Yeah, and that's exactly how we want to do it in a real rescue, right?
Because if we're working together as a team and you're on the beacon, like you
call it out and say, Hey, Jeff, I got the victim 10 meters straight ahead in this
line, and I'm going to hustle my little fanny down there and I'm going to start
probing.
And, you know, if we've practiced this before, I'm going to hit that victim
before you get your lowest reading.
It's not even close.
So we can just line you up on the airport runway.
And I can anticipate where you're pointing and start probing.
And it's remarkable when you teach people how to do this method in an avalanche
course, because at first they're just like, what?
And then they go out and do it.
And that prober is often one to got them.
Oh my gosh, that was so much faster.
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All right, let's get to the show.
All right, Jeff, and we are back.
That's right, Dave.
We're back stronger than the 90s trend for all you Swifties out there.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
That was very unexpected.
Actually, you know what?
That's not unexpected from you.
I know winners in a big, swifty phase.
Yeah, I think I'm in a bigger, swifty phase than she is.
How did how much would you say you know now?
About Taylor?
Yeah, like, are you pretty?
Dave, I've barely begun to plumb the depths of her infinite levels of talent.
Wow.
As an artist.
Just scratching the surface.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well, on that note, that's a perfect segue into what we're talking about,
which is beacon checks.
Oh, yeah.
And, Jeff, you have a new method for a trailhead check that we've been doing for
quite a while that's a little different than the kind of traditional circle.
Everyone just like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
And it's also a pretty cool way to kind of lightly train or just kind of
remind people about how to use your beacon if you're actually searching for someone.
Right?
Yeah, it helps solve two problems.
And I witnessed this problem firsthand where I had two beacons in my fleet for
clients that were broken, but the standard group check function where you just go
into close range or pick some up at a meter, said they were fine.
And that everything was, was okay.
But what turned out was the distance was reading about 30% too long.
And the arrows were offed by about 25, 30 degrees.
So it had been incredibly difficult for a guest to try to find me with those
beacons that would pass the circle method test or the self test where it goes
beep, beep, beep, and loads up and also the group check function.
So I learned the hard way.
I was like, whoa, okay.
What we're taught is not catching broken beacons.
And what often you'll see at a busy trailhead is people up real close together
in a circle and all they're verifying is that the beacon is in search and the
beacon is in send, but it's not verifying is the direction accurate and is the
distance accurate.
So those are really two crucial functions that we got to make sure are working
really well.
And then the other problem that solves this new method is that your partner on
average practices rescue zero to one times a year.
That's what the data says in surveys, which is really frightening.
What?
I think we've only practiced once this year.
Oh, before we went out early preseason with the rest of the crew.
Yeah.
But at least we got out of where you had to ski in.
That was good.
Yeah.
But it is only one, I think.
Yeah.
So the method that we've gotten in our YouTube series for critical skills.
And we do this with Angela Haas.
She's the now retired president in the American Mountain Guides Association is
the 10 for Johnny Cash walked the line.
And that's just the new Monic device for how we're going to set it up where you
draw a line in the snow.
Everybody stands on it, shoulder to shoulder.
And then the team leader paces out about 10 meters away.
And they put their beacon down on the snow and go into said.
And then everybody else, we're going to check a couple of things.
We're going to say, Hey, where's all your electronics?
Like touch your phone and touch your beacon at the same time so we can see
that we have separation because we want to have about 20 inches.
And then we want to run through for like smart watches, GPS watches, GoPros.
Anything that's going to provide electromagnetic interference.
We want to go away from the beacon if we can.
And then the next thing we're going to do is go right down from left to right
and be like, Hey, get your arm locked out straight.
And we're going to do the Heisman as you hold the beacon.
And that's to get it away from any electronic interference you might have on your body.
And then with your other arm point what direction the beacon is pointing at.
And it should be right at the beacon at 10 meters right on right, right at the leader.
Yeah, at the sending beacon that's their leaders beacons down in the snow.
Beacons down in the snow. So we go through everyone to make sure that their arrows are all pointing right at the beacon at the sending beacon.
And then we're going to go through and get the distance and it should be plus or minus one or two meters.
If everybody's reading about 10 meters, that's great.
If someone's like, I got 15 meters, you're like, okay, hold on.
And then somebody's arrows way off to the side.
Whoa, is a good chance that beacon got dropped and there's a cracked antenna and it's not functioning properly.
But that's really easy to miss with the old style circle method.
And the circle method is fast and efficient. I'll give it that.
But I need to see accurate as well.
Otherwise, like, can you imagine getting on the plane?
And as you're walking past the cockpit, the flight crews in there and they're like, Hey, we could do an accurate systems check, but we're just going to go for fast and efficient.
So, okay, so you said it's 10 for walk line. So I think the 10 is standing 10 meters apart.
