Whiteout conundrum…..

Adders has the answer!
Much easier when totally lost in a group.
In bad conditions stay clearly on pistes, look for markers and signs and which way others are going especially any ski school groups.
Beware - if choosing to follow others they may be as lost as you are!

Some interesting replies.

I'm not so sure about 'digging in'. Knowing my luck - I'd get myself all sort of snug - and a piste basher would come along and seal my fate.

Also, considering that people trapped in avalanches do their utmost to get out from under the snow.....

And what do they say about survival? The best way to get rescued is to make yourself seen. Hiding would not help.

Then there's the advice to follow others.At 3pm - on a day when it's snowing and blowing - you can't be sure that there *will* be anybody else coming along; and the last thing you want to do is wait until it gets dark!!! (as well!!).

On that day I *was* skiing with somebody - but in a total whiteout it's just impossible to always keep eachotherin sight. We had made a rule to always wait at the bottom of the run for eachother. Which actually, they did - but when I eventually turned up they did say 'Where the *hell* have you been?'. Still - the anchor of security was there, and had I not turned up he would have been able to say that I was lost somewhere between A and B.

It's a hard decision between 'go' and 'wait and see'. If you 'go' you stand the possibility of getting way off track and getting (more?) lost, and into the bargain you could exhaust yourself going up and down the bowl - and then have a bad fall and be in real trouble!!!. The 'wait and see' worked for me and it's worked for others.

I'm surprised that nobody said 'listen'. Quite often you hear people calling to eachother in whiteouts. Not that it is very directional - but at least you'll know you're not alone.

But yes, best is to have a mobile phone with you. Embarassing as it is to have to call and say - 'Sorry - I'm lost 200 metres from where I started'. :)

Meercat wrote:And what do they say about survival? The best way to get rescued is to make yourself seen. Hiding would not help.

Depends where you are. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't last too long waving your arms around in -30 temperatures.

Digging in would be a last resort, but one that would undoubtedly save your life.

On a slightly lighter note about being lost in a whiteout ......
When I was working in Les Arcs a boy went missing, about 11/12yo.
He'd been with his parents and sibling in very poor visibility and snow and "disappeared".
For the best part of 3 hours he was "missing" presumed lost on the mountain!
Pisteurs, lift operators and police were informed ....
He returned to the hotel late afternoon very full of himself after a wonderful afternoons skiing (a tidy skier).
After the dust had settled and tears, relief, just retribution was over I asked him what he had done.
He was too small to be allowed on lifts unaccompanied and he knew this so he skied down close to the lift line and joined some others.
Got on the lift with other adults - again and again and again!
No one challenged him as they all thought he was with someone else.

In whiteout conditions being able to alert others to you being in trouble is key, best bit of kit in those situations is a whistle. If you ski with a backpack you might find the chest buckle has a whistle built into it.
The international distress signal is three long blasts. (to be answered by three short ones). The sound of a whistle travels a long way.
A quick telephone call to your buddy would be the first stop though, just to say what has happened, least someone know's you're in difficulty and has a rough idea of where you are.

Here's another whiteout story from two seasons ago - was in Engelberg with my brother in March. Excellent morning, but the weather closed in, and we decided to head down. Ski-ing along the home run, I became completely disorientated and mistook the piste markers, which were running vertically, to be horizontal.

Result: yours truly buried off the track up to my chest.

My brother couldn't see me - but luckily he heard my feeble cries for help and stopped! It was funny, in retrospect....

Managed to struggle out and 100 yards further on, there were some trees and orange fences, that made skiing much more fun again....

OldAndy wrote:
When I was working in Les Arcs a boy went missing, about 11/12yo.
He'd been with his parents and sibling in very poor visibility and snow and "disappeared".
For the best part of 3 hours he was "missing" presumed lost on the mountain!
Pisteurs, lift operators and police were informed ....

The answer to that is to tag the kids.
In whistler all the kids in ski school are tagged with gps so a control station knows at all times where they are. Apparently i hear that if a Ski instructor 'loses' one child without even knowing about it they are informed by radio. Clever stuff.
It can't be long before they could put GPS tags into lift passes so the ski patrol can see who is on the mountain and where they are in such conditions.


I know some people would object and scream big brother but the safety rewards are immense.

http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/tickets/seasonpass/kids_passes/flaik.htm

Snapzzz wrote:

The answer to that is to tag the kids.
In whistler all the kids in ski school are tagged with gps so a control station knows at all times where they are. Apparently i hear that if a Ski instructor 'loses' one child without even knowing about it they are informed by radio. Clever stuff.
It can't be long before they could put GPS tags into lift passes so the ski patrol can see who is on the mountain and where they are in such conditions.


I know some people would object and scream big brother but the safety rewards are immense.

http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/tickets/seasonpass/kids_passes/flaik.htm

The technology is pretty well there now in the USA with EpicMix

http://www.epicmix.com/Faq.aspx