Avalanche Safety Quiz

57 Responses to “Avalanche Safety Quiz”

1. Lou September 20th, 2006 10:12 am

   John, good points and I’ll work on it. But some of your questions are answered in the header, and on the questions and answers page you’ll have access to once you complete the quiz.

   I believe that stuff has a lot of educational value.

   BTW, formal avalanche training does little to reduce the risk of avalanche death, and the question is weighted to reflect that (grin).

2. John Rosendahl September 20th, 2006 10:03 am

   The quiz is a good idea but it really needs the following.
   1) The score is meaningless, I got a 1920ish out of 5000.
   What does that actualy mean, am I shooting for 5000 or 0?
   2) There is no opertunity for learning, all you get is a number I would display a copy of the quiz and have at leas a discussion of the question and the anwser. I.E
   Do you have formal (avalanche school etc.) avalanche safety training?
   [100pts] Yes
   [50pts] No
   [0 pts] What’s an avalanche?
   Having an formal avalance education can help you understand and mitagate your risk. Blah blah blah…

   That way people will learn from taking the quiz, and be able to modify their behaviour. I, for instance, travel in groups of 2-4 people. How would it modify my risk profile if I traveled in a group of six?

   While it would be good to be able to add (you anwsered X) to each question it would require a bit more scripting work.

   The mark of a good test is that you know more after taking it than you did before.

3. Matt Kelly September 20th, 2006 1:23 pm

   Good quiz Lou. I scored in the range I imagined I would (2 out of 5). One comment though – I was personally offended that Wyoming was glaringly omitted from the mid-continent answer.

   – Matt

4. Lou September 20th, 2006 1:34 pm

   Woops!

5. Steve D. September 20th, 2006 7:29 pm

   Lou- Another great idea from the jedi master of the winter backcountry. Read the header, read the answers and agree with the first commenter, put a little more emphasis on telling folks to read the answer section after taking the quiz. That’s the real educational value.

   The timing of this piece is pretty good too, with the first big snow dump expected over the next few days. Lots of folks will be chomping at the bit to get out there, me included. It doesn’t hurt to be reminded of avy risks this soon in the season; we know bad things can happen any time, as the unfortunate accident on up on Berthoud Pass showed us last year.

6. Dave September 20th, 2006 7:53 pm

   This is cool. It will be nice to be able to quantify risk …”DUDE, I scored a 1067.” Seriously, I think this will be especially useful for those who are new to (safe) winter backcountry travel. I could actually send this to a couple friends who are expressing interest in ’sidecountry’ skiing/riding. They do not understand the danger exists right over the ropes, and this tool may help them understand they need some tools, education, and experience.

   Suggestions/commments:
   1. Question: “If you’re an experienced and educated backcountry traveler, does being in familiar avalanche terrain reduce your risk? “. 2 issues: a) I’m not sure I understand the question, so I answered ’sometimes’. But, when I travel in avy terrain I follow the standard rules of thumb. I guess it just seems like a loaded question…could be me. b)There is not an answer for those who are not experienced. Should that person just skip that question?

   2. It would be interesting to see a couple questions that should be easiliy answered from a level 1, 2, and 3. I think you’ve done that somewhat, but those questions might help assess the participants knowledge. Perhaps questions about diggin pits, crossloaded slopes, aspect/temps, or safety islands.

   3. Question: “During your last season of winter backcountry recreation, how many times did you skip something fun but risky (powder turns, highmarking, etc.) because your observations told you there was too much avalanche danger? ” Everytime, but that was not a choice. Again, it could be the wording of the question.

   Thank you for putting this together, and I hope you get it finalized, so I can pass around!

   Dave

7. Lou September 20th, 2006 8:15 pm

   Hey guys, thanks, I’m working on your suggestions this evening! Great points!

8. Lou September 20th, 2006 9:50 pm

   Okay guys, I did some tweaks. Bedtime now. Dave, please try it on your friends and see if the results agree with your assessment of their risk level. Or test it yourself by deliberate wrong answers and see if you get the results you think you should.

