Snowmobiler Avalanche Fatality?

I find no reference to any safety devices used. i.e. Avy Trans. PLB, etc... Are these Items not widely used by sledders? I admittedly have little experience w/ snow machines and their use. However if I understand high marking as making the highest climb and track on a hill, it seems riders would enter into snow pack that had not been analyzed at all across a variable area of snow and increasing pitch?

A lot of the guys at my work are snowmobilers and after a weekend they tell me stories about their trips and I tell them mine. None have avy gear and none seem to understand the danger. When I recount my trip they all say how dangerous it is to ski in the BC and that I must be mad, but when I tell them that what they are doing is just as dangerous they don't seem to be able to connect the dots. ???<br>The skiing industry is doing IMO ,a good job of educating skiers but the snowmobile industry is not.<br>I was getting so worried about some of the highmarking that my workmates where doing I offered to hold a safety meeting( we are a construction company) but nobody was interested.<br>Very strange that we both access similar terrain but the perceived danger level is different for both groups ???

The newspaper article states that the victim "struck a tree and was buried in approximately 30 inches of snow." It is very possible that the trauma could have been the fatal mechanism. That is an important point.<br><br>In my view, transceivers and shovels are not safety devices, they are simply body locators. To assume any increased opportunity for safety when carryng a transceiver and shovel is unwise. The statistics and anecdotal accounts do not support reliable rescue using shovels and transceivers. Safety lies only within complete avoidance of avalanche entrapment.<br><br>Many snowmobilers do have transceivers and shovels. I do not know the percentage, but do see it. Compared to a trailer carrying 3 or 4 $8000 sleds the cost of a transceiver is somewhat insignificant. This season while snowmobiling to ski I have talked to a lot of snowmobilers (they are amused by my 1989 model 250cc snowmobile). I have not encountered one who expresses or describes any inclination or ability to reasonably analyze avalanche potential. Such may be out there, but I have not met them. I have seen the new sleds being ridden easily up and down 30-35+ degree powder terrain, and straight runs up even steeper terrain. I have explained that they are high-marking genuine avalanche paths, and then thank them for the stabilization above my snomo travel route, and then comment that they are making it safer, if they do not cause it to avalanche and then are killed. <br><br>Conversely, I observe many touring skiers behaving in a manner that I would consider unsafe. Examples are skinning upward in a zig-zag toward a steepening and loaded avalanche starting zone; skiing under nice, ripe, wave-like cornices without bothering to kick them from above; forming groups and being above each other in an active avalanche starting zone (the Beglinger technique); and demonstrated lack of knowledge and understanding. <br><br>And then there is the magical thinking. Last week a young skier that I was chatting with after a tour explained his theory that he had never set off an avalanche because of his superior and smooth skiing technique. Another party that I met had just skied and boarded repeatedly the steepest, facet-retaining cliffy starting zone in the area (thanks for the stabilization!) and commented to me that that path never ran. I had kicked a small slab at the top of that chute the day before, that path ran twice in two days earlier this year, and I saw the debris two winters ago where that path had run 800 vf.; nearby three seasons ago I and my partner kicked small slabs that ran 500 ft. FYI I avoid touring on weekends, so my slab kicking is usually when no one is around, and I do consider and check whether anyone is below.<br><br>In light of all of this, I see that avalanche education in the past could have been stronger in regard to avalanche terrain. So much avalanche education is devoted to pits and layers etc., important but spatially variable. It is dismaying that I have seen a dozen pits dug this season in an area where I skitour, and the pits were dug in areas that absolutely do not correlate to the avalanche starting zones. It would seem to me that I want my pit dug right on the starting zone and aspect of what I want to ski if I want the best estimate of hazard. If one understands terrain and the nature of avalanching, one can safely estimate the probable area of a potential slab crown and dig the pit close to it.<br><br>The other dynamic demonstrated in this and in other accidents this year are the group effects. Groups always form gaggles, congregate in the worst places, and usually make it more dangerous. I feel that the American values of independence and personal choice, rights, etc. tend to make groups more dangerous- folks want to do their own thing, there may be a tendency to not accept or recognize leadership, and there is such hubris among some that regardless of their lack of personal experience and knowledge they assume that they will make the best decision. Since our snowpack usually involves obvious direct-action avalanching, many bad behaviors in regard to avalanche behavior are validated as a result of no bad outcomes. My old 70 yo Bavarian skitour partner calls it the 1001- e.g I got away with it 1000 times, then the 1001st kills me. <br><br>The Swiss avalanche expert Andre Roch said "The avalanche does not know that you are an expert." I made a sign with this quote 20 years age, and it is on the wall of my study as a reminder.

Here is another good news account of the accident from the Methow Valley News:<br><br> www.methowvalleynews.com/headlines.htm

Randonee,<br> although I accept your statement that avoidance of avalanche entrapment is obviously the best method I think the statement that shovels and tranceivers are only body locators goes too far. If they are used to justify or give a false sense of security for dangerous practises I agree, but there are many recorded instances where, beacon, probe and shovel have saved lives. Even a pit dug at the correct location does not ensure that the slope will not go. I's always a judgement call tempered by knowledge and experience.<br>I was not implying that if a snowmobiler carries a beacon and shovel then he/she's OK. Again, it's always dangerous to generalize, but in my experience, most( not all) regular BC skiers tend to have better avalanche and snow science knowledge than most( not all) of the regular snowmobilers that I know. That, I believe is a result of the better job the ski industry is doing of communicating on this issue than the snowmobile industry.

Scotsman,<br><br>I had not read what you posted before I posted, and I am not arguing with you.<br><br>I agree with you that shovels and transceivers give a valid chance, but I do not care for the numbers. Two of my acquaintances have been recovered by transceiver search unharmed after complete avalanche burial . However, two acquaintances have been injured with some degree of permanent disability after entrainment in an avalanche without burial. My dog and I responded to one of those incidents and found that the victim was on top of the snow but seriously busted up. I have a peeve about all of the focus on transceiver technology, the size of one's shovel, etc.<br><br>According to what I have read on this site, one should not expect transceiver recovery faster than 15 minutes, which is the 50/50 point for survival.<br><br>I do agree about the good efforts within our sport to educate folks and I am trying to make a contribution. <br><br>We are in complete agreement in that I have seen quite a bit of cavalier behavior in regard to avalanching by snowmobilers.<br><br>Admittedly, my statement about transceivers being body locators is an overstatement to make the point. However, even this season are several examples of that exact tragic situation.<br><br>From your TRs, I see that you do a lot of avy hazard consideration and analysis and I admire that effort.<br><br>