It’s that time of year again. I have to admit, I dread it a little. While other skiers are getting their gear tuned or taking a ski-conditioning class in a warm gym somewhere, my husband is dragging me out into the fresh snow and frigid air to get ready in what has become an early season tradition: beacon practice.
Avalanche beacons (like the Tracker2 we featured in our winter issue) transmit and receive radio signals so that rescuers outside the path of an avalanche can find and uncover victims trapped beneath the snow. But, chastises my husband, stopwatch in hand: they only work as well as the people who operate them. He wags his head, disapprovingly as I triumphantly uncover his blinking beacon. “Three minutes, 40 seconds? Can you hold your breath for three minutes and 40 seconds?”
He’s right, of course. The faster and more efficient you are at finding an avalanche victim, the safer it is to ski (or snowmobile, or snowshoe) in the backcountry. Still, I can’t help being a little smug when it takes him more than two and a half minutes to realize he has been standing below my beacon, which is dangling from the tree limb above his head. His beacon’s high-pitched beep screams, and he flashes me a dirty look as he finally looks up and snags mine. I smile sweetly. “What if the force of the avalanche pitched me into a tree? Good job, honey. That was a tough one.”
My hands are cold, and the snow is creep up the legs of my ski pants because we’ve been trudging around for so long. This is starting to feel less like bonding, and more like bondage. But after a few searches, I’m getting quicker. For the last try, he buries the beacon at least a football-field length away, but I hone in and find it fast enough to make him crack a smile. “Not bad. Not bad at all,” he says, a little condescendingly.
There is palpable stress in this exercise that mirrors most of the female-male ski trips I’ve taken, but without the actual skiing, we don’t have the exhilaration of powder turns to smooth the tension between us. Our annual beacon practice is more like the first bike ride or climbing trip I would take with a boyfriend; him watching my performance carefully and judgmentally, and me performing about half as well as I would without the added pressure of being judged.
The important thing, though, is not that we’re spending quality time with each other—the important thing is that we’re spending quality time with our avalanche equipment. Because if anything does go wrong in the backcountry, I want to be able to find him quickly enough to see that smile again, and hear him tell me, “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
Learn more about how to use an avalanche beacon:
- Look for avalanche safety courses (beacon practice included) available from resorts and experts like those at Telluride Ski Resort.
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Writer and editor Deb Dion has a hefty resume when it comes to adventures such as paragliding, hunting, hiking, and, of course, backcountry skiing. She is the editor at Telluride Magazine and is writing her memoir, “Learning to Fly.”
Great reminder Deb. In addition to knowing how to use our transceivers, it is also important to know how to shovel. Even if you can find a buried beacon, probe it and start shoveling in under a minute (which is my current goal), you can lose precious time if you don’t dig smart. Avoid digging a hole straight down to the buried victim. First probe for the victim. Once you find him, don’t remove the probe. Then, start digging a few feet downhill of the probe and dig towards the probe. When you unbury the victim, it will be easier to find his or her airway and clear it. Because, after all, that’s what it’s all about.