Digging Pits Article

[Redly]

The biggest thing wrong with pit digging I have seen in my three years of skiing is people digging pits in really unsafe locations and situations. The post by Klar reminded me of a few days yelling at uber noobs to get the hell out of where they were, the whoophing noise present at the pit digging time. (us descending after digging two pits - one at the base; good to go results and one mid way up; no go results)

Pit digging and gut feelings combined make our decisions in the back country. I wish avy courses would focus on location of pit digging and how to do it safely. I was lucky enough to do a work shop with Doug and Mike.

[jono]

There is a lot done wrong in digging pits....and large variations in force applied during testing. What frightens me is that these observations are often then being inputed to the Avalanche Center.

I think the important thing to take away from this is to take other people's results with a grain of salt. If you worry about a pit not being next to the line skied, how much weight can you give them anyway?

On the upside, the whole test is designed to sacrifice precision in favor of tools you have and time you're willing to spend; I certainly hope anyone taking data and writing forecasts sees it accordingly.

[garyfromterrace]

Damn, I give plenty of thought on where (and when) I dig a pit. I'll be thinking more about it now....