9. Lynn September 21st, 2006 9:50 am

   First off, there’s skiing in Wyoming?? I know my friend Carl uses his mini-skis up there….

   Secondly, I like this quiz, always good to think and be reminded. Was I marked down for using the word dude? Actually I think there should be some deduction for using the word randonee or AT .

10. Steve Christie September 21st, 2006 3:15 pm

    Lou,

    Where’s the score “key?” Apparently I’m in the wrong line of work.

    Steve

11. Lou September 21st, 2006 3:21 pm

    Steve, all the details are in the header above the quiz, you’ll also find a link there to a page with info about the questions/answers.

12. sherry bunch September 22nd, 2006 3:29 pm

    I thought it was just a fun, tongue-in-cheek thing to do. (Ref: the question about using dude in a sentence ; ), not to be taken too seriously- some of the questions set me up for a risky behavior answer). It’s all good and fun.

13. Lou September 23rd, 2006 8:40 am

    Sherry and all, it’s indeed supposed to be fun, but does have a serious side. The level of risk you end up with in your score should give you some idea of how you’re doing in controlling your personal safety while backcountry skiing. If you score in the upper two levels (4,5) you’ve got some issues you should deal with or you’re asking for trouble. Other levels are more subtle…

14. Rob September 25th, 2006 3:26 pm

    What have you used to validate or calibrate the results of this test? Have you taken the answers of people over time to the different questions and looked at whether they have gotten caught in a slide? I’m not trying to be overly critical – I think it is a good tool – but I have my doubts as to whether it has scientific validity.

15. Lou September 25th, 2006 3:49 pm

    Rob, thanks for the comment. It’s a fun teaching tool that we feel is quite valid. We feel the results are accurate as described in the scoring explanations. Nope, I’ve not taken the answers/scores over time and compared to actual events. Probably never will, since the test is anonymous.

16. Lenka K. September 26th, 2006 9:32 am

    Hi from Europe, Lou,

    I enjoyed doing your test and turns out I’m not too likely to die in an avalanche, yipeeee! :)

    But seriously, what on Earth is an alpha angle?

    Lenka K.

17. Lou September 26th, 2006 11:50 am

    Lenka, alpha angle is the angle from where you are standing at the bottom of an avalanche slope, sighted to the top of the avalanche slope. If it’s greater than about 22 degrees it’s possible that you are in a place where you could be buried if an avalanche comes down from above (depending on potential energy and size of slide). The traveler measures the angle by sighting along the edge of an inclinometer. Experienced travelers learn to judge this just by looking, but it’s a super useful concept for people who are learning how to route find through avalanche terrain.

    It is NOT the angle of the slope, it is the angle from your position to the top of the slope.

18. Andrew Klotz October 12th, 2006 5:01 pm

    I have a small quibble with the test, I’m not positive of my statistics, but I strongly suspect that if you factor all of the hundreds of thousands of safe-days skiers have logged with guides in Canada, US, an EU and then compared that to their total fatality/injury rate – I think it would show overwhelemingly that traveling with guides is one of the safest options (notwithstanding a few spectacular accidents) – however to compare it to unguided party accidents we would need to know the number of unguided backcountry skier days – and wouldn’t we all like to know that number?….just a thought, admittedly I’m biased towards advocating for guides.

19. Lou October 12th, 2006 5:12 pm

    Hi Andrew, the quiz doesn’t make a big deal out of guided, group size, etc, I forgot the weighting but remember it’s not extreme, though it does favor smaller groups. As for numbers, when Reudi had his accident he shared how many client/days he’d had up to then, and I did the math. Turned out it was actually a fairly risky activity according to Reudi’s numbers, right up there with flying small planes and skydiving is my recollection.

20. Derrick November 6th, 2006 2:49 pm

    What exactly is the “dude” question asking? I use the word all the time but I’m not some punk park rat…I’m 28. How does that have anything to do with my attitude toward avy safety?

