Shovels tested...Results predictable

[Chowda]

Just saw this linked at wildsnow.com, and don't remember seeing it here.

FWIW the test claims to be independent, but the article is hosted by Voile.

http://www.voile-usa.com/AvalancheVol86_54-60.pdf

Edit: in case Voile removes the article or you don't want to read the article. The T6 aluminum shovels, Voile Telepro T6, XLM, XLM Pro, and the G3 AviTECH D-Grip were all given the highest marks.

All other shovels tested had some kind of major blade deformation or failure.

The BD Transfer 7 received the worst review, and was basically totaled, as was the Peips pro.

The Ortovox Grizzley and Alaska, and Mammut Expert had significant blade damage.

The shaft of the BCA Chugach Pro EXT was bent in the test.

The other shovel tested a Stubai, had the locking pins fail and blade deformation.

[sar13]

Good review. Wish they had tested my Ortovox Expert but certainly makes me question the BD T7 I have in my light pack.

[stalefish3169]

After hearing Manuel Genswein speak at ISSW, I'd have to say that he is kind of a kook. Judging from the many sneers and snickers coming from the crowd, it's likely I'm not alone on this one.

[Chowda]

After hearing Manuel Genswein speak at ISSW, I'd have to say that he is kind of a kook. Judging from the many sneers and snickers coming from the crowd, it's likely I'm not alone on this one.

That may be the case. It seems they may have been pounding on the shovels a bit more then is realistic in a rescue situation. The comment about damaging boots while stepping on the top of the blade made me wonder.

What I took away from it was that the T6 aluminum is much tougher then the competition.

[Sirshredalot]

I've never heard anyone recommending stomping on the blade repeatedly as a shoveling technique in a rescue situation. Obviously avy debris can be very hard and you gotta do what it takes in a rescue, but I doubt that the amount of stomping described is realistic.

But I did buy my AviTech because it seemed bombproof, which this apparently confirms.

[XtrPickels]

sketchy to me that their shovels rate the best and they omit pictures of them.

[time2clmb]

What a crock. Nothing more than marketing. It's clear that the write up is well thought out. Put all the bad competitor reviews first, and then save the "saviour" Voile reviews right to the end so the excellent performance is fresh in the mind of the reader. If there was no damage at all, then put the pictures in to proove it. Also, the lack of cons in the Voile shovel is suspicious. There are cons to everything.

I had a Voile shovel with a built in saw. The p.o.s. pins fell out. I have a buddy that has a Voile shovel with a similar problem too.

[CookieMonster]

Did anyone else notice the CAA logo on the bottom left of each page and the CAC News text in the header? Looks like a reprint from somewhere.

[nickwm21]

ive got the voile with the probe that goes inside... decent size probe too, i think its 9'. good to know that they are durable

[advres]

You supposedly have one but you needed someone else to tell you how durable it is?

[stalefish3169]

ive got the voile with the probe that goes inside... decent size probe too, i think its 9'. good to know that they are durable

It is widely agreed upon that the probes that pack into shovel shafts are no substitute for a quality probe. Similarly, ski pole probes are junk too. That being said, they are better than nothing. You should think about upgrading. I'm sure your ski partners would appreciate it.

[summit]

BCA started the trend of better marketing through "research papers." Voile is just continuing...

[neck beard]

^yes.

.......

[neck beard]

Adding something useful to the topic:

I had this shovel a few seasons ago, dug about 50 pits. The shaft clean snapped where the nipple holes attach it to the blade. Hacking at a very hard layer. http://en.ortovox.com/safety_product...al_alu_ii.html

I have the old version of this shovel, dug about 150 pits with it and no damage at all (I have the older grey version minus the flashy graphics)
http://en.ortovox.com/safety_product...ls/alaska.html

[stuckathuntermtn]

The same is true for plastic shovels. They usually break in cold temperatures
and hard debris before the first buried subject can be excavated

what about Lexan? although metal rocks.
so, my transfer 3...? Honestly it seems bomb proof, but then again, it's more of a side-country shovel. In which case you'd only have a Vibram toe and heel, so no shredding.
I agree that it's sketchy they didn't put in a pick of their own shovels. They could have at least showed them all scratched up to lend some credibility.

[stalefish3169]

what about Lexan? although metal rocks.
so, my transfer 3...? Honestly it seems bomb proof, but then again, it's more of a side-country shovel.

