Avalanche transceivers

A snowHead

GordonFreeman, I would class three people as a small group. But ja, if you follow safety protocol there should only be one person on the slope at a time in order to avoid multiple burials. Doesn't mean the searchers aren't vulnerable to a second avalanche (this afternoon, someone was telling us about experiencing this very scenario).

A snowHead

GordonFreeman, don't agree with that at all.

Good group management should, of course, be aimed at only one person being on the slope (and therefore buried) at any one time but unfortunately, last year's toll in the Alps shows us that multiple burials are all too common - and very often fatal.

Not sure how the number of people in your group makes mountain rescue involvement any more likely?

EDIT: God that sounds horrendously pompous. You know what I mean.

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

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I'm amazed ignoring timeslots is the masking technique. That's massively short-sighted and I would imagine it has cost lives... Confused

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^ By far the thing most likely to cause unexpected problems with a beacon is EMI (electromagnetic interface).
Background RF (radio frequency) noise can originate from other electronic devices, particularly mobile phones, or even the power cables for a ski lift / cable car.

JaMMi, I think it would take a switch to transmitting digital data to allow unique codes to be identifiable. Then each device could be manufactured with a fixed unique code or generate one each time it's switched on, similar to a GUIDs (globally unique identifier). Maybe there are different tricks to analyse the current signals for uniqueness but the timing method may be the only way. If you have 2 signals being received at the same time does that not effect the direction and distance? What if 2 transmitting bleeps are in sync from moment search starts? This messes things up? I assume this is unlikely?

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Whilst multiple burial avalanches sometimes happen they are usually large scales events that will almost certainly result in fatalities.
This is an interesting and honest read about the chances, and likely outcome, of multiple burials.

http://pistehors.com/news/ski/comments/0831-multiple-burials-revisited/

Multiple burial scenarios are fun to practice - but the chances of having to use them in real world events are small.
As soon as you find the first victim you want to clear their airways and turn their beacon off (unless there are 2 or more searchers).
The extra time spent turning their beacon off will make locating the 2nd or 3rd buried beacons *much* easier.

re: Digital signal masking techniques (S1, Pieps, Pulse, 3+).
Apparently it is roughly a 5% failure rate for 2 beacons, 15-20% with 3 beacons and 30-70% with 4 beacons.
(source pistehors.com).

Basically your best to concentrate practice on simple searches (especially final accurate grid search for buried beacons), probing and shoveling techniques.

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Haggis_Trap,

Thanks for links will check em out. Tried the switch to transmit and back again but I don't recall it making any difference.

Helpful discussion here. Yeah, my shiny new piece of kit left me confused and worried but with hindsight that's what yesty's exercise was all about - identifying the bugs and finding ways around them so there are no surprises if a trannie has to be used in anger. I did notice Zero-G with the same trannie didn't seem to have as many problems as me - so I think part of the problem here is that the operator could do with some more instruction/practice/manual reading.

Interestingly, a Mammut Barryvox borrowed from another sH worked much better for me.

However, I'm now also wondering about the effect of mobile phones on yesty's exercise - there would have been a lot of them about on the north face of Primrose Hill on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

One general message I get strongly from reading "Staying alive in avalanche terrain" by Bruce Tremper is that in the immediate aftermath of a slide, everyone needs to slow down and think a few steps ahead before moving into search mode. It's hard cos it goes against instinct.

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Big Paua,

You know it makes sense.

^ ?? nice brain fart rolling eyes

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

A snowHead

^ Turn a beacon to search mode and bring a mobile phone to within 30cm.
There is almost always some kind of EMI interference (differs between phone models).
At the 457kHZ band the risk is very real, especially in search mode (mobile phone on aircraft is totally different scenario).
All beacon manufacturers, manuals etc agree on this.

A snowHead

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

With the possible exception of Cham where the PGHM are rocket ship quick getting out to incidents, by the time rescue and dog's arrive its normally to late. Most people who are dug out alive are rescued by the people they are skiing/boarding with.

Not to sure about the comment above (Personal beacons are normally used in small off piste groups) They should be used by everyone skiing/boarding off piste irrespective of the group size.

One thing most people forget to practise is the actual digging part, how ever clever your reciever is at some point you need to crack out the shovel, do not underestimate the effort and time this takes for a full burial. If anyone is skiing the back country with a plastic shovel please replace this with a metal bladed shovel as the plastic ones are cr**

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adie, intend doing that this week.

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adie, +1

Can only refer to Tremper again; he says don't even bother calling for help till something like 30 mins into the rescue - earliest. It is certainly not the first thing to do.
He also recommends the avalung as a basic piece of rescue kit, just as important as shovel, probe and beacon.

