Here's What I Fear

^^^^Could you distill this down to some concise points or questions relevant to the thread?  Thanks.

You make some interesting statements but I'm having a hard time understanding how they fit in.

On the eve before the battle the young samurai asked the older swordsman what he must face, in Akira Kurosawa’s film The Seven Samurai. The experienced warrior of many battles explained.
“You must accept the fact that you will die and fight as well as you can. Knowing he is going to die anyway, a samurai must give a good showing of himself. If he lives, then he fought well.”
“What is the true spirit of the samurai?” This question was asked of the ronin Lone Wolf after defeating another in a duel in the Japanese film Shogun Assassin. After a moments reflection he responds.
“It is to stay alive when death is certain.”
In his acceptance of death the samurai finds peace and with peace there is no fear. The mind is empty. Without fear or doubt the warrior is free to fight with all of his skill and spirit.

Thought I'd throw this in here, because I was enjoying Scotsman's take on things. Literally the skier is no samurai, but have you ever especially when soloing on steep terrain known this feeling?

They crave acceptance of others based upon the norm at TAY which is to revere the conservative tourer who has an abundance of caution avalanche wise.

Chris, although I admire your tendancy to stir the pot and stimulate creative thinking, I don't think most TAYer's motivation for encouraging safety is because they "crave acceptance of others". I think the primary motivation is to minimize the number of friends that perish in the mountains. If I had to choose between a community that revered risk-taking and a community that revered caution, I would chose a community that revered caution. This is reflected in the ski partners that I choose. Clearly, we all want our ski partners to return from the mountains safely, but if one of them did not, I could live with myself better knowing that we as a community encouraged them to be safe rather than to take risks.

how, after hours, with some, days or even months and years of study and practice; how can we possibly, after knowing exactly how it happens; how can we allow this to happen?
How does this happen?
And what we can do to reduce the chance of it happen to us?
[size=8pt](Edit to restate and clarify the question.)[/size]

Great topic.
A) I would take issue with the phrasing "after knowing exactly how it happens". We don't know exactly how it happens... from both a snow-science and psychological perspective. We have some good ideas and theories, but KNOW we do not, especially on an individual level. As a community we do have a better understanding.
"There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." Alfred North Whitehead.
I realize that it may seem that point A) is nitpicking the question, but I think the fact that the specific phrasing was used points to an underlying reason for many accidents: Humans are overconfident in their knowledge and decision making abilities.
There are many psychological studies that document this. If we were to ask everyone on this forum to rate their avy knowledge and decision making ability, I would venture to guess that the majority would answer "Above average"... Or, maybe people are more realistic about their avi knowledge and decision making abilities. But if we were to ask about intelligence, I'm sure the average response would be "Above average." I'm sure we are all intelligent enough to understand the implication of such a result.
In short, I think overconfidence is a driving factor in many avalanche incidents.

So what do we do? Here are some ideas, some steps in the right direction.
A) We remain humble.
Accept the fact that you will make poor decisions and mistakes every time you go out. You just don't make enough mistakes or large enough mistakes to have a serous incident (this gets back to Lowell's comment about series of mistakes (Many accidents are not the result of a single misfortune, but instead are the end result of a chain of mistakes. You overslept, forgot an important piece of gear, got in a hurry, made a route finding error, got benighted, and eventually had an accident. Recognizing a chain when you're in it--but before it goes bad--is another valuable skill. -Lowell Skoog see here ) I hate to break the news, but the fact someone has never been caught in a slide is not evidence of perfect decision making.
C) Recognize the role of chance, luck, chaos, whatever you call it and that there is ALWAYS a level of UNCERTAINTY, no matter how good you think you are (or actually are).

Rod Newcomb related a story about Ed LaChapelle (I think) at this year's NSAS. Ed said he assumed he was wrong 50% of the time... that's coming from one of the most influential avalanche researchers that has lived. So us mere mortals might assume a 25% accuracy rate?

I think the questions that kicked off this topic is at the core of avalanche education and accident prevention. This is exactly the type of discussion this thread is designed for. Thanks.

50 years of cumulative risk pioneering routes in the Coast Range without an incident is quite a record.......he was obviously
1. Extremely good at avy risk assessment.
2. Very conservative.

I skied with Joe's (Firey) group once in the BC Coast Mountains and we did ski one or two steep slopes but mostly we were skiing.....not out for an adrenalin rush.

I have another friend whose skied about 30-35 years with many days in the Rockies and Selkirks. After a serious accident he stopped skiing with one partner who was the one involved in the accident because he considered that fellow too risky. That individual was subsequenly killed in another avalanche.

For those who don't know who Joe Firey is, look here:

mountaineers.org/NWMJ/08/081_Firey1.html

In my conversations with Joe and others of his generation, I think it's accurate to say that they felt that avalanche danger was very hard to predict, and that one's ability to accurately assess the danger was very limited. So, they adopted practices that kept their exposure to this (largely unknown) danger low.

My generation, which started backcountry skiing in the 1970s and 1980s, had more information and new tools like avalanche beacons. I think we were more willing to venture into potentially risky conditions, but were still (for me at least) pretty conservative.

My impression is that today's generation of skiers has a pretty high assessment of their ability to distinguish between safe and unsafe conditions. Detailed avalanche forecasts, instant condition reports, and a battery of new stability analysis tools lead us to believe that we can diagnose the "gray area" with ever greater precision.

But can we really? I think we have acquired better tools to evaluate risk. But I think that desire and human nature have outstripped the tools so we're not any safer than generations that went before. If you've been in more than one avalanche in the past, say, five to ten years, you're probably rolling the dice.