things are more restrictive even for top level instructors. It is one of the reasons the French won't give Swiss instructors Carte Pro without further training/work experience. |
AIUI the restrictions are broadly similar, with a degree of difficulty also included for distinguishing activities reserved for mountain guides as shown here whereas in France there is an additional level on top of the Carte Pro for high mountain work which effectively enables them to act as Mountain Guides. I could be out of date on this latter info though, and stand to be corrected.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Jonny996 wrote: |
| GreenDay wrote: |
| I don't want to sound unfeeling here, but they went down a gulley without proper equipment - while transceivers etc may not have saved them, it seems naive and a bit cavalier. |
Have you actually seen where it happened, unless you have I think it would be prudent to withdraw that comment |
Why should it be withdrawn? Even if you ignore that a gully, it is generally considered cavalier to be off piste in Europe without Avi kit.
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@SnoodyMcFlude, It's important though to be clear, that it's that it's not off-piste per se that makes avi kit a good idea, but _where_ the off piste is. There are acres and acres of off-piste terrain in loads of resorts where it's really not required, thinking for example of pretty much the whole of the mountainside between Chatel/Linga and Avoriaz in the PdS and indeed most of the rest of the resort. There are very few specific areas where I would bother with it, and indeed it's fair to say that nobody does. Unlike many places it's very rare to see people with airbags and transceivers. Mine have hardly been out of the cupboard since we moved to Morgins.
The same applies to a lot of terrain in a lot of other resorts. Grand Massif for example, I would not bother these days unless planning some specific routes. Back in the day when I did Ski Club leading it ws indeed a rule for us, and on off-piste Freshtracks holidays everyone was required to have all the kit all the time, but nowadays I take a much more pragmatic approach.
I don't know if this could also apply to the area under discussion here, but blanket statements such as yours are not really helpful in establishing whether the victims were being foolish to go there or not.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Chaletbeauroc wrote: |
@SnoodyMcFlude, It's important though to be clear, that it's that it's not off-piste per se that makes avi kit a good idea, but _where_ the off piste is. There are acres and acres of off-piste terrain in loads of resorts where it's really not required,
Back in the day when I did Ski Club leading it ws indeed a rule for us, and on off-piste Freshtracks holidays everyone was required to have all the kit all the time, |
Why do you think SKGB made it a rule? I'd suggest it's a way of taking personal choice out of the equation when that choice has the chance to impact other group members. And probably to stop any arrogance along the lines of "I've been skiing/ skiing here for X years and never needed the kit". The whole point of the kit is that you hope never to have to use it but it's there if and when poo-poo happens.
Certainly there are areas where one would expect to not be impacted by avalanche but anywhere with a steeper uncontrolled headwall above you is not such an area. It was undoubtedly a case of bad luck and I'm sure we all have been in such areas unwittingly or even deliberately. But the more you know about risk the more you know to try to mitigate those deliberate choices e.g. staying on islands of relative safety and only travelling one at a time through the highest risk area.
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| Chaletbeauroc wrote: |
| davidof wrote: |
Across the border in Switzerland things are more restrictive even for top level instructors. It is one of the reasons the French won't give Swiss instructors Carte Pro without further training/work experience. |
AIUI the restrictions are broadly similar, with a degree of difficulty also included for distinguishing activities reserved for mountain guides as shown here whereas in France there is an additional level on top of the Carte Pro for high mountain work which effectively enables them to act as Mountain Guides. I could be out of date on this latter info though, and stand to be corrected. |
In other words as I said:
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Les professeurs de sports de neige doivent, en outre, veiller à ne pas exercer d’activités réservées aux
guides de montagne. Les professeurs de sports de neige peuvent faire du ski hors du domaine de
responsabilité des exploitants de remontées mécaniques à la condition :
- qu’aucun glacier ne soit traversé et que l’évaluation globale et rationnelle de la situation au
cas par cas ne révèle tout au plus qu’un faible danger d’avalanche,
- que l’emploi de moyens techniques auxiliaires comme les piolets, les crampons ou les
cordes ne soit pas nécessaire et
- que, au-dessus de la limite des forêts, les activités proposées n’excèdent pas :
- Pour les randonnées à skis et snowboards la difficulté « peu difficile », abrégée PD.
- Pour les descentes hors-pistes, la difficulté « assez difficile », abrégée A
https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/dam/sbfi/fr/dokumente/schneesport.pdf.download.pdf/professeurs_de_sportsdeneige.pdf
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In comparison with a French instructor
1. A "low" avalanche risk
2. No use of any auxiliary gear
3. ski tours must only moderate difficulty
4. off piste descents can only be "fairly difficult"
French instructors are not subject to points 1,3 and 4 and can use crampons and axes on ski tours and probably a running line to assure skiers. So they have a much larger field of operation compared to a Swiss instructor. This points are used to deny fully qualified Swiss instructors professional cards without compensatory measures.... you guessed it, the Eurotest and Eurosecurity.
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Mon 2-12-24 9:26; edited 1 time in total
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@Chaletbeauroc, perhaps in avalanche terrain would be be a better term than off-piste. Although it seems best practice to carry the gear if you plan to be leaving the pistes for a few reasons;
- just generally good practice and building the habit
- if you happen to be in the area where someone else is buried you can help with rescue
- in my experience people with best intentions don't necessarily resist ending up in avalanche terrain. Why limit yourself, just carry the gear.
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but blanket statements such as yours are not really helpful in establishing whether the victims were being foolish to go there or not.
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If you get caught in an avalanche and were not carrying the equipment, you've made a big mistake. I don't see how you can really argue otherwise. of course impossible to say if it would have changed the outcome. The thing that almost certainly would have changed the outcome would have been skiing the obvious terrain trap one at a time.
When you add these things up; no equipment, choosing a route with obvious terrain trap, not skiing one at a time, I can see why people come to the conclusion it was foolish behaviour.
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| boarder2020 wrote: |
- in my experience people with best intentions don't necessarily resist ending up in avalanche terrain. Why limit yourself, just carry the gear. |
I found that a rather problematic statement.
How does one “end up in avalanche terrain” without first going through the check list of terrain, aspect, snowpack stability etc? Equipment is only one of the last item on that (albeit mental) check list. So I’m not sure how one can “end up” in avi terrain without consciously deciding it’s safe enough despite not having safety equipment?
I’m not a regular on avi terrain. So perhaps reality is far from the theoretical ideal…
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Oh, that's easy. You decide you won't go off piste and take no gear. Then you see this untracked stuff just over there and you asses the risk at that point. This is poor tactically: your judgement is subject to temptation.
Other scenarios can easily be imagined.
Of course the other stuff you describe are factors too.
But a simple rule avoids that risk at little cost.
And you can wear the transceiver down the bar and everyone will be impressed. Not.
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Oh, that's easy. You decide you won't go off piste and take no gear. Then you see this untracked stuff just over there and you asses the risk at that point. This is poor tactically: your judgement is subject to temptation.
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Exactly this.
Also another common example is people creeping from non-avalanche terrain. I am thinking of a specific area I've seen this hapoen where there is around a 50m wide strip of non avalanche terrain, then it begins to steepen to where avalanche is theoretically possible. Well the first skiers stay in the 50m strip. Then as it gets tracked out people start to go just outside the strip. People gradually move further and further out I suspect partly due to thinking there's already tracks and partly due to not realising they have moved into avalanche terrain. It's very easy knowing a steep couloir is a risk, but it's much harder when the terrain is very gradually changing.
While the idea of everyone going through a full checklist is nice in theory, in practice it's just not done by many.
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