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Avy info links....please add yours here.

CatWoman

Well-known member
Lifetime Membership
Jan 26, 2004
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NW Montana
Early-Season Checklist

1. Have you put new batteries in your avalanche transceiver?
2. Have you practiced with your transceiver recently?
3. Are you efficient at pinpointing a transceiver hidden by someone else?
4. Have your backcountry partners practiced their transceivers recently?
5. Experienced or novice: Have you attended an Avy Awareness or early-season transceiver course this season?
6. Have your backcountry partners refreshed their knowledge lately?


Some good avy links:

A Dozen More Turns. Excellent avy story on DVD for only $5.49 shipped

Online avy course.

A Dozen More Turns online to watch, or download free.

Good thread on taking a class.


White Risk interactive Avy CD. Click on the "E" at top left of page to get to English page. Very good CD!

Avalanche beacon review site
 
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CatWoman

Well-known member
Lifetime Membership
Jan 26, 2004
21,797
2,419
113
NW Montana
Adding more links

If anyone else has any useful links, please feel free to add them. :)

Some downloadable PDF's, Training DVD's, and other links to avy info from BCA Education page.
A lot of PDF's for download from BCA Research page.
Beacon Searching 101, Probing 101, Shoveling 101, and PowerPoint Presentations.

An older training video titled "Winning The Avalanche Game" can be purchased. I did receive an email back from BCA, and they no longer have this video available. I will do more research to find out any places that might carry it. It's a good watch/learning tool.

The following is from this page which also has other info.

Winning the Avalanche Game
Written, directed and shot by Bruce Tremper of the Forest Service Utah Avalanche Forecast Center (801-524-5304), an avalanche expert who has been featured in a number of national film documentaries.
”Winning the Avalanche Game” is an hour-long avalanche education video in published in 1994.
Video contains many spectacular avalanches in motion and people getting caught in avalanches but most of these come from other sources listed above. Other footage is public domain which involves people traveling in avalanche terrain, digging snowpits, etc. Most good avalanche footage comes from other sources and you must contact them to negotiate. Sources include primarily RAP Entertainment, Mike Friedman and Warren Miller.
"Winning the Avalanche Game" available directly from:
Friends of the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center
Mail check to:
Box 521353
Salt Lake City, UT 84152-1353
Contact: Ed Arriola 801-955-8353
$25.00, includes shipping
Also: credit card orders from:
Backcountry Access 303-417-1345
 
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CatWoman

Well-known member
Lifetime Membership
Jan 26, 2004
21,797
2,419
113
NW Montana
I've been asked about other info, like books. I have quite a few books I've purchased on avy's, and the following will be the 3 I've found best.

1 ~ Backcountry Avalanche Awareness; by Bruce Jamieson
This book is a smaller one, but is filled with info. Not hard to read or understand. It will give you some important knowledge, but not information overload if you're not a reader.

2 ~ Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain; by Bruce Tremper
A thicker book, not really mentioning sleds, yet the info is all pertinent. A good source of more in depth info.

3 ~ The Avalanche Handbook; by David McClung and Peter Schaerer
This is everything you want to know, and then some. This is a textbook style of book that is filled to the brim with probably more than you want to know. I've heard this called a *snow geek* book. It goes into great detail.

I've purchased these books, and the others I have, from Amazon. I'm sure you can find them there, or at other online book places.

Sandy
 
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CatWoman

Well-known member
Lifetime Membership
Jan 26, 2004
21,797
2,419
113
NW Montana
Also, there is one common theme when the avy experts go investigate avy incidents. The responses they get almost every single time are some form of these:

"I've never seen that area slide before"

"I didn't think it would/could slide there"

"I didn't think it was steep enough to slide"

"I've been riding here for years, and never any trouble before"

"This area isn't known for avalanches"

"I saw other tracks there and thought it was safe"
 
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sled.man

Member
Premium Member
Dec 8, 2007
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lynnwood washington
those are all good books. a little awareness goes along way.