21. Lou November 6th, 2006 3:17 pm

    Hi Derrick,
    Some of the questions are specious, just intended to interject some levity and prevent over-thinking while taking the quiz. Dude question is a bit of that, but also to get you thinking about what population you’re a part of.

    BTW, this is not an attitude quiz, but rather a risk evaluation quiz. Many people who are caught in avalanches have a fairly cautious attitude…that’s why the quiz has so many questions about age, gender, group size etc. Those questions are important and weighted according to avalanche accident stats.

22. samh September 30th, 2008 2:34 pm

    Lou – great quiz. The link to the “answers” page is broken in your post however. – Sam

23. Evan September 30th, 2008 3:22 pm

    Ther is evidence that somebody put a lot of effort in focusing the outcome of the quiz on practical value, ditching often inflated Academic BS. It is a good quiz because it is best taken with no preparation. I’m going to forward it to all my ski buddies.

24. Lou September 30th, 2008 5:17 pm

    samh, the explication of answers is available via a link after you complete the quiz.

    Evan, thanks for the ata-boy. Tough getting this going and keeping it working. Appears to have caused a server outage this morning since so many people hit it at once. Working on that with the server folks.

25. Sky September 30th, 2008 5:41 pm

    1586 is great SAT score. Then I clicked ‘go here’ and got

    Not Found, Error 404

    The page you are looking for no longer exists.

26. Lou September 30th, 2008 5:43 pm

    All the links working when I test, please be specific. Sky, you probably got a momentary server error due to our short server timeout. We’re fine tuning that. Thanks all for testing.

27. Dostie October 1st, 2008 8:46 am

    Thought the question about going one at a time should be split into two. Here in the land of the 24 hour rule we gang skin for conversation and solo ski for safety and photo opps.

28. Bob Coleman October 1st, 2008 8:52 am

    Great job Lou! I’d like to make the point that decision making before and during backcountry travel is the subject we should be learning, Your quiz has that focus.
    Avalanche safety and snow science are study parts to decision making just like vulnerabilities and threats are to risk. Each summing up to probable consequences.

    The link is to a Facebook group called Avalanche – Decision Making Before and During Backcountry Travel

    Bob Coleman
    Federal Way, WA
    basic alpine climber and bc traveler

29. Johann October 1st, 2008 9:04 am

    not familiar with Utah/Colorado/Montana/Wyoming, mid-continent area, Pacific Northwest, Northwest, Sierra or other coastal type snowpack.
    Simply because I doing backcountry skiing in the Alps. I suggest that you try to make the test fully international, because it is an outstanding idea, as is the whole content of your website. All the best, Johann, Austria

30. Lou October 1st, 2008 10:55 am

    Johann, good point! I’m so provincial (grin)… I can’t have questions for snowpack all over the world, but perhaps I can make the questions specific to the type of snowpack you usually ski on, rather than region. I’ll work on it.

31. Norm October 1st, 2008 11:09 am

    Great Quiz quite thought provoking. Thanks

    You do however have a bad link in the text that comes up after the quiz. New the end in the sentence
    “After you take the quiz, click here for how the answers work to produce your score.”

    Based on your comment above and from looking at your generated HTML source code the relative link you have in the href for the anchor tag isn’t resolving (at least for Firefox 2 on Windows XP)

32. Lou October 1st, 2008 11:48 am

    Norm, please try it now. Thanks, Lou

33. Norm October 1st, 2008 12:12 pm

    That’s got it

34. Lou October 1st, 2008 1:05 pm

    Norm, thanks for checking back, I wasn’t having the problem in IE so it hadn’t been on my radar, I should have checked in Firefox but hadn’t gotten around to it.

35. Carl October 2nd, 2008 4:18 pm

    Nice quiz. Reminded me that most of my partners lack first aid training. One thing though, I’ve never skied in the backcountry with a female. Disappointing, but true. Didn’t see that as an option.

