Having recently aquired an avalanche beacon at a princely sum, I figured I was well on my way towards backcountry skiing and exploration. I had always assumed that all the people I'd seen leaving the Alpental backcountry gates had all the necessary equipment -- after all, the requirements seem to be the pretty standard "forecast, beacon, probe, shovel, and partner" deal that you see at every backcountry gate at every ski area.
Snowshoeing a few weeks ago I had run into a few groups of skiers. While they had passed my, I briefly switched my beacon to search to play with it. To my utter surprise, not one was transmitting.
Standing at the backcountry gate at Alpental yesterday, I did the same test -- this time rather than to play with the beacon, I wanted to see how many of the large group of 10-15 people currently heading out had a beacon. It should have been no surprise, even given their backbacks and shovels, that not one had a beacon.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment