@jmeb I don't know how avi awareness here or in US could compare, but things nowadays are pretty weird. Avi mitigation around ski resorts is not anywhere near what you do in US, but it always was this way, so it's not like it would change lately and people would die because of this. But I would say this goes with current state of mind, and technology, and people see whole bunch of stuff on FB or Youtube and there everything looks easy and cool, so why not to try that.
I can see this when I go for powder skiing with lifts. I could easily say at least 70 or 80% of people doing that, are without any equipment. And while this might be ok in US (I still think it's stupid to do that even in USA, as you can never be 100% sure there's not gonna be avi), it's definitely not ok in Europe, where you are on your own next second when you step out of groomed course (lets forget now about that one or 2 ski routes that some resorts have). Noone took care that terrain where you ski is avi safe, and if it happens, and it happens often, you can wait till spring to be found without equipment.
So for majority of people skiing outside of pistes in ski resorts, I'm sure avi awareness is pretty much non existing. It's also true, majority of those people are those, who are on holidays and normally ski on groomers, but since they saw on Youtube, and since it just snowed 1m of fresh snow, let's go out and try this. It looked cool.
The other big group are Facebook/Instagram skiers. They don't know a shi*t about skiing, but bought nicest looking, most expensive equipment to get photo to put on FB/Instagram. But as transceiver should be worn under jacket, and probe and shovel in backpack, it means you don't see it, so this also means you don't need it. And what's nicer to get cool photo when there's 1m of fresh pow. Avi report? What's that? Does it show on Instagram? Nope? Ok who cares about that either.
Then there are people who do ski touring or freeride because it's real fun (I would count myself there
). These know about danger and they do check stuff and are properly equipped. But accidents happen and we all do stupid or bad decisions sometimes. Most of time without consequences, but sometimes with bad ones.
And another thing is current situation in Alps. It's February already and down south, we had pretty much no snow until week ago. But now we got about 1-2m in mountains with wind and some crazy stuff (rain, snow combo etc.) and as most of people weren't skiing yet, they all rush out, and this makes their judgement a bit blured.
Some 100km from here, there was insane amount of snow, and in some places, situation was great for skiing, while 1km away it was insanely dangerous. With 1.5m of super light powder, heads are spinning and you might misread few signs you would otherwise notice, and you end up where you really shouldn't be. Personally I was skiing all this time, when avi reports were on 4 or even 5, but picking places that were safe and not influenced by wind (that was mostly issue for these high dangers in middle Austria). Some did same, but got carried away with those conditions and pushed higher up, which was pretty much suicide. But it's also true, I don't remember I would ever see some many red areas (level 4 or 5) on avi maps, as I did this winter. Honestly, I don't remember I would see level 5 in last 7 or 8 years in places around here. This winter, I would dare to bet there was at least 14 days and several bigger areas in some 200-300km radius from here, that had 5 on avi report. So I agree number of avi victims is super high this year, but also conditions are super tricky this year.
