Taos Avalanche

[Brock Tice]

I would be very interested to know whether RECCO was used by TSV patrol in this instance. I often wonder if it does me any good having it.

 

[KingGrump]

I get why beacons aren't super popular with inbounds riders. ~$300, batteries, recommendations to replace every 5-10 years or get polarization checked every 2-3 depending on the manufacturer. For resort riders who aren't out every weekend, I can see how it's a big expense for somewhat of a freak accident.

Recco, on the other hand, sells a single adhesive reflector for $28 direct-to-customer, and I assume that a wholesale business that isn't working with packaging or processing orders for single units would get costing less than half that. Looking at the seaming work in my pants and jacket, I don't think the stitching would add more than another dollar or two. I just don't see it adding that much to the cost of the garment/final price to the customer. Maybe I run a brand for an extremely customer-obsessed company, but I can't imagine reading this story as a product line manager for Columbia or Flylow or Norrona or Strafe and not being adamant that your customer should have it. Sure, it doesn't guarantee a skier will survive a slide, but it gives them a hell of a lot better odds compared to waiting for a probe strike.

My family all have our individual pack, beacon, probe and shovel. We travel with it but seldom ski with it inbound. Especially at Taos, Where we have skied a lot. It's the hassle factor.
Most of the skiers I skied with at Taos are on the hill 6 out of 7 days. None of us skied with anything remotely like a full pack or beacon. IN fact none of us even carried water.
After this and the spring 2015 slides in Ernie's and Etches, we may have to rethink.

On the Recco reflectors. I see their logo on some of my shells and jackets. Don't paid much attention to them. Just never look at them as a significant feature. I know most of the puffies I like to ski in do not have them. Regardless of brand. May have to rethink that also.

 

[Average Joe]

I believe there've been 2 in bounds avys in Jackson this year as well. I don't know, probably naive but I am shocked by in bounds avy, I think we are lulled into complacency and think only backcountry is deadly . . .

Jackson Hole in 1985-1986 had two patroller fatalities, both inbounds. The first (Paul Driscoll) happened in late November just before the tram opened, setting closed signs in Rendesvous Bowl. The second, (Tom Raymer) happened in mid February on the Moran Face - Tom and others had detonated hand charges but did not produce a slide, so they started down, that's when the snow gave way.
In Paul's accident, there was a depth hoar leftover from an October warmup followed by record snow in November. In Tom's accident, about 60" of snow had fallen in a cold/warm/cold/warm type cycle, with about 3-4 inches of graupel in the middle of it.
Th JHSP started using much larger charges soon afterwards.

If you stop by the Calico, there's a pizza on the menu named in Tom's honor.

 

[Brock Tice]

Would an avalung be more pragmatic for a situation like this?

 

[mdf]

Would an avalung be more pragmatic for a situation like this?

If I remember correctly, the problem with the avalung is that you have to have the mouthpiece in your teeth before you get caught. You might be able to get to it in a tree well situation, but not after an avalanche.

 

[Core2]

Snowbrains was skiing Kachina on Wednesday, the same area that slid, posted a big trip report last night and got skewered on Facebook for being classless. Post seems to be deleted now.

 

[pchewn]

I get why beacons aren't super popular with inbounds riders. ~$300, batteries, recommendations to replace every 5-10 years or get polarization checked every 2-3 depending on the manufacturer. For resort riders who aren't out every weekend, I can see how it's a big expense for somewhat of a freak accident.

Recco, on the other hand, sells a single adhesive reflector for $28 direct-to-customer, and I assume that a wholesale business that isn't working with packaging or processing orders for single units would get costing less than half that. Looking at the seaming work in my pants and jacket, I don't think the stitching would add more than another dollar or two. I just don't see it adding that much to the cost of the garment/final price to the customer. Maybe I run a brand for an extremely customer-obsessed company, but I can't imagine reading this story as a product line manager for Columbia or Flylow or Norrona or Strafe and not being adamant that your customer should have it. Sure, it doesn't guarantee a skier will survive a slide, but it gives them a hell of a lot better odds compared to waiting for a probe strike.

