Analog - thumps up/thumbs down?
I currently have a Sessions jacket with Recco to help me if the snow decides to slip.
ah, ignorance is bliss!
btw, the only way the recco will help you is with dead body retrieval. Recco is not a beacon!
Not really. It has its place. Mainly for in bounds avalanches and terrain patrol can access fast and easily (although it has been used successfully in rescues well out of ski area boundaries). It is actually a type of beacon, but it’s no substitute for a transceiver. Where both are available, Recco can pinpoint the person well before someone with a transceiver has made it within 20 meters, let alone probed them. The more people that use it, resorts that support it, and technology built into the recco receiver, then the better and more useful it will be.
Yeah I got recco too in my jacket but it definately won’t stop me carrying a transiever out of bounds ... but thats kind of insisted by my wife too .... 
another thumbs up for analog gear from me, very happy with the pants I wore this past NoHe season.
If you are buried in an avalanche your chances of survival reduce exponentially after about 15 minutes. That means to have any real survival chance the people who are with you have to find you and dig you out. Preferably in less then 15 minutes!
Recco is a passive system and is brought in by the ski patrol or helicopter. There will be a delay before this equipment gets to the scene and this delay may cost you your life. An avalanche transceiver sends out a signal which can be picked up by the units from other members of the group. Your group can immediately search for you with a high degree of accuracy and hopefully get you out before its too late. If you go outside of the marked and controlled areas having a jacket with Recco is no substitute for an proper avalanche transciever, shovel and probe. (and knowing how to use them!)
. . . the only way the recco will help you is with dead body retrieval. Recco is not a beacon!
Word.
January 10, 2006
Hinterstein, Germany (Ski Press)-On New Year’s Eve, a 29-year old German woman who was caught in an avalanche and trapped under 1.5 meters of snow was pinpointed with the RECCO avalanche rescue system and recovered alive after being completely buried for 45 minutes.The woman and her partner had been snowshoeing to a backcountry cabin when the slide hit, swept her 150 meters downhill and trapped her under 1.5 meters of debris in a narrow, hard-to-reach gully. The backcountry traveler caught in the slide was not wearing a transceiver even though the avalanche danger in the surrounding mountains was rated considerable on the international scale that day.
Luckily her partner was not caught and placed a cell phone call to police, who then deployed Mountain Rescue of Hinterstein. Two rescuers equipped with an avalanche dog and a RECCO detector were immediately transported to the accident scene by helicopter, ahead of a rapidly approaching storm and descending darkness.
After a 15-minute search, the buried woman was located with the RECCO detector, pinpointed with probes and subsequently dug out alive and conscious. Three hours after the slide, she was transported by military rescue helicopter to a nearby hospital where she has since recovered from the ordeal.
Even though RECCO has been globally adopted by ski resorts and is utilized often as a method of off-piste avalanche rescue, this successful recovery occurred far removed from the nearest ski slope. A convergence of factors including cell phone coverage in the incident area, a rapid air-based rescue response and a buried victim who was detectable by the avalanche rescue system, which is able to pinpoint RECCO reflectors integrated into commercially available ski wear, boots and protection gear.
Also, I’m not sure the point of your quote. It doesn’t address anything I raised about the specific usefulness of Recco in specific circumstances. As I said, it’s not the best all round system, but it does have it’s place, and the more it’s used, the better it will get.
There sounds like a few factors of luck in the above story though?????
The area that they were in still had mobile reception (somethin that is most likely not available in backcountry areas, and even in some resorts inbounds avi prone areas)!!!!!
Secondly, havin said mobile reception, and the fact that the couple had snowshoed to their accommodation, tells me that they were relatively close to emergency help!!!!!
Without those things, RECCO would have been more likely how Gamblor described it!!!!! A body retrieval system!!!!!
I personally have never gone BC, but the moment I do will be done in a group with the best system available to us incase mother nature bites!!!!!
And would definitely head out with someone that was qualified and experienced!!!!! This would most certainly be someone that wouldn’t purely rely on RECCO I would guess?????
For inbound, I can’t see the harm in havin it as a part of ya gear though!!!!! And in the case of somethin goin wrong inbounds, it may very well be a life saver!!!!! It can’t be a hinderence that’s for sure!!!!!
