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Avy safety - probe lengths?

Avy safety - what's the length of your probe?

  • huh?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • under 240cm

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 240cm through 279cm

    Votes: 7 33.3%
  • 280cm through 319cm

    Votes: 9 42.9%
  • 320cm or longer

    Votes: 5 23.8%

  • Total voters
    21

Pequenita

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Earlier this season I was sitting in a safety seminar and a speaker told a story about how a recreational backcountry skier failed to locate a buried partner because the latter was some small, single digit number -- let's say 5cm -- below the length of the probe. I conveyed this to someone in the vein of "don't save money by buying a short probe," but that said, would the general rule then be to carry the longest collapsable probe available?

In other areas of avalanche rescue, I can see a strong argument for a recreationalist, particularly someone my size, carrying slightly smaller gear or gear that doesn't meet standards that equipment for guides and rescue professionals needs to meet if it means that the person can be more effective. In a perfect world, we all want 190lb 6'2" Adonises to be using the largest sized shovel blade with the 75" handle to dig us out (wait, is that just me?), but in the real world, you're stuck with me, and if I and a team of others can get to your airway quickly using a smaller shovel blade because we can actually move that snow, then so be it.

But probe length -- what's the rule of thumb there? What's the length of your probe? Other than weight, which is minimal, what are the cons to a longer probe?

Since we're sharing, mine's 300cm. But tbh, it's a hand-me-down from someone who was upgrading their own equipment nearly a decade ago, so I can probably go longer and lighter now.
 

karlo

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Depends is my answer. What’s the snow depth?
 

Analisa

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Carry the QuickDraw 280 personally. Average burial depth is 1.5m, so under 240cms feels short. Especially since it’s extremely small differences in weight.

I’m just surprised at the story where 5cms prevented the rescue. I feel like if I probed for over a full minute with no luck, I’d probably try to start digging. Lou Dawson over at Wildsnow started even leaving his probe after 3 antenna beacons came out since he found them so reliable - you at least have a pretty good ballpark of where they are.
 

Spooky

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I've rolled with a bca 300 doing a lot of skiing in the Wasatch, San Juans, and Rogers Pass area. There are a lot of data and opinions, but you want to find the people not buried deeply as fast as possible...so it seems to me 280-300 covers that.
 

Lauren

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I recently bought the BCA starter package, being the most cost effective way to get a full rescue kit, comes with a 270 cm probe. My AIARE instructor told us that 270-300 is sufficient for the majority of rescues, but of course there with always be outliers.

When and if I upgrade it, I’d go up, definitely not down in size.
 

Slim

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As a tall guy(6’5”), I tend towards longer probes, I think for shorter people, (@Pequenita ?), a bit shorter is probably ok too.

I think when we talk about burial depth, it’s important that the average burial depth doesn’t tell the whole story. This is a case of asymmetric optimization.
The deeper the burial, the more important probing becomes. This is for two reasons:
  • The deeper the burial, the longer the shoveling will take, so the more important it is to get an accurate location (with a probe), and get it quickly.
  • the deeper the burial, the less precise the beacon pinpointing will be.

I can see a few drawbacks to a longer probe:
In shallow deposits, it’s more awkward to have a huge probe swinging around miles above the snow with each insertion​
Obviously, it’s larger and heavier to carry, more of a burden on smaller people, (who have shorter packs).​
If it has an additional segment, this is another potential failure point, as well as adding to assembly time.​
 

Slim

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buried between 8 and 10 feet (2.5 to 3 meters) deep. This contributed to a difficult rescue scenario. We did not interview every member of the rescue party, but the discussions we had indicate the probes they used were less than 250 centimeters long. The group had to move snow off of both riders to pinpoint their locations.”
From the report on the fatal accident of snow bikers near Vail:

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that with a longer probe, the victims would have been saved, but still, it seems to me to be another push in the direction of a probe over 3 meters long.
 

James

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Wow, rescued from 4 meters down. Amazing. That’s a lot of snow to move.
 

