What is sad is if you make a mistake you are dead for a really long time.
This is the thing and something that is hard to recognize when young. As you grow older you learn from experience, some of that through close calls, in which you come to realize that your risk profile has been too high for what might be a lifetime of exposure to a greater or lesser degree. While it is important to be knowledgeable, observant, etc.; it is more important to realize that to avoid the chance of becoming a statistic, the avalanche problem is actually one of philosophy rather than knowledge. That conclusion becomes obvious when you take to heart the knowledge that avalanche release is statistically based; statistics for which precise probability in many situations is something that cannot be known. To be a perfect predictor of avalanches you would have to be able to visualize three dimensionally all particulars of a given slope; for all slopes you might ski, or travel over a lifetime. So, an avalanche educator has to somehow get this message across to younger enthusiasts who don't want to realize that they are mortal and that their own mistakes can in the right(wrong) set of circumstances lead to his/her death or injury. That is my analysis after having taught avalanche courses for 27 years and after having backcountry skied for 50. What I tried to do to get the message across in classes was to give experiential examples by way of case studies that demonstrated this reality. Students would sometimes ask what was the purpose of a particular case study - but in that very question lay the answer. Several case studies showed mistakes; but some also showed basically an unplayable lie - a situation in which the probability could not possibly have been predicted by a human. In those particular case studies, the true nature of the problem could only be precisely analyzed (with respect to snowpack) in retrospect. Thus potential consequences - easier to assess than probability - becomes the most important factor to assess.
But, there are Avalanche Forecasts, and there is a reason the understanding they impart is of a probability nature. Those forecasts and peer observations at least give some understanding of the nature of the risk at hand, or expected short term, and give one the possibility of selecting appropriate terrain with a reasonable expectation of safety - not only on one occasion, but over the much longer lifetime (hopefully), in which many similar risks could be taken or avoided.
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