I’ve just come back from the 2nd part of my FFME (federation francaise de la montagne et de l escalade - part of the French Sports and Youth Ministry) ski guide leaders course (with a bad back due to the heavy rucksack and all the gear we were carrying). I thought I’d share some fairly unscientific results from our avalanche rescue exercises. This is really an important part of the course. Everyone attending the 5 day training and assessment has already completed a 1 day introduction and a 2 day training and formal assessment on avalanche avoidance and rescue but it is still an area which causes a lot of issues. In addition there is 6 days training for rope work / crevasse rescue and orientation bringing the total formal training to 14 days.

On the first part of the current module we had to locate two beacons buried less than 1 meter in a 30x30m zone in less than 5 minutes. I had my old X1 supplied by Facewest (http://www.facewest.co.uk) about 6 years ago. Not really state of the art then, or now. It has a long range but the processor is fairly slow and it is sensitive to interference. I found the first beacon (to probe touch) fairly quickly then used the 3 Circles method to try and locate the 2nd beacon.

If you are not familiar with the 3 circles method it is fairly simple. A digital beacon will lock onto the strongest signal in range. In digital mode (the X1 is bi-mode) the range is 10 to 30 meters depending on burial depth (the X1 switches to analog mode beyond 10 meters). So having found the first beacon and assuming the 2nd beacon is close to the first you move 3 meters away and walk a circle around the first victim to see if you lock on to a different signal (either outside or inside the circle) If you still have the first victim in range walk a further 3 meters (6 meters) then another 3 meters, by now you should have found the second beacon. It is a bomber method, the only problem is walking a circle on a 30 degree slope in avalanche debris is not that easy.

The X1 though is a picky beast. I found the 2nd signal pretty quickly but doing a fine cross search it would lock onto the first beacon for a period of 3 to 5 seconds meaning I had to stop. This lost a lot of time and I finally found the 2nd victim after 11 minutes. Not too bad but the X1’s flakey software and advancing years persuaded me to consider an upgrade so I asked Facewest to send me a Mammut Pulse and set about learning this beacon. Someone else had a Pulse on the course but had failed to locate one of the beacons due to poor technique and I will come back to this.

On the second module we had to locate two beacons buried 90cm and 140cm and dig out the victims in under 15 minutes in a 250sqm search area on a 30-35 degree slope in avalanche debris and icy firn snow. Alone. In use were Mammut Barryvox Opto 3000, Mammut Pulse, Arva 3 antennas and Ortovox F1. No one had a Tracker or S1. Only two of use completed the exercise in the given time (I was second coming in just under 15 minutes). Another guy did it in 11 minutes. We were both using the Mammut Pulse. Other times were from 15 to 20 minutes.

After locating the first victim the 2nd victim was at the range limit and I was getting very intermittent readings. I was worried I’d missed the beacon in the initial search phase and ended up scanning the search area from scratch which cost me a few minutes. The 2nd beacon was about 20 meters further up the slope from the first but buried at 140cm and this seems to be around the Barryvox’s range. The main advantages of the Barryvox are a simple and clear user interface and the marking function to eliminate already found signals. However you still have to go fairly slowly when you approach the victim, especially when making a cross search.

The Ortovox F1 needs a great deal of practise to use in these circumstances. The Arva 3 antenna is not as precise as the Pulse in the final search phase and the older 2 antenna Opto 3000 suffers from double minima with deeply buried beacons requiring extra care.

With the 90cm victim I established a search area of 30x30cm and used a grid probe to find the victim (a 10x20cm wooden board covering the beacon). I touched on the 4 or 5th probe about 10cm from the center. The 140cm beacon left me with a 75x75cm search zone and I used a spiral pattern touching the victim on the 8th probe about 30cm from center. After clearing some snow I rechecked my readings to confirm.

