During extreme avalanche danger the lower portion of the approach trail is crossed by quite a few avalanches.
As winter sinks deeper into the mountains and the snowpack layers stack higher, decision making in avalanche terrain is a particularly good thing to take stock of. Where do fall on the spectrum of risk averse to fully risky? Take this avalanche safety quiz to find out.
INSTRUCTIONS: Please think briefly about each question and click your best answer. Be brutally honest, the process and results are totally anonymous. Please answer every question and guess if necessary, otherwise your results will not be valid and will skew our database. Everything is 100% anonymous.
The idea: this is a general evaluation of how at-risk you are when recreating in avalanche terrain. This is NOT a quiz to check your knowledge level. It also closely based on anecdotal experience. The quiz is oriented to people who travel in avalanche terrain and have some knowledge of avalanche dynamics and safety. Your result will be numeric — from a low number of around 500 up to 5,000. Your score will be one of 5 levels within that range. For details about each of the 5 score levels, see the info included with quiz results. Ultimately, it provides an exercise in self reflection, an important element of making sound decisions in the backcountry.
We have no function for you to view a summary of your answers. If you’re concerned about your score, show the quiz to an experienced avalanche safety educator and ask them about the answers.
Also, please be advised that backcountry ski touring in avalanche terrain is inherently risky. Thus, the quiz will tend to score higher rather than lower. For example, the question about how many days a winter you backcountry ski is important to the overall score. But everything works together in the quiz and more of the good cancels out the bad. (Note, once you complete the quiz an explanation of scores and answers will be available.)
26 comments
Bruce
Time to be honest!
Na
You have to be honest. I took the evaluation several times to make sure I understood some of the objectives of each question.
I’d like to suggest that you make it more explicit that this quiz is not supported by evidence-based research. To offer one example, your quiz question and answer about the age of avalanche victims does not reflect scientific evidence. In a study by Peitzsch, E., Boilen, S., Logan, S., Birkeland, K., & Greene, E. (2020), the authors summarize recent findings: “The median age of avalanche victims from 1990 to 2018 in our dataset, 33, is the same as that found by (Boyd et al., 2009) for avalanche fatalities in Canada from 1984 to 2005. In our full time series dataset, the median age of backcountry skiers, 32, and snowmobilers, 35, is also similar to those reported by (Boyd et al., 2009), 32 and 36, respectively. In Switzerland, Winkler and Techel (2014) report that the median age of avalanche victims from 2004 to 2013 is 39 years, slightly greater than that found in our dataset.”
This is just one example that applies to many of your quiz questions that are similarly unsupported. While I’m sure your intention is to offer an entertaining exercise for personal reflection, it is important that you be more explicit that your quiz is based on personal or anecdotal, rather than scientific, evidence.
Fair points, anonymous. Though I’m curious, how did you see your answer to the age question? In any event, I did edit a bit to emphasize the personal reflection aspect.
Hi Manasseh, the explanations page states that recreationists “over 35 and under 18 are less risky than the alternative,” which is not supported by research and is potentially misleading. Making this exercise scientifically accurate would be a significant undertaking, so I’m not suggesting that it meets that standard. I think your added statement better sets the tone.
Interesting articles(although I just had time to read the first). However, as the first article also points out without knowing the overall age distribution of backcountry skiers, the median age of avalanche victims doesn’t necessarily say everything about relative risk (e.g. the chance of a specific backcountry skier dying in an avalanche) and how this correlates with age.
That said, obviously if there is little or no supporting evidence, we should be careful propagating the idea that 35+ skiers are less at risk.
DJ76, I agree and we don’t intend to score that question too highly, HOWEVER, this quiz it about awareness and self knowledge, I believe it is important to know what age demographic one is in, and what issues that might present no matter what life-activity, be it dating or driving, or avalanche awareness. It is my opinion that generally speaking young to pre middle-age men take more risks then men as they age past that. Moreover, simply knowing you are in a more at-risk age group increases one’s awareness, and this quiz it about awareness. Thus, I do feel this question is a valid part of the Quiz, though it appears we should change the age spread a bit, which I’ll do next time I get in there.
This is a cool idea! After taking the quiz and reading the basis for the questions afterward, however, I would argue that much of the phrasing of the quiz could use work. For example, “turning back or never leav(ing) the traihead” could mean a lot of things, and has a lot of implications. IMO, the question should probably being getting at how many times you adapted your plan based on your observations and information gathering before and during your tour. As you guys know, most areas have wonderful “Plan Bs”- so I never “turned around at a trailhead” but I regularly change the day’s objective and/or adapt the trip plan in the field to take into account changing conditions. Yet apparently my answer indicates I take a high level of risk…
Furthermore, the question about leaving avalanche safety gear behind also seemed problematic. Though I would never leave anything behind for a true backcountry tour with partners, there are solo days where I go 25deg meadow skipping or uphill inbounds at the lift area and leave my rescue gear behind. Yet if I’m answering the question at face value and not reading into it (i.e. the goal of a well-designed survey), I got “points off” for this one. Seems like maybe the question has too much “gray area” built into it… though I suppose the practice of touring solo could warrant some examination as well…
Good points, Nick, and good things to keep in mind as the quiz evolves (it was first developed in 2010). Ultimately it is just a fun way to prompt self reflection on some of the decisions we make and why. Cheers.