I currently have a Sessions jacket with Recco to help me if the snow decides to slip.
ah, ignorance is bliss!
btw, the only way the recco will help you is with dead body retrieval. Recco is not a beacon!
Not really. It has its place. Mainly for in bounds avalanches and terrain patrol can access fast and easily (although it has been used successfully in rescues well out of ski area boundaries). It is actually a type of beacon, but it’s no substitute for a transceiver. Where both are available, Recco can pinpoint the person well before someone with a transceiver has made it within 20 meters, let alone probed them. The more people that use it, resorts that support it, and technology built into the recco receiver, then the better and more useful it will be.
hahaha it’s funny you were so quick to jump on me. I have a transceiver, probe and shovel also so it’s not like I’m running out in to back country with only the jacket. 9/10 your mates won’t save your arse out of fear of the avalanche sliding again or the avalanche is that big it kills you or you get swallowed by a rock.
I ride with experienced riders who know the area and really choose my days.
I currently have a Sessions jacket with Recco to help me if the snow decides to slip.
ah, ignorance is bliss!
btw, the only way the recco will help you is with dead body retrieval. Recco is not a beacon!
Not really. It has its place. Mainly for in bounds avalanches and terrain patrol can access fast and easily (although it has been used successfully in rescues well out of ski area boundaries). It is actually a type of beacon, but it’s no substitute for a transceiver. Where both are available, Recco can pinpoint the person well before someone with a transceiver has made it within 20 meters, let alone probed them. The more people that use it, resorts that support it, and technology built into the recco receiver, then the better and more useful it will be.
hahaha it’s funny you were so quick to jump on me. I have a transceiver, probe and shovel also so it’s not like I’m running out in to back country with only the jacket. 9/10 your mates won’t save your arse out of fear of the avalanche sliding again or the avalanche is that big it kills you or you get swallowed by a rock.I ride with experienced riders who know the area and really choose my days.
well look at what you wrote. you made it sound like you thought having recco on your jacket would get you rescued. Maybe a smiley face would have helped if you were joking.
As for me, I can guarantee that 10/10 of my mates would do everything in their power to rescue me, just as I would do the same for them.
As for recco, SamNZ, I know what you’re trying to say, but you’re coming across as saying that recco will get you rescued (if a number of prerequisite conditions exist). There are lots of bc novices on this site and I’m just trying to be clear about what recco can and cannot do.
If you have recco on your jacket or pants then cool - it might cause your rescue in a certain situation, but for guys riding in avalanche terrain (even just ducking the ropes) it’s just not enough. You need the beacon, probe, shovel and training to use them.
All good Gamblor my post could be hard to understand and I would hate for some one to go back country with out the right knowledge and equipment.
Helmet cam from Switzerland , Verbier. Avalanche.
“This is the footage of me getting buried in an avalanche in Verbier, Switzerland on the 28th of february in 2011. My friends spotted and excavated me within five minutes even though I was buried at a depth of between 1.5-2 metres. Luckily I was wearing the right equipment and managed to create an air pocket in front of my mouth by holding my hands in front of my face when the avalanche stopped moving. And YES, we have proper shovels, the guy digging with a ski is just a random guy who happened to ski past after I got buried. “
pretty freaky. I couldn’t watch it with sound since I’m at work. What slid? It looks like you’re on a finger, which is where I would have ridden.
As for recco, SamNZ, I know what you’re trying to say, but you’re coming across as saying that recco will get you rescued (if a number of prerequisite conditions exist). There are lots of bc novices on this site and I’m just trying to be clear about what recco can and cannot do.
If you have recco on your jacket or pants then cool - it might cause your rescue in a certain situation, but for guys riding in avalanche terrain (even just ducking the ropes) it’s just not enough. You need the beacon, probe, shovel and training to use them.
That is exactly what I’m saying. But that also means that recco is not ‘just for body retrieval’. It has a time and place. You made it sound like it was a useless tool, where in actual fact it is a successful and useful one when used correctly.
yes, Mizu, very lucky circumstances in that situation, the situation was only used to prove that Recco can and has worked in the past. The fact they were so far out and the chances of survival were very slim, yet due to recco, they were still rescues goes to prove that when recco is used in better circumstances it is very useful. Imagine if that slip was in bounds? She would have been rescued in under 10 minutes no doubt.
but used correctly by whom? not the user obviously.