Relying on Recco would be selfish. You're buying a cheap reflector in the hopes that everyone else is carrying a receiver to detect the Recco. If you want to be part of the solution, then you need to cough up the dough and buy a receiver so you can help in the search.

Wearing an avalanche transceiver: Can help in search. Better more rapid location ability. Saves lives.
Wearing a Recco reflector Cannot help in search. Slower less reliable location ability. Might help find the body.

 

[Analisa]

I would be very interested to know whether RECCO was used by TSV patrol in this instance. I often wonder if it does me any good having it.

They own a system, and it detects both people win reflectors and 457 kHz signals from an avalanche beacon. I would be shocked (and angry) if they chose to only run a probe line.

(Here’s the full list of NA resorts with systems if anyone wants to check their local hill.)

 

[Brock Tice]

They own a system... I would be shocked (and angry) if they chose to only run a probe line.

Yep I've seen the signs near the patrol shack. I don't know the protocol, I'm a total noob when it comes to this sort of thing. Like I said earlier a class is on my agenda in March. I do know I've called patrol on the radio (I have permission) there for an unconscious, injured skier and the response was shockingly fast.

 

[James]

Well back in 2009 at Big Sky the feeling was Recco was of limited use because the 1 receiver was far away and would take a long time to get there. There was quite a discussion on epic about this. I'm pretty sure when we were there we confirmed this with patrol. It was looked at as body recovery more than rescue.

I suspect/hope the receivers are no longer as large and specialized and there's more?

 

[Josh Matta]

a beacon in-bounds is still better than Recco. Every patroller has a beacon at place like Taos, not every patroller has a Recco. Also many ski school and members of public have beacons as well at a place like Taos.

 

[ZionPow]

The patrol that I work for can respond to most inbounds slides within minutes unless it is in hike-to terrain. We practice beacon searches in simulated slide paths regularly and time each other to ensure proficiency. We make it a competition to make it fun but we take our times very seriously. We usually can signal search, coarse search, fine search, locate, probe and dig up a beacon in a slide path in less than 3 minutes. The key is for us to be notified of a slide in a timely manner if we didn't observe the slide occur. This is why skiing with a partner or group, keeping an eye on each other and calling 911 or patrol immediately if a slide occurs is crucial. As others have said, the best way to be safe is to get formal avy training including partner rescue training. Ski potential avy terrain with partners who are trained and carry their avy equipment. Practice partner rescue skills and encourage your ski partners to practice with you. I personally will not go out on an avy mitigation route with a partner unless I know that person is proficient to rescue me if needed.

We have RECCO detectors at every top shack and we practice finding objects with them. RECCO chips are passive reflectors and are not nearly as quick or accurate to find vs beacons. The RECCO detectors used by many patrols are efficient in finding buried RECCO chips. It will also reflect off of objects containing metal. I have found lost skis, GoPro and cell phones with our RECCO detector. Our patrol has removed the RECCO chips that were supplied in our work pants because they interfered with our RECCO searches. We wear beacons every day so we don't really need to wear RECCO chips. All of our patrol and many quests at our resort ski with beacons, probes and shovels so there are many beacons in the area of any inbounds slides. There is only one RECCO detector at each top shack so I recommend wearing a beacon if you ski in avalanche prone terrain. Beacons transmit a strong signal that is easy to locate by a trained searcher.

We also have avy dogs at the top shacks near our highest risk avy terrain. The dogs are incredible at finding anything buried that has a human scent. We dig dog holes and practice with them every week. The dogs can be dispatched to most in-bounds slide paths quickly unless it is hike-to terrain.

 

[Analisa]

Relying on Recco would be selfish. You're buying a cheap reflector in the hopes that everyone else is carrying a receiver to detect the Recco.

