Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Years ago I asked backcountry skiers on the internet when is it safe to not carry avy gear? Beacon probe shovel. I was scolded that I would even consider doing that. But low angle Oregon conditions it’s quite common to go without. Other places it’s an absolute must always apparently.

How is with this crowd? I’d think fairly common to go without, sounds like a low angle Nordic crowd. But….maybe not, given big avalanches coming down from above being a hazard, say, in the Alps.

The simple answer is to use avy gear in avy terrain. But there's peeps that will shit their pants about tree wells and terrain traps and the 1 in 1000 freak occurrence that you get caught up in a hazard on low angle slopes, then suddenly you're responsible for someone getting themselves into trouble in very unlikely places, and then you're liable because you were in proximity without the gear, and maybe or maybe not the victim had a transceiver......avoid liability by having gear. Covid brought in a time where the safety of the whole is the responsibility of the individual

Aren’t you always responsible for others who got into trouble? Not in the meaning of being guilty for other people’s suffering per se. But in the meaning of helping everyone else who got into trouble or an emergency situation.
Hasn’t this always been a big part of living together and of being in nature together in the history of human beings? In the mountains and on the sea it has always been not only a point of honor but also some kind of law, written or unwritten, to provide help.
Everyone is well-advised to develop risk management. Did you ever read Nadine Stair‘s words on „If I had my life to live over: ...I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have...“
You can travel light and have a perfect risk management at the same time.
Unfortunately, nowadays the parachute aspect gets more and more overrated. At least this is what can be witnessed in the European Alps and it’s not good in which directions things are moving. Common sense is getting more and more replaced by exaggerated fear and gaps of education.
Social ethics aside: My risk management says, if there’s any chance of an avalanche occurring, then you have to have avy equipment in your bag. Not only to help the ones your with, but also those you don’t even know.

In Pa, like many other places, there is no need for any avy gear. In Ak I'll only take it if I'm taking skins. When I leave the skins home I know I can stay out of trouble. I will take a shovel on some tours, not so much for avy rescue, but I use it to dig out a comfortable seat for a break.

Ya know, I always have a transceiver (I use a Barryvox) on my person and a probe and a shovel in my pack. It's a habit, a good habit, skiing in Colorado.
Many of the places I ski have low avi danger, but then again, ya never know.
The shovel, even in non avi terrain, is incredibly useful for building the aforementioned lunch seat, maybe a wind break, too, but also in case a bivy is needed, for shelter building, i.e. trench, snow cave.
Some avalanche shovels are incredibly lightwt. and are hardly noticed in the pack.
When I first started backcountry skiing, and for many years, I used adjustable ski poles that would screw together to make a short, clumsy, but somewhat effective probe. The advent of lightwt. folding dedicated probes has completely replaced everything else and are much easier to deploy and use in an avalanche deposition zone.
They're also handy for probing for other things; snow covered creek crossings, thin ice, etc. Haha, I once retrieved a partner's down jacket that had blown in the wind out on to a thinly frozen pond with my probe.

If the trip goes to easy terrain well clear of anything steeper than 30º, such as most of my tours in my local area, I only carry a shovel + maybe a probe if I want to measure snow depth. On the CZ side of the 3-country point here the biggest danger now are falling branches / trees... The bark beetles got carte blanche here... sharp contrast to the Austrian and German side of the border.
For all tours in the Alps I always carry probe, beacon & shovel.