Comments on: Avalanche Safety Quiz

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:36:46 +0000

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

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:12:18 +0000

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!

By: mike Mariash

mike Mariash — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:42:28 +0000

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)

By: Lou

Lou — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:13:12 +0000

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

By: Dana

Dana — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:51:38 +0000

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?