G3 is a company that I personally would like to associate with. They have a great website, cool skis, gear and have a backcountry emphasis. We share a lot in common, really. I skied on their bindings for years because they were the lightest and made sense for touring. They weren’t the stiffest though and have some durability issues, so when I started teleing more aggressively I decided it was time to party on. I still wanted to buy a G3 probe; backcountry gear is their specialty so I went with the ‘industrial series’ thinking it was burly. Their website markets it as a ‘heavy duty design focusing on offering increased strength and faultless snow penetration’. I am disappointed with this probe because for one, it is a product you don’t exactly use a lot and it broke on its 3rd use. Secondly, it is a pretty serious safety issue having a malfunctioning probe. The sections of aluminum tubing are held together by sheaths of metal and my connection point is somehow stuck up in the middle of the metal tubing. I was lucky enough to find this out during an avy training class, but without the sheath, it is useless- no connection point=limp probe. Nobody likes a limp probe. A second complaint I have is that the aluminum is too soft for the design of a screw-on locking mechanism. The aluminum strips easily rendering it worthless yet again. I would be pretty reluctant about using this product again, however I am hoping the newer probes are constructed better. This probe is a year or two old. Sorry G3, I want to love you but maybe I need to make more dough first and buy some of your higher end gear.
Gear Review: G3 Industrial Series Avalanche Probe
