I’ve been thinking about how to talk about avalanche safety without repeating the same obvious stuff. Everyone knows to check the bulletin. Everyone knows to carry a beacon. Everyone says they’ll turn around if it feels wrong.
The problem is most bad decisions don’t feel wrong at the time.
They feel normal.
You’re in terrain you’ve ridden before. It’s not some huge unknown face miles from anywhere. It’s a line you’ve skied in similar conditions. You know the access. You know the exit. That familiarity quietly lowers your guard.
You stop asking what’s different today.
That’s where it usually starts.
Years ago someone put a label on these patterns. FACETS. Basically a way of describing the predictable ways we nudge decisions toward what we already want to do.
Not because we’re reckless. Because we’re human.
Noticing that shift early is usually the only chance you get to correct it.
FACETS
FACETS came out of research by Ian McCammon. He looked at a large number of recreational avalanche accidents and kept seeing the same human patterns turn up. Not just snowpack failures. Decision patterns.
He boiled them down into six recurring traps. A way of pointing out that a lot of accidents weren’t happening because people didn’t know enough. They were happening because people were human.
That difference matters.
Most avalanche education focuses on terrain, weather and snow structure. FACETS is about what’s happening in your head and inside the group before anything fractures.
Here’s what that looks like in real terrain.
Familiarity
Terrain you know well carries psychological weight.
You know the slope.
You’ve skied it safely before. Maybe loads of times. That history starts creeping into your judgement. Instead of looking at what the snow is doing today, you’re leaning on how it behaved last time.
McCammon found experienced groups were actually more prone to this. The more comfortable people felt in familiar terrain, the less they questioned it.
Snowpacks don’t honour history. Every day in the mountains is unique.
Acceptance
Groups behave differently than individuals.
One person sounds confident and the whole tone shifts. It doesn’t take ego. It doesn’t take someone shouting. It’s usually quieter than that. If the strongest rider looks relaxed, everyone relaxes a notch.
McCammon saw this in accident reports. People took bigger risks when they were trying to avoid friction or fit in with the group (more on this later). Everyone just wants to be accepted.
That’s the danger.
Interestingly, whilst men are inherently more likely to make riskier decisions, adding female members to an otherwise all-male team amplified this. Presumably the desire to impress or be accepted by these new team members subconsciously impairs decision making.
Consistency
Once a plan is moving, it’s hard to kill it.
You’ve skinned for an hour. Maybe more. You’ve talked about this line all week. By the time you’re standing on the ridge, turning around feels harder than it should.
McCammon’s research showed that groups with a clear objective were more likely to push on even as things changed.
That makes sense. You don’t hike up there expecting to bail.
But the snowpack doesn’t care how much effort you’ve put in.
Expert Halo
Experience carries influence.
When a group contains someone perceived as highly trained or more skilled, others tend to defer. That deference can suppress individual concern.
The trap isn’t having expertise. It’s assuming expertise eliminates your uncertainty.
Experienced leaders are still subject to the same human biases as everyone else.
This season in Europe has underlined that in the harshest way. Highly experienced backcountry guides have been caught and killed alongside clients. That’s absolutely not a criticism of them. It’s a reminder that experience doesn’t buy immunity.
The “expert halo” works both ways. Others lean on it. And the expert can start leaning on it too. Experience feels like protection. Sometimes it quietly lowers your guard instead.
Tracks / Scarcity
Limited resources (or the perception that they’re limited) change risk tolerance.
Fresh snow, first tracks, closing weather windows. When something feels finite, people move faster and accept more risk to secure it.
Scarcity compromises your judgement.
And it’s also never true.
There will always be more powder. The mountain isn’t going anywhere.
And even if you miss out on that specific line, there will be many more to come once you turn back and safely make it back to base.
As I discussed yesterday seeing existing tracks can also create false reassurance. A slope that has been skied once is not necessarily stable. It simply hasn’t failed yet.
Social Facilitation
The presence of other groups alters perception.
Multiple parties in the same terrain can make it feel implicitly validated. If others are there, it must be reasonable.
Oddly, this effect was more evident in the most highly trained backcountry groups. I’m not entirely sure why. Possibly it’s just them thinking “well if the lesser skilled group is up here, we’re probably okay”.
Avalanche hazards don’t care about expertise, or multiple-group consensus.
More people doesn’t equal more stability. As we all know… it can be quite the opposite.
What You Do With This
At some point it stops being theory.
You’re standing there. It’s quiet. Someone looks at you. Or you look at them.
And you either go or you don’t.
FACETS doesn’t make that decision for you. It just explains why it might feel easier than it should.
I’ve made calls I’m proud of. I’ve also felt the pull in the wrong direction. Anyone who says they haven’t is lying or hasn’t been out enough.
The snowpack is complicated. So are people.
You can’t remove that.
You can only catch it early enough to slow it down.
That’s it.
Be safe out there.
