"Said is not heard, heard is not understood, understood is not agreed, agreed is not applied, applied is not maintained" (Konrad Lorenz)
Everyone who is out and about in the mountains knows the situation of having to decide whether to ski down a slope or not, whether to continue or turn back. In the worst-case scenario, this seemingly unimportant decision can mean the difference between life and death. Consequently, one might think that this decision is made as sensibly and rationally as possible. It would be more accurate to write that the decision SHOULD be made rationally. Everyone knows the saying that can be used to gloss over even the worst decision, "des paasst scho". This saying (in its various versions) is exactly the opposite of what we freeriders and freeskiers have to do in winter: Namely, to make the right decision on our own responsibility. "It'll be fine" means talking down an existing danger, along the lines of "it always went well, so why should it go wrong now of all times and hit me right now?"
"As we tend to cling to our images and ideas, we prefer to look for information that confirms them and ignore information that we either cannot categorize or that contradicts them. Our perception is therefore subjective and selective." (All quotes are from Bernhard Streicher (psychologist, member of the OEAV experiential education teaching team, (source: BergUndSteigen, Vol. 3/04, p. 17ff.)
This slope is safe?
If we are convinced that exactly
this slope is avalanche-safe because we have already skied it 300 times and because there has never been an avalanche here, then we systematically ignore information that speaks for an unstable snowpack and avalanche danger - and prefer to perceive information that speaks for our "fiction" of the avalanche-safe slope. "This process of selective information search does not take place consciously and is particularly strong in the case of strong convictions and after decisions have been made. So if we have decided between two or more alternatives and, for example, still undertake a ridge crossing despite the formation of heavy spring clouds, we are particularly at risk of only perceiving the information that speaks in favor of the decision we have made. None of this is a problem as long as the decision is correct. However, if it is wrong or very risky, we run the risk of ignoring warning signs. Another misconception that we often succumb to in everyday life is the idea that we are capable of making optimal, rational decisions. In order to make rational decisions, we must first be able to absorb all relevant information. (But) we (are) not able to perceive all information at all. Even if we could, we would not have the mental capacity to process this information. However, there is another decisive factor: we are not completely rational beings. Our feelings, desires and current needs always influence our decisions. This is why we decide to take the risky descent down an avalanche-prone slope instead of taking an unpleasant but safer detour.
Wrong decisions - wrong conclusions
When assessing the risk of avalanches, you can do pretty much anything wrong for a long time - but the chances of survival are still not bad. However, the more time you spend in the mountains, the less likely you are to do it right. To make matters worse, athletes are often not even aware of their high-risk behavior. On the contrary: they believe they are doing the right thing! After all, they have been practising their sport for X years "safely" - and nothing has happened yet, but others have. So what happens in our brains in such situations? Regardless of our intelligence, we draw the wrong conclusions from our wrong behavior: So far I've never been in an avalanche, so I've always done everything right!? And honestly, who hasn't experienced this situation: a brilliant day, mega snow - and at some point you're standing with your colleagues above a slope and don't know whether you should ski down it or not. What happens in many cases? Of course: the group starts discussing - and a little later the slope is skied. And nothing happens, no avalanche. So, everything is easy, the decision was the right one.
No, wrong! In such group discussions, the danger is often minimized or talked down instead of making the sensible and correct (reversal) decision. It is almost always the case that if there are concerns about a slope, these concerns have a reason. But the decision to say "NO" is extremely difficult for us. And the YES is so tempting. Splashing powder - and endorphins to boot. Yet being able to say NO is one of the key skills that a person needs to survive in the mountains. For example, there aren't many riders who voluntarily jump a 10-metre cliff on their first run shortly after 8 a.m. (I'm not one of them.) At lunchtime - when you're in the middle of a powder rush - the decision to ski a slope at risk of avalanches is so much easier than a jump that might only be 7 meters deep in the morning. The reason for this is that after we have warmed up and are now completely powder-happy, we are much more confident than when we feel unsafe. This mechanism is correct. But only in relation to the cliff drop! It is life-threatening in relation to the avalanche slope. Because the avalanche doesn't care whether we feel really good or whether we still feel a bit sore from the day before. Now I have to come back to making decisions in a group: Think about who gets their way particularly often in groups you know. I strongly suspect that it's often the same people: the so-called top dogs or alpha animals. That's fine as long as the alphas make decisions in areas where they are extremely knowledgeable or where it's not a matter of life and death. But what if they only make decisions because they are so good at skiing? But what if they only make decisions because they are particularly confident? But what if they make decisions because they are used to making decisions? What then? Shit then! What can help? Here comes the pedagogue talk, but nothing else helps: only go into the mountains with people who can say NO - even if the danger is not obvious - and who are prepared to do without.
