#if you are sticking to resorts and the official slopes then you'll be fine

[slow-button-off]

after shaming Charles lack of backpack I was asked if I could explain avalanche gear a little bit so this is a little avalanche gear 101 feat. my gear

I'm not an avalanche expert but I do know my stuff somewhat because this is one of my hobbies. btw I don't do this allone I just cropped everyone else out also this was last year

Beacon

The beacon is the bare minimum and in an ideal world you would also wear one when you go off piste at resorts.

You wear them as close to your body as possible so usually on top of your base layer.

The beacons are transceivers so they can transmit and recieve signals. Ideally you set your beacon to send when you leave the car and then don't touch it until you are back in the car to turn it off.

It's super important because this is what helps others to find you should you have gotten into an avalanche. The others will put theirs on search and then the beacon will tell them how far and in what distance you are.

Searching with a beacon is a little bit more complicated than it sounds but it's really important because it allows you to locate someone much much faster and the first 15 minutes are absolutely crucial!

You should also do a test before you get going every single time to make sure that everyone turned theirs on properly

Shovel and probe

A first aid kit is useful just in general and a rescue blanket thingy is great to have if you do encounter an avalanche.

The shovel and probe are often sold in bundles with the beacons so thats great!

The shovels are in two parts to make taking them with you easier. They aren't super great but they do their job.

The probes are folded and if you pull on that loop it puts itself together and essentially becomes a +2m measuring stick.

If there has been an avalanche you use the beacon to identify the position of the person and then you use the probe to find out how deep they are buried (by sticking the probe into the snow until you hit something) and usually to find out a little bit more about their position so you don't whack them over the head with the shovel.

And then you start digging but not from the top, you want to dig in from the side.

And every single person should carry all of this. Because the shovel isn't going to be usefull if it is buried.

Airbag Backpack

Airbag backpacks are somewhat "luxury" items because they are really expensive but they do come in handy.

They include an airbag that you can inflate using the handle (you have to pull much harder on that than you think) and it's inflated using that cartidge. The cartridges are "reusable" as in you can get them refilled with gas after usage.

The main thing about the airbag is that it keeps you from being buried super deep but you have to set it of quickly enough. So you'll be much closer to the surface which increases the survival by a lot.

The backpacks are that big because you carry all of the above gear and usually food, tea, and for the most part warm clothes for the skiing bit + a helmet with you.

General Avalanche info

Everyone that spends time in the backcountry should go to avalanche training once a year just to refresh the theory on how to avoid them and to practice rescuing people. Because practice makes perfect and time really is of the essence in this case because after about 15 minutes the probability of finding someone alive goes down rather quickly.

There is a whole lot that goes into avalanche risk assessment because there are also quite a few different types of avalanches.

Like how much snow there is, what the weather has been the last like month, how steep the mountain/route is and so on.

In most places there is a public avalanche report where you can find infos on the conditions from professionals.

And in an ideal world you'd do an snow test like the extended column test every single time to find out about problem layers and so on.

but that's where I am going to leave it or this post will never ever end!