Probe length advice

Hi all-

What's everyone's take on probe length? Common sense tells me that longer should be better but it also means it will be heavier and because the segments are longer, it may not fit in most packs. Someone once said that if the burial is at 320cm, it's too far down to rescue (theoretically).

What do most use up here in the PNW?

Thanks!

Avy Probes.
Yeah. I guess we all go through that.

The little ones that fold into shovel handles look pretty cool.
But the first you get into a probe line and you're bending over to your toes a few hundred reps with the top of the probe bottoming in the snow while all the other probers are letting their arms do all the work, you figure out that longer is a lot easier on the back and go for the 320cm model.

Then after you lug the 320 around for a few years the 240 starts to seem of sufficient length.
I carry a 240 now, myself.

Personal preferences seem to vary.

Size does matter. A probe with more girth is better for pushing through icy debris, and aluminum so it can be straightened just in case it gets bent.

I need to buy a new probe, so I am curious too what others are using?

Seemed like a novel idea at the time, I have an older BCA shovel/probe combo... size 185, I think is too short. And then I discovered that storing the probe inside the handle increased my drill times dramatically... having to keep track of the little spring clip you must remove and must not lose in powdery snow with gloves on is just a bad way to go. Deploying your probe should be instantaneous. I no longer store my probe inside the shovel handle.

I see BCA still makes a shovel/probe combo but the new ones seem to address deploying the probe efficiently without any assembly process... and the probe is 240.

I bought a new shovel and probe (last year?)

a mammut 240cm probe, and i took it out of the storage sack it comes with, and store it in the front pouch of my pack. for a shovel partner to be ready....

so 240cm is like 7'11" and some change.....

and, the better shovel? does the probe in the handle effect extending the handle? that'll get the bca engineers running some numbers.
i appreciate the post

Koda,

Thanks for the honest truth about the integrated probe-in-shovel combos. For the first year of my bc skiing career I used some Life-Link poles that converted to probe poles. I quickly abandoned them after learning the drastic amounts of time required to pull off baskets, remove lower sections, then screw together just to be in a position to begin a search.

Now it's a 240cm CAMP cf probe @ 4.7oz that sits beside (not in) the shovel handle ready for duty.