When to NOT search for someone

I was reading RandoSteve's blog last night when he put up some pictures from a tour yesterday in the Tetons(the linky buttons don't seem to be working right now www.tetonat.com). His party had come across a recent slide that had gone pretty large. He didn't mention anything about tracks leading into it, so I assume there were none.

But, this got me thinking. If there were tracks leading into this area and you come across this scene, do you find a safe way down and begin a beacon search? With the way things are propagating this year, areas that might have been thought safe in years past could put you under snow this year pretty easily, meaning other party members could have been caught as well.

Do you abort your plans for the day to make sure things are alright? Can you sleep at night, if it turns out there were people caught and you assumed everything was alright.

If I saw tracks going into the slide, it wouldn't hurt to switch your beacon to receive and see if you pick up a signal as you're going by. Other than that, I would certainly take note of the aspect and elevation of the slide, the layer it ran on, and how long ago it ran and take all this into consideration of my skiing decisions for the day.

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Originally Posted by SkiNowWorkLater

If I saw tracks going into the slide, it wouldn't hurt to switch your beacon to receive and see if you pick up a signal as you're going by. Other than that, I would certainly take note of the aspect and elevation of the slide, the layer it ran on, and how long ago it ran and take all this into consideration of my skiing decisions for the day.

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I guess I should mention that you were on top of the slide and the debris pile is 1000'+ below you. No chance of picking up a signal if someone was buried down there.

If there were tracks leading in a none coming out, and the slide had for sure happened within the last hour or two I would be inclined to investigate. Even then, you are almost surely too late to do anything but a body recovery.

young jedis,

not to preach to the choir - at all;
but, please, please make sure the scene is safe for yourself before jumping in to search ......

thanx; X

I read the post. Amazing pics.....speaks to me about "moderate" danger levels. After the long spooky start we have had to this season, when the danger drops to "moderate" people want to get after stuff. More people die and are injured in "moderate" times than any other.

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Originally Posted by Dantheman

If there were tracks leading in a none coming out, and the slide had for sure happened within the last hour or two I would be inclined to investigate. Even then, you are almost surely too late to do anything but a body recovery.

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That's what happened to me and my friends 2 years ago.. a slide with tracks leading and no tracks coming out. We spent 6 hours searching for the guy... the mountain rescue team found him dead eventually , if he had a beacon we would have located him in less than a few minutes. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if we didn't try to rescue the guy though, it was obvious someone was in there and it was worth trying to save his life. f2f translated the story from our site ( befsa.com) and posted it here a while ago.. here it is :http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75128

New question....you see guys following you out a backcountry access gate. You ask if they have experience and gear and they have none. You warn them of the dangers and firmly advise them not to follow, but they follow anyways. After traversing across a cornice above the slope you are digging a pit on and ignoring you're very very firm warnings they go down in a slide.....no beacons. What do you do?

I've done it once and I really don't know if I'd do it again. I say that, but I'm not sure I could follow through with leaving human lives in the hands of their fellow ignorant friends. FKN ignorant backcountry JONGS piss me off in a major way!

PS this shit....other than the slide happened to me today. It was a party of 7 italians and I warned them about where they were headed very firmly.