The comment section from this avalanche video from Slovakia is peppered with people pointing out that there was obvious avalanche danger with signs of windloading and the skier should not have proceeded down the mountain but he is quick to point out that these very same conditions are often present:
“I saw wind drifted snow. But there is wind drifted snow all the time here, so I didn’t pay too much attention to it.”
This goes to show that complacency in the mountains can be your worst enemy when accessing avalanche danger. Just because something that looks the same didn’t fracture last time doesn’t mean it won’t this time. Thankfully the skier was able to deploy his avalanche airbag backpack and avoid getting buried by the slide. Being that he was skiing alone at the time, if he was buried the consequences could have been dire:
“It was triggered by one skier on the second ride. First ride was through the exact same point, slope didn’t show any signs of instability. Accident occurred while freeride skiing, other slopes around were really hard, icy. Avalanche danger was at level 2 (moderate) that day. The problem was wind drifted snow on hard layer, creating weak spot. Length of slide was nearly 300m. Avalanche airbag was activated. No injuries.”
There is a spirited conversation about the decision making process in YouTube comment section that I highly recommend checking out if you are interested in avalanche safety READ MORE HERE: