In the consumer cacophony of the SIA Snow Show in Denver, I was starting to turn a little green.

With both envy and disgust at my envy. I want more skis! But I don't need a fourth pair of skis. Another jacket! Really, a dozen isn't enough?

This annual trade show put on by Snowsports Industries of America is full of amazing, cool stuff for skiing and snowboarding. But I felt myself sliding into the sea of want -- gorgeously shapely Salomon skis! Insanely lightweight Fischer Nordic boots! -- even though all of my skis and boots are new-ish and in good shape.

Perhaps this is


Jenn Fields
against the spirit of the newness and radness of the show, but I decided to look for something that felt more wholesome. A necessity, perhaps. So it's no surprise that I found refuge in the booth of local lifesavers Backcountry Access, chatting with BCA's Bruce Edgerly.

At the booth at SIA, the BCA crew was eager to blow up one of their Float airbags for anyone who came by to see how they work. In fact, someone else pulled the trigger on one -- PFFFAAAAAAAA!! -- just as Bruce was asking whether I'd like to see it in action.

In the field, this is what it would look like: You're skiing or skinning along in the backcountry, and suddenly, whomp, then whoosh, you're being carried along in an avalanche. Since you're wearing a BCA Float backpack, you pull the big, plunger-like trigger at your shoulder to deploy the airbag, a yellow life raft that inflates in a big square around your shoulders and head. Hopefully, you will float to the top of the avalanche debris thanks to the airbag and survive the ride.

BCA's Float has only been on the market for a few years, but they're lighter than ever. The medium-sized pack that's available this winter weighs 8 pounds.

"It's going mainstream," Bruce said. "I think it

Bruce Edgerly displays the Dozer, a new avalanche shovel by Backcountry Access that will be available next winter, during the 2012 SIA Snow Show in Denver.
will be one of the big four -- beacon, shovel, airbag, probe. It's already gotten that way in Europe, and we're always a step behind them in skiing."

Bruce showed me the air canister -- smaller than a Nalgene bottle, and far lighter than a full one -- and plugged it into the guts of the system in the backpack.

As I slipped the pack over my shoulders, Bruce said that BCA had just heard about someone wearing a Float surviving a slide on Wednesday in Summit County. (On Friday, he shared an email from the snowboarder that read: "You guys saved my life.")

How many people have been saved by airbags? I asked.

It's hard to know for sure, Bruce said, because people don't always report being caught in avalanches.

But over the past two winters, 10 people have reported back to BCA that they believe their lives were saved by an airbag in an avalanche, he said.

With a trepidation, I pulled the trigger. PFFFAAAAAAAA!! It blew up around my head, and I poked at it with my fingernails. The bag blows into a taut, tough mass. I felt cocooned. Sort of. I wouldn't try something risky thinking this would make it OK.

Bruce let the air out of the bag and re-packed it. One of his co-workers came over with some photos of that Wednesday slide. We talked about why people don't report being caught in avalanches.

I said the judgement of online commenters could be harsh, even though we all learn from avalanche reports.

"Also, people don't want their wives to know," Bruce said with a smile.