There are two really strong selling points for the Arva Evo 3+ avalanche transceiver – price and ease of use. I say this because I wonder how many people have decided to take their chances without a transceiver when skiing off-piste simply because in the past they’ve cost so much and been so tricky to get the hang of.
Not so the EVO3+. It’s been built with ‘clear and intuitive functionality’ at the forefront of the design, and this is obvious as soon as you use it; it’s automatically turned on when you clip the harness on so there’s no danger of forgetting, easily and simply placed in ‘search’ mode and easy to search with as the display simply consists of an arrow pointing you in the direction of the buried victim along with a digital read out of the distance to said victim (the maximum range is 40-60m).
Better still, should you be in a multi-burial situation the EVO3+ has a visual multiple victim indicator for one, two, three or more victims, automatic lock on the nearest victim and a built-in function to block out found victims.
Multiple searches are the hardest part of any avalanche incident and anything that can make this as easy as possible has to be welcome.
In use it sits easily in the palm of your hand, the main features can be operated with gloves and the read out is easy to see and understand.
When you add in the price to all of the above – around the same as a week’s lift pass – the EVO3+ is a real winner whether you’re a novice backcountry skier or a seasoned professional.