Try cutting through some woody debris with that plastic blade sometime and see what happens.

And telling yourself that lesser gear is ok because you're only skiing side-country is a serious oversight.

Be careful out there!

[CookieMonster]

Didn't a plastic shovel break during rescue efforts following the SME/La Traviata avalanche in 2003?

http://www.telemarktips.com/TeleNews69.html

[stuckathuntermtn]

Try cutting through some woody debris with that plastic blade sometime and see what happens.

And telling yourself that lesser gear is ok because you're only skiing side-country is a serious oversight.

Be careful out there!

I understand completely, and I have a metal shovel. I have yet to ski any back and side country, I just have a safety kit. No skins or AT gear. I'm poor and a total wanabe.

[Core Shot]

I had no idea you were supposed to step on the blade like a dirt diggin shovel.

I could see that causing some failures. They fucked up those first few shovels pretty bad.

[emr]

I had this shovel a few seasons ago, dug about 50 pits. The shaft clean snapped where the nipple holes attach it to the blade. Hacking at a very hard layer. http://en.ortovox.com/safety_product...al_alu_ii.html

I just bought this shovel last year, seems alright so far... better than the plastic one I had previous. Just sucks to hear it snapped in that fashion. Any warnings before the break?

[Jonathan S.]

The article was widely published (e.g., both AAA's TAR in addition to CAA).
The article did make some good points about matching shaft strength with blade size.
And I was reassured to know that the relatively diminutive Voile shovels in my quiver are sufficiently strong.
Plus I was glad to see someone independently testing shovel durability -- I think a small backcountry.com review is the only such test I've ever seen, and it didn't even attempt to simulate actual digging stresses. ("Because I don’t have a cool oscillating machine to test each shovel, I came up with my own method of simulating a year of vigorous use. I froze the shovels overnight, parked the front tire of my truck on the blade, put a five-foot pipe in the handle slot, and reefed on them until they fractured. Of course, you’d never put this much stress on a shovel in real life, but it did help distinguish the burly shovels from the weaker ones. The handles were also frozen and positioned in space between two pieces of wood. Using Rutschblock Test guidelines (standing, bouncing, and jumping), each handle broke with a big jump; there was no notable strength difference between brands.")

Otherwise, that's about it for anything positive that can be said about this article. I'll leave the detailed critique up to a letter from BD, with incorporated quotes from other companies, reproduced in its entirety below:

****

January 13, 2009

Subject: Recent European Shovel Review.

A few of you have brought up this shovel review conducted in Europe by the Austrian Alpine Club (published in Europe by Bergundsteigen) and I want share my thoughts on why we disagree with both the objective and the results, as well as share what some other shovel manufacturers are saying about this flawed test.

Just two years ago in Europe we were credited with bringing improved safety and reliability to avalanche shovels by bringing to market metal shovels that competed with the popular plastic models without compromising weight or cramping space. Reviews were stellar. In the attached shovel report carried out by Manuel Genswein and Ragnhild Eide of the Austrian Alpine Club, a seemingly non-existent bar was raised to which our shovel and our competitors’ models were benchmarked to ditch-digging type of utilitarian shovels.

In our view, the technique used in the test involving hammering down with ski boots onto the back edge of the shovels is only used for and should only be used for, dead body recovery. We have questioned several seasoned professional patrollers about this technique just to be sure, and none of them have ever dug in a rescue search in the manner described in this test. Most commonly, rescuers are down on their knees chopping and shoveling very quickly. Digging with feet in a rescue scenario is very dangerous for a buried victim and such a test advocates and promotes an unusual, dangerous method.

We concur with these official statements about the test by other avalanche shovel manufacturers:

Pieps: “Basically you can destroy any piece of equipment, if you want…The strike with your foot method is dangerous for the victim…For this test to use this method and call it correct blade use is dangerous to publish…Such articles contribute to unjustified insecurity for many alpinists and are not consistent with the information and knowledge with which this journal has become popular.”

Ortovox: “…We believe that so-called tests like the one…by Manuel Genswein and Ragnhild Eide only create uncertainty for consumers…. The results of this test are not comprehensible.”

