Rudi Mair

When analyzing hundreds of mostly tragic avalanche accidents, Rudi and Patrick discovered that most accidents occur in typical, recurring hazard patterns. They therefore developed 10 typical, particularly accident-prone and frequent hazard patterns. Recognizing these avalanche hazard patterns should help winter sports enthusiasts to behave with appropriate caution – and thus avoid accidents.

Rudi Mair and Patrick Nairz are the avalanche warning experts from the Tyrolean Avalanche Warning Service. In their bestselling avalanche book "Avalanche. Die 10 entscheidenden Gefahrenmuster erkennen", the two avalanche experts present a new, complementary approach to avoiding avalanche accidents. When analyzing hundreds of mostly tragic avalanche accidents, Rudi and Patrick discovered that most accidents occur in typical, recurring hazard patterns. They therefore developed 10 typical, particularly accident-prone and frequent hazard patterns. Recognizing these avalanche hazard patterns should help winter sports enthusiasts to behave with appropriate caution – and thus avoid accidents. Here we present the 10 key hazard patterns in brief.