Embracing Responsibility vs. Placing Blame

[klar]

We had a pretty good example of this recently in Crested Butte. 4 skiers descended Red Lady, but then a couple of hours later, a solo skier set off this slide:

What happens with the information when someone does call something like this in? How do people get exposed to internet shaming? Around here (AT,CH,GER) the avalanche services have been actively encouraging people to call in incidents where nothing happened. You can call SAR or our equivalent of 911 and they pass it on. The avalanche service publishes something about the slide if they find it interesting. In that case they tend to mention that the person who set it off called it in (never with a name) and that everyone should do that because it's important.

Occasionally you still get probe lines on debris piles when something goes and they aren't sure but it's almost always in/very close to ski resorts. In a more "backcountry" setting I think people do mostly call in. I have done so a couple of times and was treated very respectfully by everyone I talked to.

I would perhaps be hesitant to communicate near misses via other avenues (the general internet) but I and everyone I know have a very large amount of trust in the people who run our avalanche services and anyone who might be answering the phone when I call my fuck ups in.

In Italy it is illegal to set off avalanches, with a variety of potentially unpleasant legal consequences. This obviously keeps people from reporting incidents and I've heard our guys criticize the Italian system.

I've got to say -- I still have knee-jerk reaction when I read some avy news. Happened just a few days ago when someone got killed skiing sidecountry in WA. Most posts were about what a cool dude and shredder he was. My immediate QB reaction was who skis avy-prone terrain on a high-danger day with no gear.

Hard to shirk those guttural responses. I suppose the key is balance. If when those stories get spread around they make it seem like inevitable consequence of skiing bc vs. a stroke of bad luck or string of human errors it makes it hard not to pipe up.

In the case of Adam R. I saw several responses by people who knew him well and apparently know details of what went down that I thought were unusual because they were both incredibly respectful and pretty damn clear about the gist of what happened.

I agree that balance is difficult.

When someone dies doing something that I do too, I look for reasons that reassure me that this would never happen to me, so that I don't have to think too much about what I do and why. I suspect the guttural responses have something to do with that, for better or worse.

Finding the flaw that led to an accident is important so that we can learn from it but as someone said, we don't necessarily learn anything. We already know that (frequently) the flaw lies in the way we make decisions. Pointing out the flaws I see so clearly in hindsight and in other people helps me pretend that I am perfectly rational and immune to whatever human flaw that other person had. The knee jerk reactions may not be logical but neither is whistling in the dark. Know thyself sort of thing? Obviously none of this is a reason to be an asshole on the internet.

[John_B]

The Avalanche Review that was released in Feb 2014 has some good insights into ways to view Accident Analysis. It is worth a read.

http://www.americanavalancheassociat...3_Feb_2014.pdf

Personally I've tried to view things more and more from the viewpoint of the people that were caught/killed. Imagining how much fun they were having/how inclement weather made recognizing hazards difficult and other things that guided their decision making. When I think of factors that guided the decision making suddenly it is a lot easier to identify similar behavior in myself.

When I focus on statements/ concepts like "the party chose the ski the loaded avalanche path" or similar it becomes a lot easier for me to mentally say "I would never do that"

The other thing is I'm trying more and more to wait for reports/coherent writeups to learn from as opposed to searching for meaning and lessons from brief news articles.

[covert]

What do y'all think of this headline:

"Skier Killed in Avalanche in Washington Yesterday Under HIGH Avalanche Danger & No Avalanche Gear"
http://snowbrains.com/skier-killed-i...valanche-gear/

It really pissed me off. To me, it seems like gratuitous click-bait that undermines any meaningful discussion.

[goldenboy]

What do y'all think of this headline:

"Skier Killed in Avalanche in Washington Yesterday Under HIGH Avalanche Danger & No Avalanche Gear"
http://snowbrains.com/skier-killed-i...valanche-gear/

It really pissed me off. To me, it seems like gratuitous click-bait that undermines any meaningful discussion.

It's a content aggregating website that just steals other people's work. I wouldn't expect anything but click bait.

To me, meaningful discussion really only takes place after the avalanche center publishes their report (if they even do). IMO, those often take longer than they should, and the lessons are often diluted because of it.

[Bunion 2020]

Good example of proactive education from the local Center.



Will it stop people from making poor decisions? Probably not.

[John_B]

What do y'all think of this headline:

"Skier Killed in Avalanche in Washington Yesterday Under HIGH Avalanche Danger & No Avalanche Gear"
http://snowbrains.com/skier-killed-i...valanche-gear/

It really pissed me off. To me, it seems like gratuitous click-bait that undermines any meaningful discussion.

I agree, it adds nothing to the discourse. And it sucks seeing something like that pop up of Facebook with a photo of a person you knew.