And then what's the four.
So each person will walk in to four meters and they get down on the snow with their ski pole and point the ski pole in line with their beacon, Sarah.
Okay, so they're going to start so so they're going to start on that same line.
And after they've gone through and been like, you know, it's the range looks about right and I'm pointing straight at the leader.
They start walking towards the leader.
Yeah.
Calling out the distance, right?
Yeah, and that's exactly how we want to do it in a real rescue, right? Because if we're working together as a team and you're on the beacon,
like you call it out and say, Hey, Jeff, I got the victim 10 meters straight ahead in this line and I'm going to hustle my little fanny down there and I'm going to start probing.
And, you know, if we've practiced this before, I'm going to hit that victim before you get your lowest reading. It's not even close.
And that eliminates the bracketing, which takes the most amount of time in the search phase. And that's often where people chase their tails.
So we can just line you up on the airport runway.
And I can anticipate where you're pointing and start probing. And it's remarkable when you teach people how to do this method and have a lunch course.
Because at first they're just like, what? And then they go out and do it.
And that prober is often one to got them. Oh my gosh, that was so much faster.
There's no need to wait until you find the lowest reading on your beacon doing the bracketing.
Okay, so then, so still, so going back though to us talking about doing a check.
So as we're moving forward, we want to be calling that out. So in a real situation, that prober can go forward.
But we're going to be walking forward, holding the beacon out in front of us. And then when we get to four meters, what happens?
Well, four meters is last time you're going to have a reliable arrow. You might have an arrow, but it doesn't mean anything.
And here's why the victims beacon is sending out an infinite number of radio waves, and they're all converging when you get close.
So when you get inside of four meters, all bets are off if your arrow is accurate. You can't trust it.
So at that four meters spot is when you get down on the ground on the snow, then it'll probably drop to like 3.5, 3.2.
And you line up your ski pole until your probers, hey, they're dead ahead at 3.2 meters on this line with the ski pole.
The ski pole is your final approach runway before the plane touches down.
And so you'll continue to get the lowest reading on that access while they start probing.
And if you have two probers, one can take the left side of the pole, one can take the right side of the pole, and they're going to hit them super fast.
And then it saves a ton of time. So you're getting a brush up on your rescue technique every time you go touring.
And everyone's watching and I'm learning as you do it, but I'm also learning as I do it.
Yeah, it's cool. And then after that, we do a thing where you have people walk, you know, the person who's just gotten up to drop the pole and gotten their final reading with the beacon.
You'll have them then go what, like a car like their 10.
Yeah, car length pass the leaders beacon, the victims beacon, and they have to stay in search, right?
Otherwise they're going to mess up their buddies who are coming behind them.
So everybody goes through and just like you described, I'm at 10 meters straight ahead and they're pointing with their ski pole and then they count it down nine, eight, seven, five, four.
And then they slow down, get down on the snow. I got 3.2 straight ahead. I'm leaving the poles of markers, start probing, and then they'll move another car length past the next person.
And then they'll go right on. And then so once say there's three of us, right total. So once the two of us go past you.
And we're still in search, then we'll then what, what, why are we doing that step.
Yeah, so let's say we've got a group of four people.
So if I'm the leader, and then there's three people past me and search, and they're spread out a car length apart.
And then I'll say, okay, great. Everybody's beacons looks bang on for direction and distance and great job priming the rescue pump.
Now, everyone stow the beacon in your harness and go into send. Make sure that the screen of the beacon is against your body to protect it from impact.
And it's really important that everyone stows the beacon and clicks it in send and zips it up.
Because quite often it's when people are stowing the beacon that there's an opportunity to accidentally switch it into off.
So I need to be a little bit patient and wait till everyone's got it stowed and secured.
And then I go into search. And what's also helpful is for me to practice marking. And I forgot to mention that as each person comes in, they market when they get to the leaders beacon.
It's really important to practice that skill. It's not one we use very often.
And then of course, then the part is after I mark everybody and I call out the distance so I'm not confusing your beacon with the person behind you.
I'm like, I've got Dave at 0.7 meters. So that's 70 centimeters. It's got to be him. It can't be anybody else. And I hit mark.
And then when I've gone through everybody, how do we know I'm back to send? That's the tricky part.
So what we've done is if I'm the last person in that line, I'm already stowed. I'm already in send.
You will then stow yours, click it into send. And then you'll have the last person in that line come over and visually check and verify that your red light is blinking.
Yeah. And you say, hey, just flashing red, he's in send and he's stowed.
Jeff just flashed me. We're good to go.
Yeah, exactly. And that always gives people pause because they like, oh, I'll just put my beacon in search and check Jeff's. And then you're like, we're in this Kafka's loop of absurdity and we'll never go out there.