I have some bad news. This time it is a 13 y.o. girl hiking in the back country of (you guessed it) Washington. This is the 9th avy death in washington and 14th in the U. S.and we are barely past new Years.. How many more? The snow has weak Layers. Please use caution!

We average 2.5 deaths over the past ten years.

At least 3 others in B.C.
 

sled.man

Member
Premium Member
Dec 8, 2007
125
14
18
lynnwood washington
those are all good books. a little awareness goes along way.

I have some bad news. This time it is a 13 y.o. girl hiking in the back country of (you guessed it) Washington. This is the 9th avy death in washington and 14th in the U. S.and we are barely past new Years.. How many more? The snow has weak Layers. Please use caution!

We average 2.5 deaths over the past ten years.

At least 3 others in B.C.
 

CatWoman

Well-known member
Lifetime Membership
Jan 26, 2004
21,797
2,419
113
NW Montana
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CatWoman

Well-known member
Lifetime Membership
Jan 26, 2004
21,797
2,419
113
NW Montana
Here's a tip:

If you have a probe pole that is labeled/called "Lite", get ride of it and get a different one. At our recent avalanche here, there were several with these "lite" poles. They were bending and breaking like crazy. Stick them in the snow very far to leave them for a marker, then go to pull it out, and it busts off. The lead avy guy in charge brought this to peeps attention. This is something you need in that search for someone buried, and you need equipment that will hold together. You NEED a good STRONG probe pole. Also poles without the little screw part on top to hold things together once you assemble the probe were having big issues.
 
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Forest Service National Avalanche Center

Well this is one of the easiest site I have been at to educate my self on Avalanche safety. It has lots of videos which I like because you get to see how things are done instead of trying to guess from reading. If you don't know much about Avalanches I would go check this site out. I would start at "The Basics". That's located in the gold pull down bar at mid screen. Than just work your way across.
http://www.fsavalanche.com/Default.aspx
;):face-icon-small-hap:beer;
 
5

550iq

Well-known member
Oct 7, 2008
558
188
43
Anchorage, Alaska
After watching a 65hp snowmobile set 100,000cy of snow in motion, effectively burying my Dad under 30ft of snow, I too took avalanche classes. These classes were taught by Doug Fesler and his cool wife Jill. We also made all the silly excuses listed as to why we were in the avalanche zone, and added one more: "We just blew off the red flags that were waving concerning the snow pack conditions". We also went out and bought the probes and beacons.

But here is the reallity: 1) For the most part beacons may allow someone to find your corpse - it you have your's active; 2) If you are buried more than a few feet deep, ain't no probe around going to save you - we probed about 30ft deep looking for the old man with custom built probes and drove them through the snowmobile as you cannot tell any difference at that depth; 3) Do not even think about these air-bag systems, float to the top? Yea right. If you are caught in an avalanche - my bet's on the avalanche; and, 4) the ugly truth: SEE SLOPE, SEE SLIDE. Go to your avy classes until you figure out that avalanches are not freaks of nature and do naturally occur. If you cannot "see" the slide in any given situation, go back to class. If you can "see" the slide, do what we now do, go boondocking in the woods.

Lots of pent up blabber here, but...

Thanks, Catwoman. Keep the fires going and maybe we won't lose anyone anymore.

Cheers.
 
Well this is one of the easiest site I have been at to educate my self on Avalanche safety. It has lots of videos which I like because you get to see how things are done instead of trying to guess from reading. If you don't know much about Avalanches I would go check this site out. I would start at "The Basics". That's located in the gold pull down bar at mid screen. Than just work your way across.
http://www.fsavalanche.com/Default.aspx
;):face-icon-small-hap:beer;
I'll be working this fall to update the snowmobile section on fsavalanche.com and would greatly appreciate any feedback on how to make it better more useful. Thanks.
 
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