Booker Bense wrote
I've done lots and lots of solo skiing in steep terrain
over the years and looked at from a rational point of
view, I can't characterize it as anything but "dangerous foolishness".

I look back on my solo backcountry ski tours, and I do not see them as
"dangerous foolishness" -- at least no more so than backcountry touring
generally, in that I would have been safer for that day if I'd stayed home
and pedaled on my indoor bicycle and watched a DVD.

Almost all the scary things that have happened to me on ski tours have been
with partners or groups, doing something I would not have attempted alone.
(and somehow almost always, one of those partners was a regional "expert").

I actually prefer to ski with other people, and do that lots. But sometimes
there's an excellent window of weather and conditions to do a great tour,
but no partners available to do that or something comparable. Like last
spring, late April - early May was a fantastic once-in-a-decade opportunity
to do some great tours in the southern Sierras of California around Mt
Whitney. But not many people around there to ski with. I still was able to
find partners to find most of my tours, but not all of them. I don't think
there was any significant avalanche danger on any slope I was on for those
solo days, and I have no regrets.

I agree that if I did get caught in an avalanche when out skiing alone, my
chances of survival would be low, even if I were not fully buried. But
compared with the foolish risks I've seen on group tours -- including
sometimes impromptu foolishness of my own, partly inspired by presence of an
audience -- I'm not convinced that typically I am overall less safe on most
of my solo tours.

I wonder if the accident statistics on solo touring are misleading in that a
minority few solo skiers are actually _trying_ to take on serious risk,
because they're depressed, or have lost a key component of their social
support network -- as a sort of backcountry version of "russian roulette".
While many of the other solo ski-tourers are trying to be extra careful on
safety, relative to the conditions and weather and their abilities.
Statistics for backcountry accidents are very tricky anyway, and I don't
know how a research analyst could pull out the cases of risk-seekers to
distinguish them from risk-avoiders (or even if they actually fall into
distinct clusters).

The other problem with backcountry accident statistics is that it's
difficult to estimate the "exposure" in each category, i.e. the total number
of people out touring including those who did not report accidents. It
might be that solo tourers are less likely to sign trailhead registers and
less likely to acknowledge their solo-ing in response to survey questions --
so the exposure population for solo touring is under-estimated, which
results in the accident rate getting over-estimated.

Ken