So that's the way to avoid that is making sure like, oh yeah, they're they're lights flashing and they're already clicked in and stowed.
Now we're good to go.
Yeah, it's a cool method. I remember when we're, I think it was like two years ago when we did like a refresher, kind of like a brush up with you and a bunch of people and I don't know if that was the I don't think it was the first time you'd
introduced that but it was the first time that all of us in that course have been used to that.
And I remember all of us being like, wow, this makes so much sense. Like, like, like all the all the steps of it are just totally priming you for having your head in the right place for an actual rescue.
Yeah. And if you're doing that consistently every time you're at the trailhead, I think it's I find it, you know, we do it when we go out snowmobiling, you do it when we're touring like, you know, and I've now, it's actually funny like my friend, Dave,
who's also named Dave, who was in that class, like, we've used the same method when me and him have gone out snowmobiling. And like, I've taught it to my wife and like, it's actually just a cool kind of like a very subtle way of reminding people how to do things at a very low stress environment.
And I think it's a reasonable critique of some people who are maybe scared of change. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is totally different. That's not how I was taught to do it or that's not the standard way of doing it.
And you're like, okay, but does the standard way pick up broken beacons. Not always. Sometimes it does, but not always. And does the standard way prime people for rescue.
When we know the data says that people practice rescue zero to one times a year.
The standard way doesn't do that. So this is a way to make sure that your beacon is accurate on distance and direction.
And you get to prime the pump for rescue, which, you know, people often say, I will rise to the occasion. And you're like, no, that's bullshit. We sink to our level of training. And if our level of training is zero to one times a year, that's a long way to sink right to the ocean floor.
So it's funny to see when we're riding with the same friends at the start of the season, it's pretty chaotic and it doesn't go very well. And people aren't paying attention and they're talking and it's a little bit of a mess.
But then after you do it two or three times, or if you're skiing with people like on a hot trip, you know, by day three or day four, everybody's got it and they're like boom, boom, boom.
And that's how I want them to be in a rescue scenario. Boom, boom, boom. I got it instead of just like fumbling around. What do I do?
Systematic. Yeah. And like put in a put together. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
You know, there's that that phrase that practice makes permanent.
That perfect practice makes perfect performance. That's what we're really shooting for. We don't want to practice sloppy bad habits. We want to ingrain really good habits just like, you know, whatever sport you played as a kid, you have a coach and they're like coaching you to do it the proper way so you'll perform better on game day.
Right on.
Yeah, no, I think that's like really, yeah, I'm stoked we were able to kind of do this short one to talk about it because I think it's a really useful tactic for the beacon check and it's something that everyone should be doing anyway.
And it's all like it takes long. I mean, maybe it takes one minute longer.
But I would always I'm someone who always prefer prefers to have that peace of mind of like knowing that everyone in our crews gear is working at least and is not like just one guy has an arrow that's pointed off like 30 meters 45 degrees like I mean, dude, I would totally torpedo a search.
So yeah, yeah, for sure.
So and just so anyone watching this or listening to this will put in the show notes too but there's we have a video on aspect of his YouTube channel there's a there's a video that goes through this whole thing with like graphics and it's pretty detailed if you guys are curious about it.
Yeah, and you know, fair enough, I think the first one or two times you do it might be a little bit confused. But then three four and five, you're like, Oh, I got the rhythm.
And I think there's a huge benefit for that familiarity of how you're going to do a rescue.
It's simple and efficient time wise.
And just even going more fundamentally, like just using your beacon.
Yeah, practice actually using the features of your beacon.
Yeah, which standing in a circle, you don't really get that experience.
Yeah, no.
So, no, if nothing else, it's just gives you that refresher of like, Oh, right, this is how this thing is supposed to work.
Yeah, familiar with what the user interface and everything like that.
And quite often, like if we know the trailhead's going to be busy. Oftentimes what we'll do is we'll meet up in town.
And if we're making our tour plan on aspect to have you on the web app and come into a consensus and having coffee, we'll just do the gear check in town.
And that's great because if you find a broken beacon, you've got one to swap it out with hopefully or you can go to the shop and rent one.
So if we're doing it at the trailhead, I'll bring extra beacon shovel pro because there's a good chance someone forgot something.
It's going to happen eventually over the course of the winter, probably me.
This covers us. And then if the trailhead is crowded, we may have to skin forward a couple hundred meters to get away from the crowds so we're not picking up other beacons or interference.
One of the things I think is really helpful with this system is it picks up electronic interference really well.
So if I messed up and I've got my smartwatch or whoop or Apple Watch or maybe my GPS watch, it's oftentimes it'll pull the beacons arrow and distance off.
And I'll be like, Oh, what's going on? I'm like, Oh, oh, I forgot to take it off or stow it somewhere else.
