Pre Season Safety Check

Temperatures are dropping and snow is starting to fall in the hills-- it is time to start checking your safety equipment to make sure things are in proper working order. So, let's remind ourselves what we should be looking for when we take our avalanche safety equipment out of storage.

BEACONS

• A general inspection should be performed on all beacons. Hopefully the batteries were removed at the end of the season. When putting new batteries in, make sure there is no alkaline battery corrosion, which will present as a white, powdery substance.

Alkaline corrosion can be very dangerous. Even if the beacon appears to be performing adequately, any piece of electronics that has alkaline corrosion on the battery terminals is suspect and should be returned to the manufacturer for inspection. Do not simply brush the terminals off and ignore. The electronics could be damaged and may not be reliable.