Dear all,

As part of an academic project (at the University of Stirling) we are looking for skiers, skitourers to fill in this brief survey on avalanche risks (it will take about 5 minutes).

If you got a spare 5 minutes it would be great if you could fill this in.

Best,
Philip

http://www.psych-survey.stir.ac.uk/avalanche_risk.htm

P.S. The survey is anonymous and the data will be used for academic purposes only.

Hi,

I completed the survey, but feel there may be some confounding factors in your research and model design. For example, what would my score be if you knew I had avi training and 15+ years of back country and ski mountaineering experience with ~30 days a year with no avalanche incidents? Now what if you knew I have been climbing for 20+ years and been swept by avalanches three times? My score would be the same because it doesn't take climbing into account, although my decision making ability (according to your assumptions) would have been affected, increasing my score.

EB

ExcitableBoy wrote:Hi,

I completed the survey, but . . .it doesn't take climbing into account, although my decision making ability (according to your assumptions) would have been affected, increasing my score.

EB

Great point EB, so perhaps if you skied on the some of those climbing days you might count those days, or count each ski-less day as Pi days (3.14159265359...). Or (read this next part with a stern voice of an academic presenting for funding), anyone that postholes distances greater than 1km (or in terrain 35-45 degrees leading to spindrift funnels) will frequently be measured at a confidence level of e (2.7182818284... on a scale of 0-1), and may thus need to be excluded from a survey that tries to predict confidence levels of non-mutants...

Winter mountaineers, not always throwing a wrench in the system, but, may hesitantly be tolerated as 'outliers.' Luckily, it seems you've overcome some challenges and you've found a community that accepts you, even if you sometimes throw the results off. Seems like most are glad you're (still) here.

To further confound the issue, I usually approach winter alpine/mountaineering climbs on skis although the primary objective is to climb. Am I skiing or climbing?

ExcitableBoy wrote:To further confound the issue, I usually approach winter alpine/mountaineering climbs on skis although the primary objective is to climb. Am I skiing or climbing?

'tis a tough one to codify and fit into a box. Wouldn't it be the same perceived and actual risk, and confidence level either way. Why the 'ski' bias I wonder...