Nick, the only risk level to look at is the overall score. The “turning back” question is just one of many. But I’ll check it and make sure it’s not scored too high, as well as looking at the wording. Avalanche forecasting and social media information sharing has improved in the last decade, hence I agree it’s much less likely that one would arrive at a trailhead and be totally surprised by bad conditions. Used to happen frequently in the early days, especially while traveling. Lou
Interesting and still trying to get results
Louise Wholey- once you get to the end of the quiz, click the button that says ‘show results’. It should then give you your score along with explanations.
Might suggest adding options to allow for solo…several questions, the closest true answer likely dings you a bunch.
Humm.
I sort of feel opportunity missed here. Where this could be diving home or digging into the more common causes and missperceptions of avalanche fatalities and promote good decision making (something based on ALPTRUTH).
This seems a bit skewed towards what accessories are being purchased verses and what decision making goes into trip and terrain selections (questions around “how often do you turn around” verses “how did you get there in the first place”).
How about probing/reenforcing things like “perception of forecast rating”, “time after storm cycle” or “interpreting recent activity”… Serious softball questions that people seem to get wrong time and time again.
Also, I don’t have a clue how dangerous skydiving is nor do I care how it compares. I ski because I like it, it is dangerous but I try hard to keep it safe cuz I love my family and friends and I want to keep doing it.
Lou,
Are you going to publish the result of this quiz/survey? If so, who is it being done for?
Correlation is not causation. Reducing the complexity of making decisions in the mountains to a bunch of arbitrary data points trivializes the process.
Hi all, thanks for the feedback! This is a quiz, not a survey. It does store results (anonymously), but the results are not meaningful because 1) errors and false starts, and tests, skew the results. 2)It’s a teaching tool to help with self evaluation, not survey. 3) I (now we) have constantly edited the questions as well as the final analysis, to respond to feedback as well as the vast changes in avalanche safety culture that have occurred over the past decade.
For example, the airbag question was not in there initially, and now we will probably change the Avalung question to something else. The questions are not scientific, I am not a scientist, the questions are based on fifty years of experience and study in avalanche safety, including my teaching avalanche safety as a guide, Outward Bound instructor and workshop presenter/instructor. We’ll continue to modify the quiz, but it will continue to be based more on our general take of avalanche safety and ski culture, rather than specific statistical studies. To put it simply, the questions are intended to work as a whole, they are intended to help you self-assess your risk level.
Regarding questions that seem unfair (e.g., leaving gear behind), again, the QUIZ is to be taken as a whole, and is a tool for self assessment. It can also be easily gamed if you think a question doesn’t apply. For example, if you only ski without safety gear when there is zero avalanche danger, then simply answer that question as if you always take the gear with you. Remember, it’s a quiz, about self awareness and self evaluation.
In any case, the comments you guys are leaving indicate the Quiz has its intended effect. To get us all thinking, self assessing, and communicating about avalanche safety.
And please, if you really want to help, I appreciate demonstrations of deep knowledge and attention to research, but a few links would be appreciated. Here are a couple I might use to reword the age associate Quiz content:
https://flatheadbeacon.com/2019/10/18/rising-age-avalanche-victims/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308963615_Avalanche_risk_in_winter_backcountry_touring_status_and_recent_trends_in_Switzerland
Lou
Oh, and regarding edits, it’s a little tough working on the actual survey, but the explanation of the results/questions is easy to edit, so we’ll tend to do more work on that, based on feedback. Lou
Deleted the Avalung question, added a question about avy report hazard levels. Enjoy.
Perhaps add a question about group sizes. For those of us that travel alone in low risk conditions only, the results are probably not that close to reality. Maybe similar for very large groups where a single person’s voice has little bearing on the group’s decision making.
Have you every considered putting the survey results into a dashboard, for exploration? Sounds like it would require some cleaning of the data set, but still might be interesting to explore.
I take exception to the skydiving danger question. So many more people get hurt every year during backcountry winter sports and much more often than those who skydive. There are more deaths every year in the US than skydiving. So which is more dangerous???
As Lou said, the survey gets people thinking, and for that reason it’s obviously a success. But there are still some questions that could use improvement:
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“Do you wear a helmet while doing snowsports?” and “Do you ski with an airbag backpack?” I’ll make more-conservative choices on trips where I don’t have these. Happened on my tour this morning, actually. And there are plenty of folks who think because they have a helmet/airbag, they can ski anything.
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“What’s the use of alpha angle?” Absolutely, it’s useful to be able to estimate how far a slide could run out. It makes 0.00% difference whether you know that this is called the Alpha Angle, the Zulu Angle, or the Ingraham Angle. Using technical jargon when a simple phrase will do can be an indicator of arrogance, and thus an indicator of risky behavior (probably more so than being bad at avalanche trivia).
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