Got Beacon?

I have an ongoing dilemma; I am the only person I know that owns an avalanche beacon. Since beacons work in pairs, I really haven’t had a chance to test mine out yet, aside from running around the store in which I bought it looking for another beacon I was considering. I finally found a place to practice this weekend though.

Near the base of the Lenawee Mountain Lift at Arapahoe Basin there is a small area roped off area labeled as an avalanche training area. For the longest time I assumed that this was a small area reserved for the avalanche classes that A-Basin offers, but I was also curious as to whether they kept a beacon buried out there somewhere. In fact, I was so curious that I threw my beacon in my pocket while I was getting ready on Sunday morning. I didn’t think too much about it all day until I saw a ski patrol doing something in the course, so I decided to at least run over and ask him some questions.

“My name is Bumpy and this is Bumpy’s Beacon Basin” was pretty much how he introduced himself. He went on to tell me that he has been A-Basin ski patrol for 7 years and he is the one who sets up and maintains the course. He told me that the course is open to the public every day and he explained how it works.

There are 7 beacons buried on the course, each of them wired to a control box right by the entrance. You just need to grab a probe pole and your beacon (gotta supply your own beacon) and start searching. Once you find the hidden beacon and manage to hit it with the probe it will activate an alarm in the control box indicating that you got it. Walk back over and reset the alarm, switch to the next beacon and try again. I didn’t actually look in the control box, but I assume it’s just a dial or some type of switch to go between targets. I thought he said that you have to manually reset the alarm once it is activated, but I think I was wrong on that. He also added that #7 has a weak signal so you will have to work for it.

Bumpy (I think he told me his real name is Brian) is the one that sets up the course every year and maintains it every day. He’s a really nice guy and he is stoked to see anyone show up and practice using a beacon. I think that you can show up and borrow a beacon and get some personal instruction on the weekends at 1pm, but that may only be a few times a month. If you are at A-Basin and you see ski patrol out on the beacon course you should drop by and ask them about it. It’ll probably be Bumpy and he’s a really easy guy to strike up a conversation with. Enjoy.