Dirtbags less likely to get caught in avalanches

Lowell your presentation was fine. Who cares if you're an avalanche professional? I'm neither an avalanche professional nor a scientist. I'm also not the only TAY member who thought your post was just a little arrogant, especially given all the good work that CAC does each year. I doubt very much you'd have written the same thing about any of the crew at NWAC. The take home: it's not all that much fun when someone takes your good work and points out all the little flaws.

And my insistence on adhering to science is far from absolute. Gosh read some of my other useless posts around here. Come look at my kitchen. However, in this case you wrote a post that used the findings from a scientific study to state as fact what amounts to your opinion. You're entitled to your opinion. You're also entitled to present your opinion as a fact. One of your previous posts suggested that perhaps an opportunity was missed to engage in an interesting and useful dialogue. Guess what? Opinions masquerading as facts don't produce useful dialogue.

Wow...more like Oscar the Grouch meets Mr. Spock!!!  Really, you shouldn't play with your laptop when you've been drinking whiskey...it makes Vulcans mean!  Forego the cookies and maybe munch on a disco-biscuit!  Saturday nights can be brutal on the West Side...

Well parried, Lowell...good nite, CMonster, go to bed.
-Burns

I was at the CAC event as well, listened to everything Lowell had to say. I came away with a completely different take from his talk then much of the dialog that has now become tedious.
Yes I can stop reading it, and most likely will.

Clearly everyone has a right to their opinion, however it seems to me that personalizing this is uncalled for. Calling someone out is one thing, however repeated posts, regardless if they are on point (or not) seem to suggest that there is something else underlying. Perhaps a weak layer, created by early season surface whore. : It seems to me that being "right" here and having the last word is far more important than addressing another with basic respect.

So where's the data for the little study that started this fire? Is there a white paper related to the Calgary Herald article? Just wondering.

The McCammon article is probably worth looking at again after all is said and done. Its withstood a fair amount of critical review and might be a better reference than fresh research, especially in a discipline where sample sizes are never that large.

I dunno.  I've known a lot of backcountry skiers that were well above median income, and a lot that were well below it.  The only under-represented group are the average people like me!

I do think that wealthier folks who are weekend warriors make up a disproportionately large percentage of accidents, as they get less practice, have less ability to reschedule if conditions aren't right, and tend to over-estimate their skills more.

Wow, I go away for a few days and miss a good fight!
Interesting opinions all, but I do have to take exception to my friend Lordhedgie's comment above. I think generalizations of this sort are sooo over simplistic and self-erving at times. I have skied with a lot of different people over the last few years, wealthy, poor, pseudo dirt baggers, guides and avalanche professionals and I have never from my personal experience been able to get any correlation between income level and backcountry and avvy savvy! I was lucky enough to spend all last winter not as a weekend warrior and skied with a lot of people with alternative lifestyles which enabled them to ski all the time. Many where very skilled, some where accidents waiting to happen. Some had incredible avy resumes and had been on every course, some had no formal training and relied upon their own parameters.

The biggest lesson I have learnt from skiing with the real avy professionals is that strict adherence to digging pits and scientific data in not enough. All the real professionals had a highly developed sense of the terrain. They where able to take me out in terrain I would never have ventured into even after digging pits etc because they where able to manage the risk by terrain choice and a deep understanding of where the trigger points where.
The formal scientific part is required but I think the DEEP KNOWLEDGE you develop from doing this a lot equally valid if not more so, so I think Lowells personal tips very valid. However, I have been out with people who spent a lot of time in the BC but didn't seem to have developed this DEEP KNOWLEDGE and I think it's because they decided to stop listening and learning and decided they knew enough. These people where usually the ones who had a distinct reliance upon the scientific data rather than the whole holistic approach.

I do think that many are emboldened after taking an avy course or two and think that "OK I got a Rushhblock5 so it's OK to go"! My own personal experience is that taking an avy courses only made me more dangerous for a while until I understood that I still knew shit all and that the learing process was only just begginning.

Dig pits, take any avy course , but think terrain, terrain, terrain and trust your inner conversation!

My own personal experience is that taking an avy courses only made me more dangerous for a while until I understood that I still knew shit all and that the learing process was only just begginning.

True for my experience as well.

As an old friend and elder who taught me how to travel in the backcountry once put it...
"knowing - what you don't know - can be the beginning of a true learning process and can save your life..."