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RECCO: How it Works and How it Doesn’t …

Henry
Nov 6
4 min read

Updated: Nov 8

RECCO chips are now a common part of many bits of ski gear, from jackets and trousers to boots and more. But knowing what it is – and it’s limitations – plays an important role in staying alive in the mountains.

RECCO was born in 1983 in Åre, Sweden, from tragedy; Magnus Granhed lost two friends in an avalanche, and set out to make sure that no one had to suffer the same loss.

In the 40 years since then, RECCO has become a standard part of the snowsports industry. RECCO Reflectors are sewn into hundreds of thousands of pieces of ski gear sold every year, and ski patrol and search and rescue teams across the globe are equipped with search devices. RECCO has undoubtedly save countless lives as a result.

But RECCO cannot be relied upon. Why? Because of its design as use as a ski patrol tool, it regularly takes more than half an hour for RECCO to be on site in the event of an avalanche. This is well beyond the 15 minute magic number for avalanche survival, and is a massive limitation of the technology.

Skiing Unlocked breaks down RECCO, how it works, and the limitations of its use.

What is RECCO?

RECCO works on a very simple principle; it reflects radio waves better than the snow.

Snow reflects light – its one of the reasons why goggle tans can be so strong and so sudden in their arrival, you’re being blasted by the sun’s rays from up and down. But the trick is, snow reflects light at the same strength – i.e. wavelength – at which it arrives.

Based on this principle, RECCO is designed to reflect light back at double the wavelength at which it is received. Therefore rescuers, using a device emitting radio waves at a certain wavelength, and when it receives the waves back at double the strength, they follow the signal until the find, hopefully, a buried avalanche victim.

RECCO emitters and receives are carried by ski patrol units all over the world, and, over the last few years, have been adapted to be attached to helicopters. This is massively increasing the range and speed at which RECCO can be deployed to the site of an avalanche, even reaching high risk terrain that could be difficult for ski patrol to reach.

RECCO team in action — A RECCO-equipped ski patrol team in action. Photo credit: RECCO

How Doesn’t it Work?

So, fundamentally, RECCO works on the same principles as an avalanche transceiver, right? Yeah, pretty much.

A signal from a buried victim is picked up and tracked by rescuers to find the victim, and begin extraction.

But there is a big difference. RECCO requires a large device to emit the radio waves and receive the reflected signal. And I mean large. It can only be carried by ski patrol or hung from the underside of a helicopter. This means that you are waiting around for ski patrol to turn up – something that, unless you have avalanched right under the ski patrol hut, means at least a half-an-hour response time to get RECCO on site, let alone begin the search and extraction.

It is important to understand how big of an issue this is; after 15 minutes buried in an avalanche, the chances of survival drop off a cliff. An extraction of a live victim after this time is as a result of pure, unabashed, blind luck – an air pocket keeping the victim going for a few minutes longer than expected.

Therefore, it is critical to get people out in under this time. With an avalanche transceiver – worn by victim as well as someone else in their party – shovel, and probe (and a working knowledge of how to use them), extraction can be performed in around 10 minutes. For reference, the new guidelines released by the American Avalanche Association (AAA) this year state that, in order to pass the PRO-1 course and qualify as an avalanche professional (forecaster or ski patroller), you must be able to perform a double search and extraction in seven minutes or fewer.

The time differences between a searching for a passive reflective chip with an industrial device, and an active radio emitter with a personal device is incredible, and is – quite literally – the difference between life and death.

So What Role Does RECCO Play?

RECCO can play a key role extracting victims from an avalanche; multiple burials, solo travellers, or failure of a transceiver search are all scenarios in which RECCO plays a key role. It is only in the last decade the avalanche transceivers have become trusted, reliable devices, that run digitally and don’t rely on human input – and error – to find the right wavelength to track a victim. RECCO helped to fill this gap in reliability and consistency, until transceivers quietly became standardised and trusted.

There’s something else at play here, too. I was chatting to a mountaineering friend of mine a few years ago, a serious climber with several 14,000-ers under his belt, about RECCO and it’s role in the mountaineering community. He told me that him and his climbing colleagues have RECCO sewn into every nook and cranny; in belts, in boots, in gloves, you name it.

For them, RECCO is a reassurance. It is peace of mind. It is them knowing that, whatever happens in the mountains – and at over 8,000m elevation there are some seriously bad things that can happen in the mountains – they will be found. Dead or alive, they will be found.

The point of all of this is, the RECCO still plays a valuable role in avalanche rescue in the mountains, otherwise why would every ski patrol outfit and search and rescue group in the world be equipped with it?!

But nothing replaces an avalanche transceiver, shovel, probe, and knowledge of how to use them. A rescue time of under 10 minutes puts you in an incredibly solid position to make sure your ski buddies make it out of the avalanche alive.

Final Thoughts

Fundamentally, I will still value ski gear higher if it has RECCO than if it doesn’t. But it will never replace a modern, digital, three-antenna avalanche transceiver; if someone comes to me and suggests sharing a ski saying “oh it’s okay, I have RECCO” – then I’m leaving them behind.