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GordonFreeman, it's gonna be 15 minutes at the very earliest earliest before help arrives, by which point you've got an 80% chance of only finding bodies. Far far better to spend that 2 minutes it'd take to make the call searching and digging for living people. Of course, if you have a few searchers, it may then make more sense to send someone to make a call - depends on the situation.[/b]

I think you have to take Tremper in context - he is writing primarily for real backcountry travel. If you're "just" offpiste very near to a lift and piste network and pisteurs/patrollers/local SAR then it might be a judgement call if a brief call is merited if you can describe accurately where you are and you already have the number programmed. But it wouldn't be my priority if I was the only responder.

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GordonFreeman,
It is indeed counter intuitive. I think he means there are several other procedures with a higher chance of success which should be focused on and undertaken by the group before spending some of that first precious 15 mins on a telephone/radio call. It was my rough estimate that those procedures undertaken on a slope under difficult conditions would probably take a group of non-experts about 30 mins to get through.

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Thanks for all the responses, I've opted for the Ortovox 3+, seems pretty well liked despite a couple of reported niggles and managed to get with a small discount. Got to be better than my very old F1 Focus. Need to have a play, my son will love to help me, lots of man made snow just 100m from apartment so can do some training. Got a metal shovel too to replace my old plastic one, can relegate that to clearing snow off the cars, when it turns up.

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GordonFreeman, from experience of having called out Mountain Rescue a couple of times, you won't be on the phone for less than 5 minutes, probably more. They will take time to gather all the details, have you explain who you are, exactly where you are, what has happened, number of victims, etc - they have a fairly long check-list that they want to get through. It all takes time, especially if you're doing it in a foreign language. You may end up going through the whole thing more than once (e.g. once to police, then to mountain rescue centre then to local rescue team or heli base).

In an avalanche situation, you just don't have that time. You have a window of maybe 15 minutes to save someone's life and you can't afford to spend 1/3 or more of that on the phone. If you have a good-sized group and only a single victim, it might be worth one person taking the time to make the call but even then you have to ask yourself if it's worth giving up 25% (say) of your search capability for the time it takes to make the call.

Had a quick play with the 3+, all seems pretty easy to use. One question, the pouch it comes with has a small pocket containing an outer cover that you turn inside out and over the whole unit and straps. Seems a tad useless to me and just bulks up the pouch when wearing it. I'm thinking of cutting it off or have I missed the point?

You know it makes sense.

waynos, the stretchy pouch is just for storage. When wearing the trannie, it packs away into the other zippered pocket.

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

Two friends were buried a couple of seasons ago. Thankfully they were both pulled out alive but a few lessons can be learned from the incident. They seem relevent to the discussion above. I was not there when the incident happened.

The slide happened in trees whilst skinning up, the group had become spread out as someone had stopped to adjust a skin clip. The person at the front triggered the slide, was swept down the slope and buried. As he was leading, everyone saw what happened to him and he was quickly dug out. The person at the back of the group was also buried but no one saw this. It was only when they had finished the first rescue that they realised he was missing. The group then carried out another search but this was hampered by people's tranceivers automatically switching back to transmit. The second person was finally dug out well up slope of the first rescue. In fact he was dug out by the first victim who had managed to clip in and skin up to where the second was buried.

Watch out for tranceivers switching back to transmit during searches, it could really confuse things if you are not aware that it can happen.

A snowHead

Enter this debate with trepedation but fatbob + 1 : Tempers discussions are in the context of North America Back country skiing which is more akin to Ski Mountaineering than off-piste skiing in the European sense. If I'm skiing on the Icefields parkway in the Canadian rockies my car is an hours drive from the nearest phone signal; the nearest helicopter is 150km away (Canmore or Golden). So I don't carry a phone - instead I have a VHF radio (with the training to go with it to hit the repeater stations in the Rockies) but I still wouldn't spend the first 5 minutes breaking out the radio as there is no mountain rescue that could arrive in the "life window".

A snowHead

stevomcd,
I remember discussing this issue with my SO after our Cham offpiste trip last year, more particularly an entertaining afternoon with fellow UCPA types practising multiple burials.
We're both sailors, and have VHF licences - one part of which is teaching the standard 'mayday' message sequence, that is designed to be succinct, complete, and something that can be 'prepared' with the minimum of fuss.

wonder if something similar would be appropriate for use in emergencies; clearly, it would need to be language specific, but something like:

au secours, au secours
Avalanche
location: (either a GPS reference, map co-ords, or "cent metres norde du the last lift station"
3 personnes perdu
Une person cherchez
Assistance SVP (could be specific if required)
Au secours: Avalanche

I would expect this to take 30 seconds to say, SLOWLY, once a connection has been made - as most emergency services record incoming calls.

