Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:51 am Post subject: Is beacon practice a waste of time?
Thinking about some issues that were talked about in another thread got me thinking.
In the realm of avy safety, where is our time best spent?
Assuming that we each have a limited amount of time to prepare ourselves for avy safety, is our time better spent learning routefinding techniques, learning about group dynamics and human factors, learing to interpret pit profiles, or learning to do complex searches with avy beacons? Or something else?
Beacons have been called a "last line of defense". How much time are you willing to put into a "last line of defense"? Would you rather spend time boning up on routefinding skills and group dynamics, or spend time looking for buried dummies. How would you rather your partner spent their time?
Ideally, we would be well rounded and versed in all of the areas. We would spend time polishing our skills and knowledge and really have the whole avy thing down pat. But who does? Enough is never really enough and there is always more to learn.
One might make the assertion that since beacon searches are the last line of defense that they are not worth spending much time on. Why put time into practicing for an unlikely scenario when you could really bone-up on something that you will use every time you go out?
Indeed, with newer directional beacons being as easy as they are to use, why spend much time with them at all? Why put time and energy into an unlikely scenario? Traditionally, analog beacons have required quite a bit of practice to have any proficiency at all. But things have changed...or have they?
Is "practice, practice, practice" a waste of time?
OK, sure, I'm playing devil's advocate and maybe even trolling a little , but if pro avy courses are under scrutiny to change, what changes do we need to make as a community as well? What paradigms are we stuck in? _________________ Avman
some instruction on how to use your beacon is a good thing. i think letting a L1 student see how hard it is to find a buried pack on a real slope will make them understand both how much they need to practice on their own and how much they never want to have to use it. beacon "practice" is something that can be done with your partner or now solo with the new beacon basins. i am happy to see those go in. if people need extra instruction, the snowbird basin will have a troller come over and spend some time with you.
in an L1 class you need to read your audience and teach accordingly. for instance, a group of bilers may need different instruction than your average bc tele skier. they both need to know how to use a beacon but there is a lot of ground to cover that may keep them from ever having to use one.
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 3488 Location: Golden CO
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 4:13 am Post subject: Re: Is beacon practice a waste of time?
Avman wrote:
Is "practice, practice, practice" a waste of time?
No.....
Practice, practice, practice, builds your skill level.
Think about it the first day you tried skiing, you sucked.
But, each time you went out skiing, your skill level increased. And eventually, you became a "skilled" skier.
Not only would I like to see folks practice with their transceiver's. But, I would like to see folks spend some serious time doing contintuing avalanche education (terrain skills, snow skils, group skills, etc...).
You can't save your own life with a tranciever. So the real question is do you prefer your partners who are in a position to save your life to be fast and efficient or kinda unsure?
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:19 am Post subject: Re: Is beacon practice a waste of time?
Hacksaw wrote:
Practice, practice, practice, builds your skill level.
Si, pero is it worth the extra time it takes to achieve an advanced skill level when you can have proficiency in single burials with a digital/directional beacon in 10 minutes?
Why take all the time and effort in achieving a high skill level of something you will probably never be required to use?
For example, you must:
<Be in an avy area
<Make a wrong decision or be incredibly unlucky
<Your partners (multiple) get in an avalanche
<Get buried by that avalanche
<Live thru the avy sans trauma (multiple)
<Still have people on top of the snow ready to find the victims before they suffocate
<Have a quick and successful beacon search and recovery for multiple victims
What I'm saying is that there is a whole lot of crap that has to go wrong before you even use a beacon for its intended purpose. If you have time to "practice, practice, practice" would'nt your time be better spent reducing the liklihood of the crap that leads up to the burial?
Perhaps working an extra 8 hrs to buy an avalung would be time better spent than 8 hrs of beacon practice?
just stirring the pot a little... _________________ Avman
Excellent topic Avman to follow up on the last topic. I think the last topic cited two problems with transceivers. : 1) whether or not people with transceivers take more chances?, and 2) is the time better spent on some other aspect of education or self-education?
The first is inconclusive statistically. On the second, there is no question that time spent on transceivers is time not spent on other topics. But statistics seem to show that about 40% of people caught in avalanches are fully buried and approximately 50-75% of those located by a transceiver survive (most recent statistics). Even if these numbers are off a bit, there appears to be obvious benefits to having a transceiver and knowing how to use it and how to efectively manage a rescue scene.