In an extreme case, when there is a very big avalanche that’s packed so cement-solid that avalanche rescue shovels would break when pounded on by boots, rescue crews are using steel bladed, wood handled shovels to dig out dead bodies. This is not what our shovels are designed to do. They are not for digging ditches in glaciers. They are for snow pit and avalanche emergencies, they are rapid response tools. With this in mind, we’ve designed our shovels for optimal snow volume capacity, ease and quickness of deployment, ergonomics, lightweight, and strength (within parameters of safe and realistic use).

Several of these other design points were brought up in the test and here’s a little information on each:

Grip design: Modern versions of the T grip handle like ours with rounder, ergonomic shaping were complimented in the article “except for rescuers with small hands”. Just like glove fitting, there is such a wide range of hand sizes and shapes that it’s impossible to cover the whole range in one design. We did a lot of testing when designing our shovel grip, including a range of smaller hands and created our grip to fit the widest range. The advantage of an ergonomic T grip over a D grip, are many. T grips fit better in packs than D grips. D grips that are carried on the outside of packs are dangerous as they can get caught on objects such as tree branches. While shoveling, T grips offer far more control to the grip hand where D grips, because they can rotate in the hand, offer little control making the shaft hand do all the control work.

Blade shape: The back edge of our shovels is not designed to be smashed on by boots. It is designed to hold and move a lot of snow, quickly. Shovels in the test that did well with boots, which have a flatter back edge design, simply do not hold the volume of snow that our shovels do, which we find, in normal rescue digging situations, to be most important.

Shaft shape: Our Trapezoidal shaft shape was found to “…exhibit more resistance while mounting, removing or adjusting the length, but will not waste time aligning the push-pin with the extension hole”. When it comes to quick deployment, we’ve found that pin alignment during extension is far more important than the very slight resistance one may feel over a round shaft while extending. When every second counts, the importance between these two things is not even comparable.

In the criteria mentioned above, we are the best on the market and we will continue to create shovels with these criteria in mind, which we feel best cater to the true needs of rescuers, not for the very extreme, dangerous, subjective, and unusual criteria of this latest magazine test.

Thanks for reading our response and passing it along to anyone concerned.

Tor Brown
Black Diamond Equipment
Product Line Manager - Ski Category

[Jonathan S.]

The BD Transfer 7 received the worst review, and was basically totaled [...]

Note that this is primarily (or maybe even only) because the testers were stomping on the top edge of the blade. So much different durability for anyone who abstains from such a practice (which is probably 100% of BD Transfer 7 owners).

Also, just noticed the earlier thread here on this:
[ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148908"]Genswein Shovel Test - Teton Gravity Research Forums[/ame]

[Jonathan S.]

It is widely agreed upon that the probes that pack into shovel shafts are no substitute for a quality probe.

The BCA Companion Probe is very short and potentially tricky to assemble. Fortunately, BCA will finally be discontinuing it this fall upon the debut of their new Arsenal line of shovels with integrated probe or saw.

The Voile probe that can fit inside one of their shovels looks pretty decent though:
http://www.voile-usa.com/Merchant2/m...roduct_Count=1

[Jonathan S.]

Didn't a plastic shovel break during rescue efforts following the SME/La Traviata avalanche in 2003?

http://www.telemarktips.com/TeleNews69.html

According to the March '04 Baumann report (yes, quite controversial, but still, the most complete attempted record of the incident):

*****

3. At the accident scene, there were initially only seven survivors available to carry out the rescue. There is no record of whether all of the rescuers had proper dedicated avalanches probes and shovels, and whether they were able to efficiently use their avalanche transceivers to locate the buried victims. Some reports suggest that some of the rescuers only had ski poles to use as probes, and small, less effective plastic shovels. There is also some indication that the rescuers coming down the couloir initially walked over the first two
fully buried victims without picking up a transceiver signal, which suggests that they may not have been effectively using their avalanche transceivers at this time. One client claims that the group received only an hour and a half of transceiver and rescue practice when they arrived at the chalet. It is also not known what brand of transceivers were being used, and whether they were all in good working order.

4. Of the 13 skiers who were caught in the slide, six survived and seven died. There is some inconsistency about how many people were totally buried; most likely eight were fully buried, and five were partially buried. Only one of the eight skiers who were totally buried survived; he was found 280 centimetres down after 30 minutes. According to Larry Stanier’s report to the Coroner, those who died were buried from 130 to 280 cm deep.

[Driver]

Good response by BD...