I was driving across the country through the US in the late 90’s and I came across these little white crosses along the side of the road in Montana. There are LOTS of them. It turns out that these are…
Tag: safety
Most popular posts 2015
The most popular posts on my blog for the year 2015 are, with one exception, posts that I wrote in previous years. I don’t know what that says about my blogging this year – perhaps I am getting worse or…
On Backcountry Safety
On the road up to Mount Seymour, near the start, there’s a yellow sign: “THINK SAFETY If you get lost today will anybody know? Are you prepared?” In the 80’s I’d seen this sign multiple times a week every winter as…
#TrailHeadSelfie
SAR Teams use social media as part of their investigation into a missing person — and if they don’t, they have to start immediately. In fact, two easy ways SAR teams can use social media as an investigative tool are as follows: the Social…
Winter Backcountry Safety
I was on CBC yesterday talking about winter backcountry safety, This is particularly important given that there were three incidents in the last two weeks. Multi day rescue of a skier by several teams in the Kootenays of BC Man and his daughter…
Hazardous Jobs
Sometimes when I am searching for someone, be it in the middle of the night, raining and while bushwhacking, and carrying 80 pounds of rescue gear, I smile to myself about how much I like doing this job. The reason…
Avalanche Bulletins on a Map
It’s always frustrated me that something so clearly spatial as the Canadian Avalanche Centre’s avalanche bulletins aren’t on a Google map. Based on my recent work on the map of SAR teams in Canada I figured it would only take…
Confusing an estimate with reality
This post at kottke.org illustrates a problem with the user interface on many mapping applications. The application is supposed to show you where your phone is, but when it can’t determine the position accurately, it attempts to find a general…
Stop with the Smart Phones already
Last year I wrote about how you should stop using Smart Phones for backcountry navigation. News outlets continue to post comments from local SAR teams highlighting what I wrote about; people using their phones as navigation devices are running the…
Posted in Blog Entry Tagged with: backcountry, communications, gear, GPS, opinion, rant, safety, smart phone, social media, technology
Canadian Avalanche Air Bag study
Avalanche Balloon packs, or “Air Bags” (see WildSnow.com for an excellent overview of the current offerings) have been out for a few years, and other than anecdotal evidence, or data compiled by the manufacturers, there hasn’t been a lot of independent and peer reviewed study…
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