MegèveSki

How to scare your friends and family

Christmas is coming, as is the time when our families will want to know a list of potential presents. Whilst putting together the usual list of ski socks and fleeces we realised that we also wanted shovels, probes and avalanche transceivers; just in case...

Since we're likely to be on snow for more weeks than normal this season and since we're keen to do a bit more off piste with guides we thought it was about time we got some safety equipment for backcountry skiing. What's more, since we'll have plenty of time to ski we thought it would be good to be able to put some time aside to learn how to use a transceiver properly - although we've had good intentions in the past you never seem to want to take time out of a week's holiday to have a mountain guide teach us to search for buried rucksacks in the snow.

Though the ex-builder in me means I think there's more to selecting a light-weight shovel than just the colour (is that handle comfortable, how strong is the shaft, etc?) selecting a transceiver is a tad more difficult. Right now we seem to have a shortlist of two or three. First there's the BCA Tracker DTS, this digital device is supposed to be very easy to use, with a directional display and distance indicator. The thing is, although it gets some good reviews and looks like it is easy to use, the snow professionals we've spoken to prefer analogue devices like the Ortovox F1 (which simply beep, like a classic WWII sonar) which are harder to use but, apparently, better...

I obviously need to do some more research on this, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.