This way, time spent is minimised, essential info conveyed, and searching can commence.

Clearly, this assumes that the caller has a protocol to follow (so, some planning!), and knows where they are (which may be more challenging.... how many of us have followed a guide without really knowing where on the mountain we are Confused

I'd envisage having the basics stuck on a lable on the back of the phone I carry in my backpack... the phone that already has the necessary numbers loaded, and is charged... (and is too old to even be worth recycling, but lasts a week on one charge... goott love those old Nokias0

Thoughts?

h.

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

Like a lot of things in life there is not a right and wrong answer a lot depends on circumstances and even then it may not be clear what the correct action is.

The general consensus for experienced groups or led groups is to search first, call after but I would say if you have 1 victim and 3 survivors or similar ratios then one person should try and call while the other two do S&R. If you are two or three then don't leave the scene to get a signal until you are certain that you cannot find the victim on your own.

If you are touring, even in the Alps you may not get a signal, if you have turned your mobile off it may take minutes to acquire a station then a couple of attempts to get through to the rescue services. The number of times I've had four bars on reception but been unable to make a reliable call is high. As Steve says they will then want a number of details. You do know where you are don't you? Can you give a grid reference? You know how many people are actually under the slide etc etc.

However this should be offset against the size of area to be searched, the number of victims, the number of rescuers and their experience and the fact that the rescue services will be able to give the victims the best medical care and delays here can be fatal. Remember even after 15 minutes your victim is likely to be hypothermic, in shock, unconscious and maybe with broken bones or other internal injuries. You will probably not just be digging them out, patting them on the back, clipping on your skis and whizzing down to the Lievre Blanc and a beer.

The local rescue services have told me they have attended a number of avalanches where, when they arrived, a part of the buried, and now long since deceased victim, was visible on the surface. Shocked

Then of course while you are searching you have the spectators with their beacons still switched on and people skiing down search area with their beacons switched on etc. A guide I know who was radioed by the piste patrol to help with a search in the Areches a couple of years ago told me that there were so many people and the search scene was such utter chaos that only the arrival of the rescue services brought some order for a proper search to start (probe line, victim's beacon never turned on, or maybe turned off after a lunch stop?).

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Came across this paper regarding shovelling techniques last season, which is worth a read...

https://s3.amazonaws.com/BackcountryAccess/content/papers/EdgerlyABCDiggingISSW2010v9.pdf

Video of the methods and also some good links on this page...

http://www.backcountryaccess.com/education-research/learn-about-av-safety/

A friend of mine had the dubious honour of having to dig out his instructor 10m from the piste on his first ever off piste lesson last year in Tignes, after the instructor broke off the cornice of a sink hole he skied over in flat light. The group dug him out after he managed to get one hand above the surface so they could locate him. He was buried 1-1.5m deep. They hadn't gone through the drills in the morning as it was flat light all day so the plan was they weren't going to go off piste, but decided to have a little dabble to the side of a piste on the way home at the end of the day.

After his intro in the deep end, he was still freaked out when relating the story to me that evening in the Alpaca.

In the ensuing "What happened there?" to "Some thing's wrong" to "Where the F**k did he go?" to "Oh 5hit!!!" moments he found that the group including himself became FREAKED OUT and chaos ensued.

They had difficulty with simple things like assembling their shovels and probes due to the adrenalin. The fact that it was the "Leader" of the group who was the victim decapitated the groups decision making dynamic, which could be described as trying to heard frogs on skis, until my mate morphed into the leader.

So as well as practising the search drills with transceivers it is well worth practising assembling your shovel and probes with your gloves on a few times every now and then.

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snowgood, Holy Cow!

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Serriadh, already happens to some extent with the Barryvox Pulse (can communicate certain information between other Pulses). Tries to let you know if the buried victims are alive or not!

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I'm just getting back into ski touring after a few years away, some of my gear is a little out of date. My transceiver is a pre-historic analogue set, a Pieps 3. So, I've been looking at replacements, wow are they expensive. Also the technology is moving along at quite a pace, I'm thinking would I be better off hiring? Is there anywhere in the UK that hires out the latest all singing all dancing sets like the Barryvox pulse or do they only do the basic sets like the tracker?

I'd guess the Tracker 2 or equivalent is the basic UK rental model these days. So not super bells and whistles but reliable and idiot proof ish.

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Avalanche transceivers

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