Mike King

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I’m not sure that matters so much. You‘re not probing the snowpack, you are probing avalanche debris.
Even a avalanches in shallow snowpacks can pile up deep debris, and deep snowpacks can have shallow avalanches that fan out wide.
Exactly. That was the issue in the Cameron Pass death earlier this season.

 

DoryBreaux

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I have a 270 that I really feel I should replace with a 300 or longer. For me I don't see any downsides to a longer probe, only potentially lifesaving benefits.
 

Mattadvproject

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Generally, the longer the probe, the greater the diameter and the stiffer the probe can be. Much better for probing through stiffer snow and avi debris, less deflection and risk of breaking. I definitely notice a difference when probing with a 3m probe, compared to a shorter probe.....
 

Slim

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Generally, the longer the probe, the greater the diameter and the stiffer the probe can be. Much better for probing through stiffer snow and avi debris, less deflection and risk of breaking. I definitely notice a difference when probing with a 3m probe, compared to a shorter probe.....
Hmm, that I don’t understand:
-the longer the probe, the less stiff it becomes (all else being equal)
-why could a longer probe be made with larger diameter than a shorter one?
 

Mattadvproject

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Hmm, that I don’t understand:
-the longer the probe, the less stiff it becomes (all else being equal)
-why could a longer probe be made with larger diameter than a shorter one?

Hello Slim,
Thanks for the question/statements. I spend a lot of time running inhouse avalanche safety training programs during the overseas ski and snowboard trips that I run and I see a lot of different probes in the field. I've had a few different ones myself in the last 10 years that I've been doing this. I've tried most of the major brands/designs over the years. Some work better than others in my opinion. In answer to your comments above:

1. For sure, the longer the probe, the less stiff it becomes, in terms of it's longitudinal flex. For example, if you were tall enough to be able to grab a 320cm probe and a 240cm probe (both having the same diameter and materials) at the ends, then the 320cm probe is probably going to flex more than the 240cm probe. But obviously that's not how we use a probe. We are holding it at a comfortable height, closer to shoulder height typically (or whatever height is comfortable for the user) and then we are working the segments down into the snow until we get a probe strike (hopefully). From the different probes I have owned and used, it's my experience that the longer probes tend to have a greater diameter and are stiffer. They work a lot better in hard snow and avalanche debris in my opinion.

2. I'm not sure I understand your second question. Did you mean to say "why would a longer probe be made with a larger diameter than a shorter one?" I would say that the primary reason to make a shorter probe narrower would be for weight saving and less material so a subsequent cost reduction. That's just a guess though. I did go through and look at the major manufacturer's probe specs. Not all the brands list the diameters of their probes (Black Diamond and Ortovox don't on their US websites). There is definitely a correlation between length and diameter; the longer probes do have a greater diameter than the shorter ones. I'm not sure if there is a factory in China or Vietnam that is pumping out probe segments for all the major brands, but there is definitely a lot of similarity between brands.....

For example (probe length in cm/probe diameter cm):
1. Mammut: 320cm/1.3cm, 240cm/1.1cm
2. BCA: 330cm/1.3cm, 240cm/1.1cm
3. Arva: 320cm/1.3cm, 240cm/1.1cm

- Matt
 

Slim

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@Mattadvproject ,,nope I meant to ask why could a longer probe be made larger diameter, I was asking that because you said it. You said:

  1. “the longer the probe,.. the greater the diameter can be”
  2. “the longer the prober,.. the stiffer it can be”
:huh:
That was what confused me, and what I was responding to.

I understand why a manufacturer would make a longer one larger diameter, it was your statement that they could that confused me.
Totaly agree that if a manufacturers chooses to use larger diameter tubing for their longer probes, and you are probing to the same depth, then the longer one would be stiffer.

Thanks for looking up those diameter specs.
Definitely something to keep in mind when shopping!:thumb:
 
Last edited:

Slim

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Revisiting this topic. I noticed my older Black Diamond Alloy Probe (280cm/12.7mm diameter), doesn't go together as quickly as I might want. Looking at current probes online, they seem to mostly have gone to a tapered ferrule, that, I imagine, would help speed this up a bit.

I also found Othovox has this nice spreadsheet for their probes. If only everyone else would do the same!

Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 16.46.45.png
 
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