The familiarity of the terrain "I know my way around there' (Familiarity)
Experienced, well-trained and competent skiers and mountain guides have died in avalanches on their local mountain. This is not a cliché but a fact. People often ignore atypical sources of danger, for example an unusual wind direction that makes normally safe slopes toxic, because they have skied this slope blind at any time of day or night and don't even think that it could go down. (It happened to me.) This factor is doubly dangerous in that it comes into play especially when you are traveling alone and thus stay on familiar trails.
In McCammon's study, it turned out that 69% of the accidents investigated happened in terrain that the people involved said they were very familiar with. According to McCammon, well-trained people are particularly susceptible to the "familiarity" factor.
Resignation due to peer pressure "The others are driving too." (Acceptance)
Resignation means that you surrender your perhaps insecure feeling to the often unintentional pressure of the group "to go on", "to pull in" or "to drop the cliff" resignedly and act against your gut feeling. Familiar, dangerous, but gets better over the years.
In McCammon's statistics, the 'social proof' trap plays an important role. In addition to classic peer pressure, factors such as "are there other people around at all", or "are there already tracks" are also dealt with here. Again, well-educated people tend to be more susceptible here, see also the FACETS 'scarcity', 'experts' and 'tracks'.
Determination "I won't get another chance like this in a hurry" (Consistency/Commitments)
Some unfavorable circumstances can play a role here. Freeriding costs money and effort, and you don't always have the epic conditions on those rare days off that the media say you get every day. Once everything comes together, you are reluctant to turn around just below the summit because of the slight avalanche risk or not to drop into the mercilessly beautiful colouir. So you often take unnecessary risks against your better judgment. If everything goes well, you're a tough dog. If it doesn't go well, you're a dead dog. There is a not inappropriate saying in our circles on this point, which is true either way: A mountain is not a frog. It won't run away from you.
According to McCammon, this factor applies equally to all group sizes and training levels.
The experts "He already knows what he's doing"" (Experts)
Here I'm not talking about guided freeride trips, where you rightly pay to hand over a large part of the responsibility so that you can relax and enjoy the best powder. That's what freeride centers and well-trained people are there for. Our example is about the fact that a leader emerges in almost every small group that travels independently on the mountain. This doesn't have to happen on purpose, and it can happen to anyone. Maybe it's the loudest person, or the local, or the one who did an avalanche training course at the Alpine Club two years ago and has just bought a new avalanche airbag. In tricky situations that require quick decisions, this can put everyone involved in an awkward position. Here, it is important to discuss openly in advance or on the way who - if anyone - has which skills and can also use them. An important point.
Confirmation "Two tracks in the snow lead down from a steep height' so everything is safe." (Tracks)
A classic. "There are tracks, I can ski there." On the one hand, word should have gotten around by now that fresh tracks are no indicator of the safety of the slope. A slope only becomes safer when it is skied on regularly throughout the winter, thus preventing the formation of sliding layers. Secondly, and more frequently, tracks are often used as signposts by those unfamiliar with the terrain. Unfortunately, this can end badly, as nobody knows whether the original tracks lead to nowhere or nowhere at all. This happens very often on one of the most notorious mountains in the Freireiterei, the Krippenstein. Here, on good days, lost freeriders are picked up from rock faces by helicopter every hour because they have followed an unknown trail. (The first confused freerider may even still be standing there, and the two of you wait for the expensive air cab. But that doesn't make it any cheaper or less stupid either)
