Ask skiing: what's the most user-friendly avalanche beaon?

Skiing
September 2007

We're going to dole some love to the BCA Tracker DTS, the work's first digital beacon--and the only one designed and assembled in the USA. The Tracker was built specifically to address ease-of-use issues. This is not to say other brands aren't easy to wield, or that they don't perform well. But many snow-science professionals believe the Tracker's combination of a lit direction arrow and numerical distance to the target is as simple as it gets, especially for beginners.

There's also no need to fiddle with dials, since there are only two buttons: "search" and "special." The former does what it says. The latter overrides the nearest-beacon sensor and allows you to determine if you're looking for more than once transceiver. That's all there is to it.

So why don't all snow professionals use the Tracker? Because many experienced users believe that advanced signal-processing features, like those in the Barryvox, are better in multiple-burial situations. Well and good. But Backcountry Access's research has shown that in the last three years of U.S. avalanche incidents, only two out of 99 cases have been multiple-burial situations. For a panicked rookie rescuer scrambling to find his buddy, the Tracker may be the best call.