100% disagree. You’re buying it because some (not nearly enough) of the money from your resort expenses go to a group of trained and talented ski patrollers and it’s the resorts - not people - who buy and use the transceivers. If my local hill has a system, it’s a $10 investment that keeps a casual/occasional skier searchable. Ski patrollers & AIARE both stand behind the product for resort use. If a resort owning a Recco system is “selfish,” I’m curious what your thoughts are on patrollers running avalanche control for you?

Beacons are a far superior product - agree 100% on that - and I’m a huge supporter when friends and family are considering the purchase, but there are huge expense, maintenance, and training factors that make it an impractical option to your average skier (they’re usually getting ~5 days per season).

Kind of related side note: if you wear a beacon inbounds, throw in an inbounds search scenario into your beacon practice. At Crystal, beacons are common, but there’s a small population of skiers who “bought it so I could ski the King” and doesn’t have a ton of knowledge. The resort drills they setup as a part of safe as clinics this year were super eye opening in terms of the number of people and amount of chaos there is to manage. It gives me a whole new appreciation for ski patrol’s management in situations like these. They deserve a beer (and a raise!)

 

[4ster]

@ZionPow said most of what I would’ve said about recco & transceivers & he is much closer to it than I. Thanks. Lots of threads about it.
Lifts at my place were slow to open today & for good reason. Big results in the usual locations from patrols mitigation work. Debris piles bigger than I’ve seen for a long time & a few in places I’ve never seen. Heavy, deep wind blown snow over lighter underlying layers is not the best scenario.
2nd hand news is that a few patrollers have gone for unwanted rides recently. Hope everyone can stay safe till things settle. I was beeping today.

Vibes to the Taos victims & their families.

 

[SBrown]

I imagine more than half the people in those probe lines had RECCO on them somewhere ... how is this addressed, as far as "false positives"?

 

[SBrown]

Also ... https://www.taosnews.com/stories/officials-identify-26-year-old-man-killed-taos-avalanche,54565?

 

[RuleMiHa]

If I remember correctly, the problem with the avalung is that you have to have the mouthpiece in your teeth before you get caught. You might be able to get to it in a tree well situation, but not after an avalanche.

In Scuba there are a bunch of relatively easy back up air configurations that would seem to be transferable. If you look at how cave divers set up their back up regulators (neck), something should be able to figured out for the avalung.

 

[ZionPow]

I imagine more than half the people in those probe lines had RECCO on them somewhere ... how is this addressed, as far as "false positives"?

RECCO is only effective if you can isolate the item you are searching for. It does not work in an area where people have RECCO chips or ski boots with metal buckles. when we practice hasty party searches, the RECCO searcher is usually uphill of the probe lines. We keep the area being searched with the RECCO clear of people and equipment. This is part of the chaos that we practice to manage in our hasty party drills. We even simulate how to handle uncooperative public searchers and people leaving their beacon in transmit mode. Our patrol just completed a week of hasty party training and we learned a lot during a simulated large inbounds avalanche drill.

 

[Analisa]

In Scuba there are a bunch of relatively easy back up air configurations that would seem to be transferable. If you look at how cave divers set up their back up regulators (neck), something should be able to figured out for the avalung.

It gets tricky keeping it in your mouth. People come out of slides missing their ski boots sometimes, so it's easy to see how it can get ripped out of a slide victim's mouth. Combined with the fact that you can't have both an avalung and an airbag (which is more effective for keeping people at the top of the snowpack and above some of the rocks/trees that can cause trauma), most people opt for the latter. However, inbounds, I wouldn't ride with one. I'd be so nervous about accidentally being exploded off the lift.

 

[Noodler]

Also ... https://www.taosnews.com/stories/officials-identify-26-year-old-man-killed-taos-avalanche,54565?

I just can't even imagine. It's just not something you think a lot about when skiing inbounds. I imagine that there's going to be a major investigation now (and possible law suits like Vail dealt with recently).