Airbags below treeline?

[summit]

Risk = Hazard x Exposure

The term for increasing exposure to compensate for mitigating hazard is Risk Homeostasis. Yes, it is a thing. You must manage your mindset to avoid it.

The potential hazard is getting slid through damage multipliers (trees), not the airbag itself! The question is if the airbag increases or decreases exposure.

I'm not thinking airbags are much of a damage multiplier in trees. The thought was that you might be carried farther or be less able to self arrest, thus experiencing more trauma. On the other hand you could still be not burried and the bag might absorb part of an impact reducing trauma. I think plenty of times below treeline skiing can involve open areas where these concerns are less relevant. Open areas below treeline are more likely to slide than treed areas!

[Core Shot]

Tree mitigation is a fallacy, no?

Everything I’ve read is that trees have to be unskiable to secure the snowpack. Has that science changed?
It always seemed counterintuitive. I would expect a certain amount of anchoring. But also, you have sugar snow often at tree wells. So in some climates I could see them doing nothing. Or maybe even hurting cohesion.

Not throwing stones. Just asking.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Tree mitigation is a fallacy, no?

Everything I’ve read is that trees have to be unskiable to secure the snowpack. Has that science changed?
It always seemed counterintuitive. I would expect a certain amount of anchoring. But also, you have sugar snow often at tree wells. So in some climates I could see them doing nothing. Or maybe even hurting cohesion.

Not throwing stones. Just asking.

Trees aren’t anchors, they’re weak spots. Look at accident reports. In glades below tree line the crown often moves from tree to tree like connect the dots. It’s easy to see in pictures of the crown.


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[kootenayskier]

Tree mitigation is a fallacy, no?

Everything I’ve read is that trees have to be unskiable to secure the snowpack. Has that science changed?
It always seemed counterintuitive. I would expect a certain amount of anchoring. But also, you have sugar snow often at tree wells. So in some climates I could see them doing nothing. Or maybe even hurting cohesion.

Not throwing stones. Just asking.

It’s not that trees necessarily prevent slides, it’s that (in the mountains I ski) their very existence is evidence of a historical absence of slides, and they provide insight into all those factors which contribute to them, relative to those areas where trees haven’t been able to reach maturity.

[Bunion 2020]

Trees aren’t anchors, they’re weak spots

I would say they can be either or both.

As for airbags in trees, IMO once you pull the trigger most chance to escape has ended and you are accepting the ride and outcome.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I would say they can be either or both.

As for airbags in trees, IMO once you pull the trigger most chance to escape has ended and you are accepting the ride and outcome.

You’re certainly more qualified than I am. I just never consider trees open enough to ski as being anchored. I’ve seen too many small slides in steep glades fracture from tree to tree. We have a glade that most people consider always safe, it’s called Jackson Hole. Most people don’t know that it got it’s name because the patrol director, AJ Jackson, took a ride in there and was buried and broke his arm.


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[Bunion 2020]

I just never consider trees open enough to ski as being anchored.

Same here

[summit]

Trees are individual progenitors of weakness collective progenitors of stability. Their density, size, type, aspect, snowpack determine to what extent, but in general very sparse trees add no stability while bringing weak layers to a shallower more triggerable depth. Denser trees both help create and indicate a less avalanche prone area. It is a sliding scale between these states that varies primarily on density, all else being equal.

If you can ski the trees, it can slide... but we said that 20+ years ago before the Spatula when people though Volkl Snowrangers were fat.
Now I say, if the trees are fun to ski with fun shape skis, then they could slide.

There is a difference between "could slide," so treat accordingly as avalanche terrain, and "less likely to slide," so choose the trees to lower exposure to avalanche risk. Just remember trees are almost always consequence multipliers (increase hazard).

And you can still attempt to escape with an airbag deployed, but if the trees are tight, probably no. That is a when to pull the handle question. You can come up with useless levels of parsing possibilities. It MAY be that you could arrest on a tree and hold on without an inflated bag while you could be ripped away with a bag, but that is some silly calculus to use when trying to figure out bag/no bag.

[Jason4]

The other relationships with trees are with the canopy coverage/growth of SH, wind blocking, and shading. If the canopy is thick enough it's unlikely that SH will form. In some places SH can be sheltered along the edge of cut blocks where it has an unobstructed line of sight to the sky but is sheltered from the wind and shaded by the adjacent trees. In my local terrain we might get stiffening wind slabs near and above tree line and very manageable storm slab in the trees.

The best course of action is to avoid getting caught and carried in a slide and then the airbag is just training weight!

[covert]

As for airbags in trees, IMO once you pull the trigger most chance to escape has ended and you are accepting the ride and outcome.

I agree. Pull the trigger, grab your sack, and take your ride? Fuck that. Fight.

[californiagrown]

Trees are safer because there is generally less wind effect, less solar and temp variation, less surface hoar, more snowbombs disrupting a weak layer, and generally less snow. Basically most instabilities are less likely to happen in treed areas.

The metaphor i was taught is that trees (unless bushwack-nightmare-tight) are basically holes poked into a sheet of toilet paper. they make something that is easy to tear, even easier to tear and then you have a shitty situation on hand.