Hi guys
I'm not sure this post is appropriate or not, as I never had such experience, and I was hoping I never would have, and I certainly hope I will never ever have it again. But it means, I have no idea what is appropriate in such case, and what not. In case if not, please moderator to remove this thread. On one side I'm not sure I want to share this, on the other side I would like to share it as someone might learn something from all this, and someone's life might be saved one day.
Last Friday, I had my first (and hopefully last) such experience. We got almost 1 meter of fresh snow on Thursday and during night to Friday, and even though it was still snowing on Friday, skiing was great. But all this snow fall on icy base, making it really easy to slide. Skiing was great but you need to be really defensive and stay far away from anything remotely steep. Unfortunately some people didn't, and that's where my "story" begins. 3 people skiing some 50-100m out of course triggered avalanche and one of them was buried in. I have no idea how things went from that time (or before that), as I skied down to this location only some 45-50min later, and I joined searching (at that time I had no info how long search was going on already, and I got this info only later on when comparing my gps watch track with police report). People were probing snow and digging holes randomly somewhere on upper part of bottom half of avi path. When having my transciever in search mode, I wasn't getting any signal, but from time to time there was a beep. Two guys skiing with buried skier were telling he had transciever but was old or/and not working good. After few minutes of probing, and few beeps from my transciever, I asked if anyone actually went down the avi path and check. I got another "his transciever is not working good" explanation, and we should keep probing here, as there was glove and ski pole found around this place. Then me and guy probing next to me decided to go down avi path checking with transcievers if there's some signal (at that time there was around 10 to 12 people already on spot searching). Once we headed down, we got first signal some 15 or 20m lower, and in next few meters I got signal lock leading me straight to the buried person. We have located guy real fast and in less then 5min, once we decided to go down to search, he was dig out, being buried some 50 to 60cm under snow. Unfortunately that was almost 1h after avalanche went down, so I guess it's no need to tell the outcome.
That's end of story, and now it comes part, that I really want to talk about. Considering how fast we found him, you can think by yourself, what could be, if I would come to spot minute or two after slide, or more importantly... what would be, if people would know how to act in situation like this. Everyone relied on info that his transciever is not working good, so noone went to check avi path. They were completely randomly probing some maybe 20x20m spot in middle of path, hoping they will find him. In reality, they were at least 50m away from his position... Unfortunately far enough that transcievers didn't catch his signal. I believe it's hard to keep your head cool in such situation, and honestly I'm actually proud to myself I reacted like I did, but considering it didn't change outcome, that means nothing. But with a bit of practice, you should know what to do.
So whole point of this is, to try to tell everyone to read at least manuals that come with transciever. It says there what basic procedures are, including searching whole avi path. Do some training with this, and repeat it as often as you can. I have zero official training, but I have some "lesson" every time I go with few friends who are all pro mountain guides with 20+ years of experiences. I do "test" search trying to find buried transciever whenever we go with wife out in backcountry. All it takes is another transciever and 10 or 15min time. Not much when you consider this can save someone's life.
So would really love to ask everyone who ever heads out to backcountry to read manuals, read some stuff (there's plenty of it online), do some test searches so in case worse thing happens, you can act accordingly. I, and I guess everyone else too, was hoping I will never ever need my transciever for anything else then training searches, but unfortunately that's not the case anymore. And I can tell you it's experience I would be happy not to have it. So again, please guys be responsible and invest some time into your, and your friends, loved ones or complete stranger's safety. It's not much, but on the end it can change world for some.
I'm not sure this post is appropriate or not, as I never had such experience, and I was hoping I never would have, and I certainly hope I will never ever have it again. But it means, I have no idea what is appropriate in such case, and what not. In case if not, please moderator to remove this thread. On one side I'm not sure I want to share this, on the other side I would like to share it as someone might learn something from all this, and someone's life might be saved one day.
Last Friday, I had my first (and hopefully last) such experience. We got almost 1 meter of fresh snow on Thursday and during night to Friday, and even though it was still snowing on Friday, skiing was great. But all this snow fall on icy base, making it really easy to slide. Skiing was great but you need to be really defensive and stay far away from anything remotely steep. Unfortunately some people didn't, and that's where my "story" begins. 3 people skiing some 50-100m out of course triggered avalanche and one of them was buried in. I have no idea how things went from that time (or before that), as I skied down to this location only some 45-50min later, and I joined searching (at that time I had no info how long search was going on already, and I got this info only later on when comparing my gps watch track with police report). People were probing snow and digging holes randomly somewhere on upper part of bottom half of avi path. When having my transciever in search mode, I wasn't getting any signal, but from time to time there was a beep. Two guys skiing with buried skier were telling he had transciever but was old or/and not working good. After few minutes of probing, and few beeps from my transciever, I asked if anyone actually went down the avi path and check. I got another "his transciever is not working good" explanation, and we should keep probing here, as there was glove and ski pole found around this place. Then me and guy probing next to me decided to go down avi path checking with transcievers if there's some signal (at that time there was around 10 to 12 people already on spot searching). Once we headed down, we got first signal some 15 or 20m lower, and in next few meters I got signal lock leading me straight to the buried person. We have located guy real fast and in less then 5min, once we decided to go down to search, he was dig out, being buried some 50 to 60cm under snow. Unfortunately that was almost 1h after avalanche went down, so I guess it's no need to tell the outcome.
That's end of story, and now it comes part, that I really want to talk about. Considering how fast we found him, you can think by yourself, what could be, if I would come to spot minute or two after slide, or more importantly... what would be, if people would know how to act in situation like this. Everyone relied on info that his transciever is not working good, so noone went to check avi path. They were completely randomly probing some maybe 20x20m spot in middle of path, hoping they will find him. In reality, they were at least 50m away from his position... Unfortunately far enough that transcievers didn't catch his signal. I believe it's hard to keep your head cool in such situation, and honestly I'm actually proud to myself I reacted like I did, but considering it didn't change outcome, that means nothing. But with a bit of practice, you should know what to do.
So whole point of this is, to try to tell everyone to read at least manuals that come with transciever. It says there what basic procedures are, including searching whole avi path. Do some training with this, and repeat it as often as you can. I have zero official training, but I have some "lesson" every time I go with few friends who are all pro mountain guides with 20+ years of experiences. I do "test" search trying to find buried transciever whenever we go with wife out in backcountry. All it takes is another transciever and 10 or 15min time. Not much when you consider this can save someone's life.
So would really love to ask everyone who ever heads out to backcountry to read manuals, read some stuff (there's plenty of it online), do some test searches so in case worse thing happens, you can act accordingly. I, and I guess everyone else too, was hoping I will never ever need my transciever for anything else then training searches, but unfortunately that's not the case anymore. And I can tell you it's experience I would be happy not to have it. So again, please guys be responsible and invest some time into your, and your friends, loved ones or complete stranger's safety. It's not much, but on the end it can change world for some.
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