The Importance of Flexibility

Artists Point in North Cascades, Aug 2011 _I went to an avalanche awareness class last night, and while there was a lot of talk about hearing "whumps" and witnessing running cracks and generally being aware of avalanche conditions, there was also a big discussion about the human factor that causes most avalanche deaths.

The human factor boils down to basically three errors we commonly make: 1) believing that we are more skilled than we actually are, 2) not paying attention to the obvious...