Avalanche Burial

A snowHead

(Probably been posted, but a quick search didn't show anything).

Purely for interest and education. It's unashamedly an advert for the BD Avalung pack (with the expected marketing claims of 58/59 minutes!), but utilises an actual burial and rescue for realism.

Chris Cardello in Haines, AK, April 2008

A snowHead

Oh my ... how scary is that! Shocked

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Fark!

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Im still really dubious about the avalung...

I have enough problems getting my platipus tube to my mouth while im on a lift let alone when trying to swim and doing flips in a speeding wave of snow and terror. I need to get the tube to my mouth then swim for the surface then get my arms round my body so i can breath.

This may be a little optimistic or morbid but anyone got any first/second hand experience of it being successfully used??

Should I get myself a pair of inflatable wings?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Get a Bond-style snow/air bag device!
Inflates around you and creates a cocoon of breathable air.

You'll need to Register first of course.

dulcamara, the tube has a wire structure in it that gives it some rigidity. When riding avy terrain you position the tub close to your mouth, more akin to a microphone than a sip tube. If you think you would have trouble getting that tube in your mouth, what makes you think you could rip the inflation device handle?

fr0sty, I have an ABS. The gas is CO2 so it doesn't give you a cocoon of breathable air. The idea is that you will float on the surface of the slide and be able to breathe normal air.

I've watched the video before, the breathing still gets to me. A few years ago I volunteered to be buried under a foot of snow to experience the feeling, NASTY - please avoid at all costs...

Avalungs are superb but IMO ABS or Snowpulse are still the best devices. BCA will be launching there own version probably at ISPO next year, more competition should give rise to cheaper prices...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

parlor, is there a combined ABS and Avalung ? seems that the air wings might keep you from being buried and the avalungs may keep you alive if the wings do not do the business, assuming of course that the slabs of frozen snow or rocks have not caved in your skull or smashed your bones to bits Shocked

After all it is free

rayscoops, someone on TGR attached an Avalung2 to an ABS backpack, which is the nearest I have seen. The Avalung 2 is a standalone unit - not built into a pack

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parlor,

Not put my money down yet. But my plan for the ABS is that if i felt a big slip i'd pull the chord and accept the bill if i turns out to be smaller than i thought. With Avalung I assume you'd have to put it in your mouth quick and hope it doesnt fall out during the tumbling?? That said the price differences are just that big that i'm more tempted to take my chances with the Avalung stand alone.

Any recent news filtering through about the Avagear head/neck thing or is that gonna come in even more expensive?

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Arno, cheers, makes sense. During my scuba diving days some divers used to carry mini tanks that gave 3 minutes of air - enough to get you you out of trouble - maybe something similar could be developed (but not in 'metal tank' format) for skiing based use.

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rayscoops, not sure why you would want to carry a tank of oxygen for breathing. the principle of the avalung is that there is plenty of air in the snow. you just need a method of not being stuck trying to breath the CO2 you exhale

parlor, I didn't mean it pumped air into the cocoon, rather it gave a buffer of more air inside the snow pocket (if it doesn't always take you to the surface??)- (unless I missed the aim of it??). I've also volunteered for a 'burial'. The first time I ever did off-piste / mountain awareness, and we were doing practice drills with the transceivers. It's no longer allowed with the job I did it in, when they do it now they take turns burying a transceiver on its own instead; apparently the risk of real danger was just too high - and that was with virtually no snow above you...

altis, cheers, loads of videos on each, I didn't bother going through all of them just to find this one. I'm just that lazy on a Monday. Smile

I think a good addition would be a self-powered spiral / screw device, which automatically understands the direction it should tunnel (some kind of liquid level inside perhaps?), and drives to the surface under it's own power. It could highlight your position (colour / paint explosion / strobe / etc?), and burrow a channel for air. i honestly don't think this would be difficult to produce a prototype for, the trigger mechanism might need some development though.

You know it makes sense.

what is the price of an ABS?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Christopher, not cheap. To give you an idea try here although I think I've seen them a bit cheaper (unless that was a secondhand one someone mentioned).

A snowHead

A snowHead

rayscoops, I saw a guy in Verbier last winter with an ABS & Avalung on at the same time. I asked him about it and he said he was skiing on his todd so felt safer that way. I was going to ask him to join us but he was on board. (Seriously, but I've never met a boarder who can keep up on the line we were skiing that day Wink

)

fr0sty, but the gas itself actually puts more CO2 in to the space than normal air, that's all I meant.

I like your idea but you have a few issues: where would you mount said object on your body? Once you've been rinsed you have no idea which position you would end up in - you could end up spiraling through your eye / head / backbottom. Not sure the last time you tried to ski on / in avalanche debris but that would have to a very powerful device. What would be better would be a liquid or gas indicator - that also added O2 to the snow pack...

Christopher, what is the price of your life?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

fr0sty, one of the few cases where is has been shown that an avalung might have helped. ABS on the other hand has lots of proven saves...

I see BCA have got an Airbag system available for pre-order...

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parlor, I see what you mean. I would have thought that most of the CO2 would have dissapated by the time the snow settled and compacted (on average anyway). I think I may have misunderstood the capabilities of the ABS - in my mind it was a 'barrier' of sorts, which while increasing buoyancy, also 'forced' the snow to compact at a greater distance from the body. A larger snow pocket meaning more breathable air and longer survival time. I didn't realise its primary aid was in assuring you remained on top.

The mount of such a device would be an issue, many of the problems - including that highlighted by snowball - involve the need to deploy manually. As you've been buried you know too well that even a couple of feet of snow means your arms are in a cement-like grip, so that would be a problem, and consequently wouldn't work.

It would need it's own self-righting capability certainly. That could be relatively easy to solve given any substance which reacts uniformly to the Earth's forces. As for the burrow, well a simple Archimedes screw (or similar) - while seemingly elementary - would I believe with a traction propulsion system get through the snow no problem, it would however need to be small enough to slip through other debris, which is a bigger problem in an avalanche. Besides, it needs to be small-ish to be portable, otherwise no b*gger would ski with it!

Power source would be light, as you would only deploy it (or it would deploy) in the actual event of a burial - otherwise drip feed on standby. The big problem is finding a way to activate something like this when you need it, and in a situation when your hands (and the rest of you!), are unable to shift more than a milimetre.

Things like pressure differentials would probably be out - (correct me here if you know differently), given altitude variations. Perhaps a radio signal from inside your glove, but then it all becomes futuristic with the thing having to 'come out of it's hiding place' etc... i dont know, perhaps if it's secured by a shock cord to the outside of the avalung, and when you activate the radio frequency it severs it's own tie and sets off on its way..

Maybe I should stop here - (and stop drinking on a Monday evening!, it seemed logical and practical earlier!)

Anyway, enough of the mad-scientist stuff! - If I ever come up with a prototype for this type of thing, I'll give you guys in the wilds a shout.

Cheers!

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Avalanche Burial

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