Blinkered and Blinded

I once was blind, but now I see.  John Newton

I was out on a ski tour the other day, and one of our group was getting a little excited about checking our avalanche beacons. My preference is to ski a little away from the side of the road to check beacons and also, particularly on cold days, to warm up a little. Some might argue that checking your beacon near the vehicle means you can do something productive if one person's avalanche beacon is malfunctioning, but I don't actually know anyone who carries a spare beacon in their vehicles, and, for simple failures like dead batteries, we always have spare batteries in our repair kit.

In any case, the beacon check was duly completed and we carried on. What struck me as ironic was, during the course of our tour, we skied through one narrow terrain trap with steep slopes overhead on either side, we crossed the middle of another avalanche path, and, at one point began switchbacking up under another avalanche path. On each occasion, two of us spaced out, made sure the others crossed safely, and, finally, suggested that a more reasonable route was to switchback in the trees to the side instead of continuing under the avalanche path. In each of these instances, the person so very concerned with checking our beacons seemed totally oblivious.

The conventional wisdom is that there are three things you should never tour without: an avalanche beacon, a probe and a shovel. I think there is really one thing you should never tour without, and that's the ability to evaluate terrain. I have seen this same constellation of practices so many times I have come to expect it. People obsess over whether or not they have the latest greatest avalanche beacon (or other gadget) yet ski around in the backcountry without recognizing even the most obvious avalanche terrain.

I feel certain that 90% of these people could actually recognize avalanche terrain were they in a comfortable stress free environment, but, some how, put them out in the mountains traveling through unfamiliar terrain, generally following someone else, and the blinders go on. 

Spacing out to travel through a terrain trap