Deadly Revelstoke Avalanche

I'm sure everyone else will have some comments on this , but let's just say when confronted with this forecast , most people wouldn't take their family up to stand in an avalanche path and watch them highmark...

So sad and so preventable... makes me ill...

Agreed.

What is shocking to me is that this was not just a group of guys that were out messing around that made some poor choices.  It was an organized competition.  It would be like holding an extreme skiing competitions on a day when avalanche centers were issuing special warnings.  It seems like postponing a competition like this should have been a no-brainer.

???

The article said that they were finding sleds as deep as 7 meters.
Does anybody have data on what that kind of depth does to pin point search? What is the possibility of the transmission signal getting reflected off of all those machines? Heck, could one machine alter signal reception? I've never done a beacon drill at a depth of over 2 feet. Has any body ever dug that deep? Also, in an avy that deep, there has to be chunks big enough to shift as you dig. What a crappy situation.

Things have been quite spooky in the BC interior this season:
February/March 2010 Surface Hoar Avalanches