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Comment by jeffrallen | Hacker News Reader

Flying helicopters in mountains is risky. Helicopters are dispatched to many avalanche incidents.

I live in Switzerland where we have a ridiculous number of avalanche fatalities, which means our rescuers are exposed to mountain risk when they should be sitting back at base waiting for a call to a road traffic accident, or a pediatric inter-hospital transfer, or something actually worth risking their lives for. Off piste skiers who put others at risk are a disgrace, and if my children do it, I will consider my education of them a failure.

(An avalanche that arrives onto a maintained ski slope is a different story. Skiers and ski area operators have decided to make the effort, collectively, to mitigate the risks in a scalable manner, and that's fine.)

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> our rescuers are exposed to mountain risk when they should be sitting back at base ... inter-hospital transfer ... actually worth risking their lives for.

Do you think people who sign up to work for mountain rescue, in Switzerland, secretly wish for a life of sitting around and occasionally driving an ambulance to the next town? Boring jobs are also available... but some people want to be out there, summer and winter, with teamwork, helicopters & adrenaline.

Chances are they indulge in risky activities on their free time. Especially the guys on the ground. At least in Norway the voluntary alpine rescue groups where born directly from the climbing community.

Different SAR regions have different policies regarding recoveries. I can’t speak for Switzerland but know that in Canada, it would be pretty rare for a SAR team to accept more than the average risk of being outside to recover a body. Missing people are different but dead bodies are rarely recovered until conditions improve.

I choose not to ski backcountry but have nothing against people who do. They’re athletes doing their thing. But I met a couple of backcountry snowmobilers my last time at the ACC hostel in Canmore and I have never heard such stupidity in my life. I was just about as angry as you are in these comments! :)

Like any form of risk, avalanche risk is able to be mitigated with information and deliberate decision making. Teaching these skills is the primary objective of avalanche education.

It seems that your qualms with "off-piste" skiing are primarily as a result of an uneducated public, unable to make these risk-management decisions.

I can certainly understand that frustration. But, wouldn't you agree that the solution is in education, rather than judgement?

TFA says that education increases risk. Shrug.

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