Right. Yeah, that's that's another thing that's really good for people to remember is like, Oh, like all like, like my GoPro and my watch and like all this stuff.
While it might not interfere, it also can interfere.
Yeah, so because I've definitely had it go both ways where I've had my, you know, my watch on or whatever and we're even filming a video with me having a GoPro on like using it and we weren't getting any interference.
It was so frustrating because we were trying to get interference. Yeah.
And then I've had other times where we go do it and I'm like, I have only my phone on me and or like my watch or whatever and it's pulling.
And so it's another really good example and way for people to see that like, even though these beacons are really, really sophisticated now, like the best I've ever been, there's still inconsistencies in the way they interact with other things.
Yeah. And I think of it as like, if you've ever been listening to the radio.
And just before your phone rings, the radio fritzes out for a couple seconds, and then your phone rings, you're like, Oh, oh, okay, interesting.
Yeah. You know, having a phone in airplane mode. It helps a bit, I guess, you know, the worst is if you're taking a call when you're trying to do a search.
But yeah, we want to make sure we eliminate as much causes of electronic interference as we can. And I would also recommend folks check out the new peeps IPS beacon.
It's got some groundbreaking technology to help buffer against the almost inevitable electronic interference, just in that so many things we have today in the back country run off of electricity and even things like a foil packet for a chocolate bar or a big belt buckle, all those things
that change the electromagnetic fields. And you may say no, it's cool, because I've got my beacon here, and my phone is down in my thigh pocket, I've got my 20 inches of separation, we're good.
You're like, Okay, but can you control how you're going to be buried and crumbled up. You may not have much say in that matter, or we may forget and have our smartwatch on, and that's the hand that's holding the beacon.
So anyway, the peeps IPS is really remarkable and how it handles electronic interference both in search and send mode. And it's like nothing else out there. And I'd encourage folks to take a look and decide for themselves.
I've enjoyed using it so far.
This is not brought to you by peeps, by the way.
Not at all.
But if anyone wants to sponsor this podcast.
We have room.
Well, sweet Jeff, this is, we knew this was going to be kind of a short one. I just wanted to, I thought it was useful to give us information to people I think everyone should at least go try it. It's like, it's like, nothing else is just a cool way to kind of use your beacon in a different
check and kind of see how the features work and kind of prime your brain for saving, hopefully being able to jump into it if the worst happens.
Yeah.
And, you know, one last marginal gain. If you stack up a whole bunch of marginal gains, you're going to have a pretty good game.
I used to carry my beacon in the pocket.
And I discovered with my colleagues.
Sorry, like in a, in a chess pocket, like where were you holding it.
Yeah, it'd be like a thigh pocket, like a dedicated thigh pocket and it would have the keeper leash clipped off to my belt loop.
But what I discovered was when I was working at a cat operation here in Crested Butte up at Irwin Katzkeying, I'd come in with my colleagues and we'd go to log our shots on the computer or warm up, have a coffee break.
And we'd be like, you had so many pockets and things going on because you had your radio, your phone to document with your beacon. And then you'd also have like your pull wires and stuff like that.
If you were thrown charges and inevitably someone would come in and be like, Oh my God, my beacon pocket got left open.
And it's just really easy to brain fart. And we've got so many things we need to hold in our head when we're out touring in the back country.
If you can offload as much of that as possible, just wear your beacon in your harness.
It's going to be way more secure.
It literally comes with one.
That's the manufacturer's recommendation. And the added benefit is when we talked about the 10 for method, it works incredibly well with two brands of beacons, peeps and Mammoot, the Berry box, because those arrows are incredibly precise.
And if I'm at 10 meters, the window of that arrow is like this. There's some other beacons like say BCA's, they often have a little wider beacon or walk wider window.
And you might have to turn them a couple times to figure out where the exact middle is.
But they're so precise and accurate.
I want them coming for my beacon up here.
Because it's close to your airway. Airway. Yes.
I don't want it down by my knee because they're going to be pulled closer to my feet.
And that may seem like a marginal gain, but to dig someone out, the average survival burial depth requires you to dig about the equivalent of a driveway, one to two tons of snow.
So if we can make a little gain and save our shovel or some time, that might make a difference between, you know, unthinkable and like, oh, that was a really close call.
Yeah, well, I think to be honest, I think that's a perfect way to wrap this up.
Like, there's a new way to do this beacon check that everyone should try out.
And you know, keep your beacon as close to your airway as possible.
Yeah. Do you want them coming for your airway? Totally.
All right, Jeff, well, thanks for, thanks for hopping on. It was fun as always. Good to see you. And I'll, I'll see you next week, man.
Great, Dave. I'll see you in the back country with another Taylor Swift clip for you.
All right, peace out, bro. Bye-bye.
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