Avalanche cord

An avalanche cord (German: Lawinenschnur) is an old form of person locating device designed to enable people who have been buried by an avalanche to be rapidly located and rescued.

An avalanche cord is 20-25 metres long and about 3.5 mm thick.

The ski mountaineer or climber ties the loop with the 1-metre mark (arrow against himself) around his waist.

The use of avalanche cords goes back to the early 20th century and a Bavarian mountaineer named Eugen Oertel, and in some parts of the world is called an Oertal Cord.

[1] Initially used as a part of the personal mountaineering equipment of the Austro-Hungarian Alpine companies in the First World War.