Key to completing the exercise in the time delay was good, disciplined probing technique and planning for shoveling. (Starting to shovel downslope at the same distance as the burial depth). Other trainees failed to establish an accurate search zone with their beacons, didn’t leave the probe in the ground once they got a contact or moved too quickly when doing a cross search.
Given the good accuracy of the Mammut Pulse you may question whether probing is worthwhile when the victim is less than 1 meter from the surface but it is worth placing a probe in the middle of your search zone for reference and then start digging the burial depth distance down slope towards the probe.

We then did an exercise in shoveling. A probe was place 150cm into the ground. We used the V method. Interestingly I’d seen a program on the BBC about African Saphire miners and they use exactly the same method to dig into the slopes in Madagascar. You place a shoveler at the head who uses a cut and sweep method to move snow to the left and right. At first two shoveler clear this snow from behind the head. The shoveler need to be just able to touch the tips of their shovels. As the hole deepens other shoveler can move in behind. The whole line should rotate every minute as being at the head is very tiring. Using this method we were able to reach the base of the probe in 5 minutes.

We also did a simulated group rescue. This was a bit of a lesson in how things can go wrong. We were looking for one or more beacons on a steep slope. There were 8 of us and no-one really took control of the situation. As a consequence there was a big scrum to find the first victim with probes and shovels flying everywhere. We then had the Opto 3000 and a Pieps DSP that kept switching back to send so you would end up following other members of the group around. The lesson seems to be that 1 searcher and prober should work on each victim with shoveler on hand. Although we found the first beacon pretty fast the problems with spurious signals meant it was 22 minutes before we dug out the 2nd.

We also did a simulated group rescue. This was a bit of a lesson in how things can go wrong. We were looking for one or more beacons on a steep slope. There were 8 of us and no-one really took control of the situation. As a consequence there was a big scrum to find the first victim with probes and shovels flying everywhere.

A wise trip leader had us try that on the first day of a week-long trip in Canada.
Same result.
Very sobering.

Other trainees failed to establish an accurate search zone with their beacons, didn’t leave the probe in the ground once they got a contact or moved too quickly when doing a cross search.

And these are the guys who cared enough about it to take a special course --
so might be faster than the “average” skier who might be searching for me someday.

it is worth placing a probe in the middle of your search zone for reference and then start digging the burial depth distance down slope towards the probe.

Good point.
American experts are putting much more emphasis on a thoughtful disciplined approach to digging. There is some feeling that now that the beacons have become so sophisticated, this is where the big gains are to be made in cutting burial time and rescuing brains while they’re still well-oxygenated.

Further thoughts:

* Why I wear an Avalung.
(Practicing beacon search and shoveling helps other skiers’ survival. The Avalung helps my survival.)

* If I ski in a party of 2, then the known group-organizing and beacon-signal complexities of multi-victim accidents cannot reduce my survival probability. A party of 3 is much less likely to have a multi-victim situation than a typical “club trip” of 8 or more.

* It’s much easier for a party of 2-4 to practice “spread out” + “one at a time” travel strategies than a party of 8-12. With parties of 8 or more, it just takes lots of time to ski it “one at a time”. And when making kick-turns / conversions up any slope that is not amazingly wide, there simply is not enough space for some of the 8 skiers not to be directly above others—in which case if one of the upper skiers triggers a release, it’s hard not to have a multi-victim situation.

* If a party of 8-12 does not have a leader who insists on “We must all stick together”, they often naturally break into (more compatible) groups of 2-4. This could be a good thing—especially if clubs would prepare their leaders and members for it to happen.

Ken

Good points about group size. 3-5 seems to the the optimum for safe, fast travel. Even with 5 people passing critical zones can eat a lot of time. With big groups (8-12) you really need to be doing relatively straightforward routes I think. Slopes with few places where conversions are needed etc.

Another mistake that was made on the course was probing vertically rather than probing at right angles to the slope. On a number of occasions, when a reliable probe touch couldn’t be made, the beacon was eventually found forward of the probe, requiring more digging than is necessary. As you say, digging is a big area where time is lost. If the probe had been placed at 90 degrees to the (30 degree) slope it would have been much closer to the victim ‘beacon’. This also highlighted to me that a modern 3 antenna beacon really does give you an accurate location… establish your minimum points and search in the middle of this box.