The risk spiral of white noise
The positive feedback is anything but positive! If we are often still cautious and reserved at the beginning of the day, we risk more and more as the day progresses, after all, we have been rewarded for our daring so far, but at some point the limit is (far) exceeded!
Important basic rules
Don't go into the mountains with people who are constantly making decisions for others - or with those who are involved in an, often unspoken, competitive situation as to who is the better/more radical freerider.
Try to avoid competitive situations and pressure to perform when freeriding in general.
Don't make yourself a slave to your ego and the powder craze! The attitude that a day would only be perfect if you did this or that descent increases your risk and reduces the fun, as the pressure you put on yourself makes it difficult to see possible alternative descents and routes.
The fact that the vast majority of avalanche fatalities are male proves that there is something to these rules. Strange really, or maybe not? There are often great inhibitions in groups about expressing concerns. After all, nobody likes to look like a party pooper and a scaredy-cat in front of their buddies.
The experiment
"In a famous social psychology experiment (Asch experiment, 1956) on conformity under group pressure, nine test participants were shown slides, each with three lines of clearly distinguishable length. The task was to name the respective line that corresponded in length to a simultaneously presented comparison line. Of the nine participants in each experiment, eight were confederates of the experimenter, who only pretended to be test subjects, and only one was a real test subject. The confederates were instructed to make incorrect judgments in 66% of cases, i.e. to unanimously name an incorrect line. This exerted a form of peer pressure on the real subject. Over 30% of the real test subjects agreed with the wrong judgment. For some subjects, the peer pressure actually changed their perception and led them to believe that the named line was the same length as the comparison line.
Solutions from the peer pressure trap:
Everyone must be able to express their concerns!
Everyone must be heard, derogatory comments are extremely counter-productive!
Decisions must be made together and supported by everyone!
If a group member is convinced that the slope should not be skied, then it's time to say NO! This can have a life-enhancing effect!
Once again: one of the key qualities we freeriders/freeskiers need is the ability to say NO!
This NO is often extremely difficult. Incredibly difficult. - I've often found myself - knowingly! - taking far too many risks. I've been studying avalanche awareness and risk checks intensively for several years now. And then I suddenly find myself on a slope that is more than 40 degrees steep and climb up it. Suddenly I feel the snow cover on the entire slope shake. Shit, I think, that's 4 square kilometers of steep slope - that's millions of tons of snow! And what do I do? Strap on my board immediately, of course, and off I go? Shut up and keep going. I actually trudge on! I didn't say anything to my colleague, I just kept on climbing with wobbly knees. Why? The reason is that I really wanted to ski the slope on the other side of the ridge. Another reason might be the four local freeriders who were climbing up the mountain 100 meters in front of me, completely unimpressed. Didn't my colleague notice the wobble? Why didn't he say anything? Maybe he didn't say anything because I didn't say anything?
"The classic responsibility trap is that the leader continues despite his reservations because the group follows him without objection. The group, in turn, follows the leader despite their concerns, because the leader still goes ahead and this also creates the impression that everything is fine." Well, the slope has held, otherwise I would no longer be able to write this post. But that doesn't change the fact that I or we made a clearly wrong decision (as evidenced by the movement in the snow cover). What do I learn from this? I have to be able to consistently say NO! Avalanche experts such as Werner Munter have recognized this NO-saying problem and have therefore developed risk check tools such as the reduction method. These methods have a clear upper risk limit that gives us instructions like a traffic light: Stop or go! Risk management methods such as 3x3 or the reduction method can help us to avoid deceiving ourselves. This is because they force us to take note of those factors and indications that we otherwise tend to forget. Even these tools do not give us 100 percent certainty, but as we know, no method does. The problem described here is also the title of the article: Avalanche science must also be human science! Because no matter how much I know about snow and avalanches, it is crucial for MY survival in the mountains that I can say NO when in doubt. And I have to put this NO into practice, even if it's tough, because my colleagues will later be beaming with joy that I missed the best run of the winter. And even if it hurts now - at least for my ego! - I still have the certainty that I did everything right this time. Saying NO can be so difficult. But saying YES can also be cowardly!
"When the powder beckons, the mind bucks" (W. Ammann, former director of the Snow and Avalanche Research Center, SLF)