36. Scott October 2nd, 2008 6:32 pm

    Dude! is the survey biased against my mohawk?

    I think this is a great quiz. I think a level of education section could help it be more accurate, as well as number of close calls you have had.

    Scott

37. Lou October 2nd, 2008 6:42 pm

    Scott, depends on if you use your mohawk to dig snow pits or not.

    Not much of a correlation between education level and increased safety, or at least nothing I care to try and use as a scoring method, problem is many if not most people killed have some avy education… behavior is more important. Nonetheless we feel some education is better than none, so we tried to keep that in mind while weighting the answers.

38. Sarah October 2nd, 2008 10:54 pm

    I scored in the weenie Level 1 Range- which is not to say that being ’safe’ is being a weenie- but a reflection that I think I’m in the ‘tweener’ category of: have had enough avalanche training (and friends in avalanches) over the years to put the fear of God in me (being dead has a tendency to really put a damper on your day), but still don’t feel confident enough in my own assessments. It’s very disturbing, at least to me, when you read about people who are very educated in avalanche awareness getting killed in avalanches- makes you wonder how you could make any better decisions. Bottom line is I’d rather miss out on having some great fun by being overly conservative, then end up dead and having no fun at all.

39. Lou October 3rd, 2008 6:56 am

    Sigh, I should have reversed the score so higher number was safer… as for how to make better decisions, it’s a paradigm shift you have to make, in that the level of acceptable risk for many groups is quite high. Much of it is who you choose to go out with, as the decisions are generally more of a group consensus rather than any one person’s take. And yeah, level of education has little to do with it, beyond being able to know you’re in avalanche terrain or not. In fact, it appears to me from observation and associated stats that those with more education get into a guessing game about skiing questionable slopes, and sometimes end up using their education to rationalize taking more risks. Thus, education is not weighted heavily in our quiz.

    That said, avy educators have recognized this failing of avalanche education and have been adjusting their curriculum all the time to include more human factor and decision making components, rather than learning 50 types of snow crystals. Thus, someday perhaps the level of avalanche education will have a direct and positive effect on safety outcome. In other words, someday perhaps we’ll be able to have a quiz question about level of avy education, and weigh it heavily in a positive way. But in my opinion that’s not possible at this time.

40. William October 20th, 2008 9:12 pm

    Lou,

    The quiz was thought provoking. Thank you very much for this and all the other great content on wildsnow.com!

    William

41. Lou October 20th, 2008 10:49 pm

    Thanks William, good to know it’s still working after all the site tweaking we’ve been doing. How did you score?

42. William October 20th, 2008 11:01 pm

    I scored 2200/level 3. I will be sure to leave the women and risk taking friends at home on future back country trips ;-)

43. Lou October 20th, 2008 11:26 pm

    We’re thinking of asking Backcountry Access to sell estrogen pills along with their beacons and shovels, to counteract the testosterone factor.

44. Christian November 19th, 2008 4:52 pm

    Nice, and thanks for putting it together.

    The question about how many times you skipped something due to conditions could be a little more clear… what about people who ’skip’ something by never even showing up at the trailhead after a big dump or during the first hot day of spring? Similarly some people almost never ski risky things, always skiing ridge crests or valley bottoms, and therefor never turn back. I wonder if the question could be modified somehow to better represent this.

    For example, I answered this the question that I ’skipped’ regularly because of observed conditions, but my friend (who is very conservative, far more than me) chose the ‘worse’ answer because he rarely turns back – but this is because he basically never puts himself in a position where he has to choose.

45. Lou November 19th, 2008 5:15 pm

    Christian, thanks for the feedback, I’ll examine how that question and associated answers could be refined and clarified. Thanks, Lou

46. Lou November 19th, 2008 6:18 pm

    I think it’s fixed. I added another answer and changed the question a bit. Included consideration for the super conservative person.

    http://www.wildsnow.com/quiz/avalanche-quiz.html

47. Nick November 27th, 2008 10:08 pm

    Lou,

    Relative to this question/answer:

    If you are an experienced and educated backcountry traveler, does being in familiar avalanche terrain reduce your risk?
    Trick question, answer based on statistics that show this to frequently NOT be the case — but rather a classic gotcha.

