Attention Avalanche Airbag owners living in the United States- we’re currently running a survey to collect data that will eventually be made into a presentation for the 2012 International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW) this fall. While there have been studies made already on airbag use in several parts of Europe and Canada, there is currently little information in states.
If you can, please take a minute to fill out our survey by clicking here.… Read more
Donny Roth takes us through the steps to conduct a proper Rutschblock Test. When not traveling in search of skiing, climbing and cycling destinations, Donny can be found at home in Boulder, CO. He has been entertaining himself in the backcountry for 18 years and is now a guide and runs the website Independent Descents.… Read more
As in any professional career, it’s important to stay current on your education. That’s why at BCA we regularly put our sales, marketing and customer service staff through AIARE and CAA avalanche courses. And that’s why I took a two-day workshop at Copper Mountain, Colo. last month with Swiss avalanche rescue führer Manuel Genswein. This is the third workshop I’ve attended with Genswein and my conclusion remains the same: For experts only!
Attending a Genswein clinic is good entertainment: he has a brilliant sense of humor, speaks five languages, and he has a uniquely high-pitched and heavily accented voice reminiscent of the similarly corpulent General Burkhalter in the 1960’s sitcom… Read more
I’m just back from an epic week in Tokyo visiting our Japanese distributor and the Caravan sales agents. I can’t say enough about how completely awesome this experience was. The folks that run BCA Japan are completely dialed! The entire trip was organized from the moment I stepped off the plane and there wasn’t a second wasted.… Read more
Tis the season when us outdoorsmen (and women) trade in our mountain bikes and climbing shoes for skis and snowboards, eagerly awaiting the impending snowfall. To ensure your safety on the slopes this year, we here at BCA are busy as ever making the products you have come to trust. Since 1997 our Electronic Production department has been hard at work finding a perfect balance between reliability and usability for our avalanche transceivers and this drive for perfection has paid off. With the release of our DTS Tracker, the world’s first ever digital avalanche transceiver, BCA earned a reputation for ingenuity and simplicity of design, one that has since made… Read more
BOULDER, CO (October 19, 2011) – Avalanche equipment manufacturer Backcountry Access (BCA) has received coveted TUV and CE certification for its popular line of Float avalanche airbags. Available in North America since 2009, these will be the first US-made avalanche airbags ever exported to the lucrative European market.
The company went through an exhaustive two-year testing cycle to obtain European (“CE”) certification from the renowned German testing agency, TUEV-Sued. In addition to a battery of lab tests, the requirements included at least ten live deployments in real avalanches. BCA used dummies as “victims” and was assisted by several ski patrols who triggered slides for the company on high hazard days.… Read more
One of the greatest things about working at BCA is traveling to different regions and checking out the variances in North American ski culture. I can tell you that in Crested Butte it’s still popular to have a flavor savor (this was also true in 1988). In Nelson the “rage” is wearing your latest all-natural-wool toque made by your girlfriend or mom and it needs to sit on your head just right. In Jackson it’s all about keeping up with the locals on both the up and the down. At Alpental it’s about maintaining an urban feeding-frenzy mentality by snaking pow and the lift line whenever possible (this is a… Read more
The pro patrol at Alpental has been very proactive this season in helping with continued testing of the BCA airbag program. April 15th was epic: mid-winter conditions, high avalanche hazard, and still snowing. Conditions were ripe for another Float 30 test! And so it went. Special thanks to Rob Gibson and the entire crew for helping pull this off:… Read more
At the Canadian Avalanche Association annual meeting last week, Canadian Mountain Holidays guide Rob Whelan explained the problems CMH and ACMG (Association of Canadian Mountain Guides) guides, and CAA level one avalanche students have been experiencing with their Barryvox Pulse beacons during periods of signal overlap while searching for multiple burials, particularly during beacon exams. He offered several backup techniques to help solve these multiple-burial challenges.
We were recently invited to help train members of the Crystal Mountain Freeride team. These kids ski hard, huck big, and compete on the Junior Freeskiing World Tour. The topic: companion rescue! Our main focus was getting these kids dialed on their Tracker2′s and comfortable using their BCA Quickie probes. I also let them try some new shovels from BCA, the Bomber B-1 EXT and Bomber B-2 EXT.
The other main focus was training them how to search as a group. This takes practice and the crux move is to always establish a group leader who can give orders. The video below will demonstrate how they went from “follow the leader”… Read more
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