The Smartest Avalanche Beacon

[Paul Oberin]

Personally, I'd take an ABS over an Avalung. The results are very impressive. Anyone selling them is Aus?

I can get them from BCA

[Paul Oberin]

I was lucky enough to be shown a working model of the DTS3 beacon planned for release in about 12 months time, nice compact unit with some new features.

[rider26]

Hey Paul,

Have you heard of the WARY Avi Vest?

http://www.thewary.com/vest/index.php

I was wearing one yesterday. Very impressed with the fit and function.

[Paul Oberin]

Hey Paul,

Have you heard of the WARY Avi Vest?

http://www.thewary.com/vest/index.php

I was wearing one yesterday. Very impressed with the fit and function.

They sound good, they appear to have the same features and function as the BCA ones.

[Paul Oberin]

A lot of people are concerned about taking an Avi pack through an airport, I had it explained to me at the recent Denver trade show how the system works, and it is basically a small cylinder with a screw top lid, this cylinder get filled up with clean breathable compressed air, and when the system is triggered the air cylinder rushes out and fills the airbag, no explosives are involved, the cylinder with out the lid screwed on looks a lot like an Aluminium drink bottle and should appear quite safe to take in you carry on luggage.
The good thing about using clean compressed air, is the air bag slowly deflates over a few minutes, and if trapped under an avalanche the extra air this provides can keep you alive for a fair bit longer, the two main benefits of an airbag though are they tend to keep you close to the surface, and they are also very bright in colour so tend to be highly visible.

[rider26]

Check this out.

[Paul Oberin]

Check this out.

The type of terrain he rides, it was only a matter of time before he got caught out, where he is smart though is he spends very little time in any one chute, he crosses over quickly into the next one where he can, he also tends to ski the ridges a bit, that way if a chutes slides you are usually much safer up on a ridge.
Like he said though there were warning signs he should have taken into account, and in hindsight there usually is with most slides, it was a warmer day, so the snow crystals are less likely to bond to each other, there was a known layer of snow that was likely to slide, yet they still went out.
As this guy said also his mouth was full of snow, which is quite common, maybe the addition of an Avalung could have helped here, hopefully one day some company will find a way of having an Avalung / airbag combination in a lightweight pack.

[rider26]

That would be sick. Pull the ripcord and put it in your mouth in one clean motion.