A good start for your tour begins with some basics: ensure your avalanche beacon has sufficient power, know your beacon and those of your partners, and follow through with a beacon check at the trailhead (and think about repeating the beacon check later in the day).

Many communities are knee deep already in beacon checks, snow assessment, and the move to non-rock skis. As daylight savings time reared up this weekend, so too did the need for avalanche beacon maintenance. Time to get on it. Here’s some easy first steps.

The Know Before You Go program, otherwise known as KBYG, receives an update for 2022 with an emphasis on motivating backcountry users to develop their avalanche awareness and motivate them to pursue more knowledge and experience.

Aaron Rose, a Colorado splitboarder, brings a grounded perspective to interpreting the dynamic backcountry realm. “The observed and felt clues yield the most evidence to consider terrain management and avalanche avoidance. Snow sense is fundamentally built on a visual-tactile experience. Auditory stimulus is secondary, at least for me.”

This morning Black Diamond Equipment announced an official voluntary recall of several PPIEPS and BD branded avalanche transceivers.

The Snow Visa may be low tech when it comes to avalanche awareness and safety, but it might also help someone make the right calls when it matters most.