Beacon Training Park shares life-saving techniques
Routt County Search & Rescue’s Beacon Training Park at Howelsen Hill Ski Area provides an area to practice how to use avalanche safety equipment in order to save someone’s life.
“This valuable training site permits individuals to understand how their safety equipment works instead of trying to do that during a life-threatening incident,” said Routt County Search & Rescue President Bobby Carlton. “You can have all of the right equipment, but without practice, it will not help you in an emergency situation.”
Beacon Park is located near the base of the Barrows chairlift. The sloped and wooded terrain provides a realistic scenario of what a true avalanche debris field may look like. The course educates and provides a safe and accessible venue for practicing backcountry avalanche skills.
Routt County Search & Rescue invested in a BCA Beacon Training Park System three years ago and partnered with the City of Steamboat Springs to create the Beacon Training Park at the base of Howelsen Hill Ski Area.
Six waterproof transmit boxes are buried throughout the area and can be easily activated via a control panel attached at the custom Beacon Basin sign. For those who are new to beacon searches, the park signage includes general avalanche information, details on search techniques and links to online training resources.
Routt County Search & Rescue team members utilize the Beacon Training Park regularly for training purposes, including conducting search sessions with the Steamboat Ski Patrol’s avalanche dogs in training. In conjunction with the city, Routt County Search & Rescue also hosted a youth backcountry avalanche program sharing valuable skills and hands-on training. Routt County Search & Rescue urges other groups and individuals to take advantage of this unique and accessible resource to practice these potentially life savings skills.
“Whether a seasoned veteran or backcountry novice, we unfortunately know first-hand what can happen when people venture into the woods and are not properly prepared,” Carlton said. “Avalanches continue to be one of the most prominent dangers to backcountry travelers and we want folks to be armed to act should it be necessary.”
Colorado’s mountain areas currently are experiencing moderate avalanche conditions for the Steamboat & Flat Tops areas at all elevations. Even with moderate conditions, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center says individuals can trigger an avalanche where recent snow drifted over weak layers. These weak layers are buried 1-2 feet deep or more in drifted areas. The most dangerous slopes face easterly and are below ridgelines, in gullies and on steep rollovers.
So far this season, two individuals have died in avalanches across the state.