    It’s an urban myth – not supported by statistics when the analysis is done correctly.

    http://www.avalanche.org/~issw2004/issw_previous/2006/proceedings/data/papers/039.pdf

48. Lou November 28th, 2008 8:42 am

    Interesting Nick, thanks for the feedback! Perhaps I think the weighting of the quiz answers handles this question. Perhaps I’ll adjust the explication. The thing is, I observe people all the time who use far less caution on familiar avalanche slopes than they would otherwise. Even done it myself.

49. Nick November 30th, 2008 12:28 pm

    Lou,

    It’s true that experienced people appear to use less caution on familiar terrain than unfamiliar, just like a skilled machinist making a familiar part can seem to do the job with much less caution than a novice working on the same piece.

    And the disconcerting thing is – the number of accidents that the skilled machinist has over time can be more than the number of accidents the novice has. But that’s not necessarily because they are less careful, but because the do the job so many times more. Otherwise said, their accident RATE is low, but the the number of times they take the risk is much higher, so the absolute number of accidents is higher.

    Now think about the experienced recreational skier in familiar terrain vs. the inexperienced skier in familiar terrain (that’s what the papers that gave birth to the myth considered). First of all, what does “familiar terrain” mean to an inexperienced skier? Almost by definition, something they’ve skied a few times, maybe. But to an experienced skier, “familiar terrain” is something skied dozens or mabye hundreds of times. Say the inexperienced skier has a 10% chance of an accident in their familiar terrain, and the experienced skier a 1% chance in theirs. If the experienced skier is on their familiar terrain 100 times and the inexperienced skier 5 times, the NUMBER of accidents the experienced skier will have is 1, while the inexperienced skier only has 0.5. So if you just compare NUMBER of accidents, the experience seems to not have helped the experienced skier!

    The technical term is “base rate neglect”, and it pops up a lot in recreational avalanche statistical studies, mostly because avi people focus on number of accidents, as opposed to accident rates. It’s related to the odd fact that recreational avi research is obsessed with studying the behavior that leads to accidents, as opposed to the behavior that doesn’t. Why is that odd? Compare that to the industrial situation – companies don’t wait until they experience accidents to design safety procedures – they do time and motion studies, etc. and analyze them to see where people start to go “out of bounds”, and then develop procedures to avoid the accidents in the first place.

    Sorry for the long-winded post. Nothing much else to do – sitting in the cabin over here near Buena Vista clocking 60 mph winds moving around the small amount of snow that’s fallen – assume it’s similar on your side of the hills.

    Nick

50. Lou November 30th, 2008 12:50 pm

    Wow Nick, great points. I especially like the idea of studying behavior that is safe instead of dangerous.

    Funny, you must be reading my mind because I’ve been working on the quiz quite a bit today. We’re trying to set it up so everything has to be answered, as leaving questions unanswered throws the score way off as they get counted as a score of zero.

    1,260 quizzes taken since we re-did everything a few months ago, that’s after throwing out the scores less than about 500, which is the minimum score if all questions are answered with the lowest scoring choice. (I say “about” because I’m still making small tweaks so the number isn’t exact.)

    Average score for above was 1,570, which is at the low end of level 3. Meaning the average quiz taker has a fairly low risk of dying in an avalanche compared to the total yahoo who would score high on the quiz. Bias to quiz being answered this way is probably because most people visiting here have a pretty good idea of what constitutes low risk behavior, and practice most of what they know.

    Everyone, please know that to score at the lowest (safest) level on the quiz you have to answer that you backcountry ski a minimal amount, as well as in the lower risk snowpack areas, and also practice most of the other low-risk behavior. Thus, most people will end up scoring in the 1,000,s or above.

51. catkfr January 15th, 2009 6:53 pm

    Nice test: it’s always interesting to challenge one’s mindset.

