AVALUNG, BEACONS AND KNOWING WHAT EACH THING DOES
13 min · Free lesson · written from fifteen years in the terrain
After this lesson you know exactly what each item in the rescue kit does and does not do, so you can stop carrying things out of habit and start carrying them for a reason.
The Technique
- The trio is not negotiable and it is not a matter of taste: transceiver, probe, shovel, carried on your body, on every single day in avalanche terrain. Any one of the three missing makes the other two close to useless. A transceiver finds the area, the probe finds the person, and the shovel is what actually gets them out, which is the slowest part of every rescue anyone has ever run.
- The transceiver is a radio, not a magic wand. It tells you where a buried transmitter is, and only if it is switched to send, only if it has battery, and only if someone in your party knows how to search. It does nothing at all unless the people standing next to you are trained and practised, which is why we make companion rescue a mandatory module rather than a suggestion. Batteries fresh, phones and heated gear kept well away from it, group check at the trailhead every day.
- The probe and shovel are the unglamorous half and they decide outcomes. A metal shovel, not plastic, because avalanche debris sets like concrete. A probe long enough for the snowpack you are in. Strategic shovelling technique moves far more snow than digging straight down, and it is worth practising in your own back yard with a mate before it matters.
- Now the AvaLung, honestly. It was designed to address a real problem: a large share of avalanche deaths are asphyxia rather than trauma, and it works by drawing air from the surrounding snowpack and venting your exhaled breath away from your face, delaying the carbon dioxide build up that kills. In principle that is a sound answer to the right question.
- The house position, plainly stated: Dan does not carry one and would rather every rider wore an airbag instead. The reason is practical rather than theoretical. The mouthpiece only works if it is in your mouth, and the odds of getting it in while you are being tumbled through moving debris are slim. The odds of keeping it there while you are being thrown around and hitting things are also slim. To have any real chance it needs to be in your mouth before the slide starts, which means riding with it in, which almost nobody does for a whole day. Meanwhile an airbag needs one pull of a handle you have practised finding.
- That said, it is your call and it is respected. If you want to carry one, carry one, and carry it properly: mouthpiece within reach, harness worn correctly, and practise getting it in fast. Note also that product availability has changed over the years, so check what is actually on the market rather than assuming. What we ask is that it is in addition to the trio and ideally an airbag, never instead of them.
- The rest of the kit, briefly and honestly. A helmet reduces the trauma that airbags do nothing about. Radios shorten every decision on the hill and are underrated. A satellite communicator is how the outside world learns you need help, and it belongs on a person, not in a machine. A first aid kit with a bleed component covers what happens after the dig. None of these change the snowpack either.
- Which brings the whole thing to the point that matters more than any purchase. Every item in this lesson is what you fall back on when your decision making has already failed. The order of importance runs terrain choice first, group protocol second, training third, and equipment last. Riders who get that order backwards buy their way into terrain that then buys them a rescue.
Common Mistakes
Carrying rescue gear you have never practised with. Fix: gear you cannot use fast is weight. Drill the search, drill the dig, drill the deployment.
- Treating a full kit as a licence for bigger terrain. Fix: the kit does not change the slope. Nothing in your pack makes a persistent weak layer safer.
- The transceiver in the pack rather than on the body. Fix: packs get torn off. It goes under your outer layer, in its harness, every day.
The Drill
The full kit audit, done in the driveway before the trip. Lay everything out. For each item say out loud what it does, what it does not do, and when you last practised with it. Anything you cannot answer for either gets practised this week or stays home.
None of this equipment prevents an avalanche and none of it substitutes for formal avalanche training with field days. If you are entering avalanche terrain, do a certified course, and do the companion rescue module in this library before you travel with us. This is general guidance, not medical or professional advice.
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