Clearly decisionmaking with respect to managing risk and terrain combined with attention to weather and forecasts can keep an accident from happening. But experience says that people still get caught. Transceiver use has a significant statistical chance of minimizing fatalities.
Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 242 Location: Rain City
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:46 am Post subject:
Acquiring a skill such as beacon searching through repeated practice is absolutely critical to being able to successfully use the skill in a real and therefore high stress situation.
Stress affects your ability to think; in fact, extremely emotional situations can cut off a person's ability to think at all (see Emotional Intelligence by Goleman). If you are not practiced at beacon searching and need to devote some concentration to find an actual burial, then you will suck at it. However, if you have frequently practiced searching, then your experience will likely carry you through the task despite the stress because you won't need to give it much thought, which is a good thing if you aren't able to think too clearly to begin with.
Avalanche instruction may need changes (I wouldn't know but I'll take your word for it), but de-emphasizing the importance of beacon practice isn't one of them.
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 116 Location: Chartreuse Mountains
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 9:03 am Post subject: Re: Is beacon practice a waste of time?
Avman wrote:
Hacksaw wrote:
Practice, practice, practice, builds your skill level.
is it worth the extra time it takes to achieve an advanced skill level when you can have proficiency in single burials with a digital/directional beacon in 10 minutes?
In my opinion recreational backcountry travellers should be proficient in single burial rescue scenarios. Group leaders, guides, pros, patrollers should be competent in multivictim scenarios.
As others have pointed out, it is not just about beacons but being able to keep a cool head in any number of events. For example on Sunday a skier twisted a knee climbing to a popular summit close to me. He was unable to move. There was no mobile phone access and the cloud base was too low for a helicopter to come. The group leader made up a sledge using the victim's skis and with rope they were able to haul the stricken skier down to a level where a helicopter could land (no mean feat, there was around 60cm of fresh snow). They cleared a landing spot, rigged a windsock to help the pilot etc. All of these techniques may be necessary during an avalanche rescue. _________________ PisteHors.com
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 4074 Location: 1608 folio
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 4:47 pm Post subject: Re: Is beacon practice a waste of time?
Hacksaw wrote:
Not only would I like to see folks practice with their transceiver's. But, I would like to see folks spend some serious time doing contintuing avalanche education (terrain skills, snow skils, group skills, etc...).
I think the question is better put as - which is preferrable for people to spend their time on, avalanche education, or beacon skills? I´d prefer a partner who spends his time on the former over the latter.
And I don´t buy the practice = competence in a stressful situation. Stress management is a different skill, and one that can´t be ¨taught¨
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 3488 Location: Golden CO
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject: Re: Is beacon practice a waste of time?
carl wrote:
And I don´t buy the practice = competence in a stressful situation. Stress management is a different skill, and one that can´t be ¨taught¨
Carl,
In a lot of respects your right.
But, which would you rather have someone who has practiced 10-20 hours with their transceiver (per season) looking for you when the *#@ hits the fan...... ???? Or someone who only did their transceiver practice for 30 minutes in October.....
For me, I'll take the guy/gal who has done regular transceiver practice.
The more reckless and ill-informed you and your partners are in your approach to backcountry skiing in avy terrain the more you will potentially benefit from lots of beacon practice.
Spending a lot of time practicing with your beacon instead of working on learning, and perfecting your "how to stay out of trouble in the first place" skills is simply bass-ackwards.
What statistics are these? Reviewing avalanche.org list of fatalities and close calls gives a very different picture.
The Tschirsky, Brabec, Kern statistics 1980-99 found that in the past few years survival rates have improved with a transceiver and burial times decreased. At the time of this study practice was thought to be the chief contributor as the new transceivers had yet to reach Europe in numbers.
I think statistics that include very old accidents on this topic are not reflective of techniques like tangential search patterns and new transceivers without ear plugs, to say nothing about familiarity with transceiver use. Survival rates will likely be lower in older accidents.
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, but if pro avy courses are under scrutiny to change, what changes do we need to make as a community as well? What paradigms are we stuck in?
???? Or someone who only did their transceiver practice for 30 minutes in October..... 