    I just have one comment on the risky sport/skydiving question.

    Practicing both backcountry skiing and skydiving, I actually feel the danger level is much higher in backcountry skiing. More precisely, I believe it’s much easier to become a safe skydiver than it is to become a safe backcountry skier.

    Skydiving has a very low accident rate. Those accidents are almost always due to human error (eventually involving more than one person). The environmental risk is much easier to assess for a 5 min skydive than for a day or more in the backcountry with tempting slopes with a medium to high avalanche risk.

    I can’t find numbers to support this gut feeling. But I believe that in all risky sports (including backcountry skiing), the important part is knowing the risks and making the decision of keeping your risk taking at an acceptable level. And as you mention previously: being mindful of not using this knowledge as an excuse to take more risks.

    In order to challenge a bit more the mindset of the people taking the test, I would suggest adding a fourth option to that question:
    * about the same: it may be harder to be safe in avalanche terrain then when jumping out of an airplane

52. Laureen Mendelsohn January 29th, 2009 10:58 am

    This quiz was a lot of fun:) I am pretty conservative, so I rated a two out of five. When it comes to jumping out of a plane though, I would say it all depends on the state of mind of the person. Jumping out of an airplane or facing avalanche terrain would be dependent on your knowledge and experience, I would think. As for myself, it would also depend on the amount of panic & stress caused by the immediate situation.
    Thanks for the neat quiz & info!

53. Dana February 17th, 2009 10:51 am

    Hi, Lou – I just took the quiz, and especially liked the question about how often you’ve said “dude!’ in the last ten days. I’m trying to put together a class on thinking errors & how they cause emergency situations at the 2009 Ski & Mountain Trauma conference in Sun Valley this fall – any chance that I could share your quiz with the class?

54. Lou February 17th, 2009 11:13 am

    Hi Dana, it only works online as it’s web based. They can all take it if they have web connections. Not sure how it’ll hold up to a lot of concurrent users, but it can handle a few.

    The “dude” question is a bit of a red herring, but the idea is to get people thinking about what social class they are in, and perhaps how that class deals with risk sports.

    ‘best, Lou

55. mike Mariash September 6th, 2009 7:42 pm

    The question regarding skiing through avalanche terrain all at once as a “gang” did not provide a wide enough range of answers.

    Possible answers to vary levels of risk could include:

    Skiing one at a time (always, never, or when conditions dictate)

56. Kim November 24th, 2009 11:12 pm

    Hallo! I ski backcountry alone, but it’s mostly so conservative that it’s ridiculous. I’m very aggressive in-bounds, (used to be on the ski patrol in Colorado), but in the backcountry, it’s gentle slopes out of range of any avalanche paths (possibly by miles), on terrain that I’ve often seen in the summer. Probably my worst safety transgression is that, when skiing at Taos , I will ski alone in areas posted “backcountry terrain: do not ski alone!” But, despite an hour’s hike up Kachina peak, the “backcountry” is still patrolled, and often well-travelled by strangers.

    Anyway, the point of all this is that I scored a three, so though I think I’m wimpy about my terrain choices, I was probably hit for being alone, and not using a beacon. Anyway, I don’t know if there’s any way to tweak the quiz to account for that, or if it would represent any kind of significant cross-section of our demographic, but I thought I’d mention it.

    So, what are you doing with the data? (Sorry if you’ve already said….)

    Thanks so much for the quiz — a great way to assess one’s skill awareness! That alpha angle will be very useful (though I suspect most of mine are close to 0 — or perhaps negative)! Thanks for putting in the effort — this will help people keep themselves safe!

57. Nick February 10th, 2010 1:36 pm

    Hi there Lou, A very interesting quiz and rightly focussing on behaviours. One small suggestion. Given the large number of ABS/Pulse bags I’m now seeing around Europe, I’d suggest adding them into the question about the Avalung – again as an indicator of people’s mindset and how much they invest in safety gear rather than the latest skis/boots

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