Avalanche kills five snowboarders in Colorado today

It is easy to underestimate the consequences of getting caught in a deep-persistent slab avalanche, because these slides are often much bigger than most of the avalanches witnessed by backcountry recreationalists. Deep-persistent slabs do not form every year, like storm and wind slab avalanches. The only effective travel technique for this avalanche problem is to avoid areas where deep slabs might release, or if the risk is deemed acceptable, expose a single group member to the danger. Spreading out often does not mitigate the risk to the group because these avalanches are always large and destructive.

1. As soon as you open your car doors and start down the access trail, you are in a spot where on that particular day you absolutely should not have been — a place where others have died. And that fact would have been no mystery to these guys if they had anywhere near the level of collective experience they are said to have had. Hence, I continue to wonder if our avalanche education system is functionally flawed.