What I learned in Avalanche School

[I've seen black diamonds!]

This quote from the article is worth considering. "Then Ryan revealed a second twist: By entering the storefront two hours earlier, by taking an avalanche-safety course, we had statistically increased our chances of being killed in an avalanche. We were more likely to die now than we were at 8 a.m."

That might be expressed another way: the stated purpose of an avalanche course is to make you less likely to die in an avalanche; the actual purpose is to make you more comfortable about skiing in avalanche-prone conditions.

The interpretation of the statistic in the article and your restatement of that interpretation are wrong.

My take is that people with some avalanche education get that education so they can recreate in avalanche terrain and that, in and of itself raises the chances that something avalanche related may befall them,

Yes. That statistic almost certainly tells us more about who takes avy classes than the efficacy of those classes. It is entirely possible for avy education to vastly increase the safety of participants AND for those participants to die more frequently than BC skiers who don't take avy classes.

[idahospud]

My take is that people with some avalanche education get that education so they can recreate in avalanche terrain and that, in and of itself raises the chances that something avalanche related may befall them,

I don't understand how this concept could be anything but crystal clear.

If a person doesn't go into avalanche terrain and hasn't taken an avy class of some sort, their risk is zero for the purpose of this discussion. If this person then takes a course and as a result of taking this course, feels comfortable beginning to venture into avalanche terrain, their risk rises to some non-zero value. They wouldn't be there were it not for the course, thus it has raised their chances of being involved in an incident.

[bodywhomper]

I’d like to see a widely read rebuttal piece.

Like from nick p of the New Yorker. It would be glorious (but wishful thinking) if it was a harsh satire via Shouts and Murmurs.

Or Megan M could pen a rebuttal for outside or SI.

[sf]

My take is that people with some avalanche education get that education so they can recreate in avalanche terrain and that, in and of itself raises the chances that something avalanche related may befall them,

+1

[skifishbum]

I just got out of a hut trip in Canada to find about 8 emails sending me the link to that NYT article. I skimmed it and wasn't quite sure exactly WHY it got under my skin, but your comments all helped, especially Summit's. Thanks.
anytime you write about your experience for a hi-vis magazine you end up NOT entering into the experience fully, and she comes from a place of fear and lack of understanding of WHY we like to ski in the backcountry. Just go to the mall, fergodsakes, lady.

id share what i lernt in padi shark avoidance school
but i dont bother paying another dive instructor when i just dont recreate in the domain of people eating machines of unpredictablities that i fear
the article comments are about what i expect from people with nothing better to do with their time
than comment on the nyt digital dipshit board

[mall walker]

By that same logic? Yes.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. It isn't a criticism of the course, it's just that the course generally precedes folks doing something with some risk, so of course the associated risk will go up after taking the course.

The useful measurement would be, "what is the difference in risk between people who go in the bc without having taken a course vs with," though of course this is much harder to quantify.

[plugboots]

I think I might read one of her novels.

https://www.notablebiographies.com/n...its-Heidi.html

[Jonathan S.]

I think I might read one of her novels.

https://www.notablebiographies.com/n...its-Heidi.html

She's wonderfully consistent about not speaking up:
"Confidential details about her admirably cautious spending habits, however, were revealed in an article her ex-husband wrote for the New York Times in the fall of 2000, about a year after their divorce. In it, former magazine editor and food writer Manny Howard, whom she had married in 1997, confessed that he had siphoned $6,000 out of their joint savings account during the time when she was still waiting tables and working on her first novel. He finally told her about it—but Julavits had been keeping an eye on the account and watched it dwindle without asking him about it."

And best not to bother telling her what we think of her avy course article:
"Julavits quickly learned to refrain from reading any critical assessments of her work at all. "I would read a review with the tiniest little criticisms in it, and I would be completely under the table for three days," she told Hagan in the New York Observer interview. "In the end, since I'm not able to sort out the good and the bad, and I just focus on the bad, it's better just not to read them at all.""

[bodywhomper]

Even better reason for a well written satire in a high circulated publication. See if the author can be trolled

[old goat]

The interpretation of the statistic in the article and your restatement of that interpretation are wrong.



Yes. That statistic almost certainly tells us more about who takes avy classes than the efficacy of those classes. It is entirely possible for avy education to vastly increase the safety of participants AND for those participants to die more frequently than BC skiers who don't take avy classes.

I'm trying to sat the same thing you and Bunion are--taking the course makes you more likely to travel in avalanche terrain and also to travel in avalanche terrain in riskier conditions. That doesn't mean the course content is useless or dangerous. I would hope that someone who takes the course and goes into avalanche terrain is safer than somebody who goes into avalanche terrain with no knowledge or training. I would hope that someone who takes the course and then chooses to ski on considerable and high days does better route selection than someone who doesn't. I would hope that knowledge of heuristic traps would make people a little more conservative in their choices. Unfortunately it seems that at least some people who take courses use the course to justify riskier decisions without doing anything to mitigate the risk. By the time you take the first turn down an avalanche prone slope that ends in a terrain trap the fact that you took a course won't help you. It might help your friends dig you out while you're still alive, but don't count on it.

To put it more simply--it's what you do with the course that matters.