By Steve Janes, Editor, SnoWest Snowmobile Magazine
There's an English proverb that says Necessity is the mother of invention. That tends to explain the progression of events that started a little over 20 years ago and has led to the creation of high-quality winter survival and safety products.
Several years ago BCA incorporated an avalanche airbag in its backpack, introducing the Float series. Last year it introduced a lightweight breathable protective vest. Then late in the season, SnoWestgot wind of a new product being designed by BCA that incorporated a backpack and avy bag with a protective vest. After a couple of quick phone calls and emails, we had an early version of the Float MtnPro Vest to try out on the snow.
Keep in mind, this is a product that you must have but never want to use. Like owning a gun for personal protection, or a life insurance policy, you want to have the peace of mind that you're protected from the worst, but not be hampered from doing day-to-day activities.
The Float MtnPro Vest is a piece of avalanche safety equipment that you can wear without having it interfere with your normal movement. It is light; it is comfortable. And it's not intrusive. Yet, if you find yourself caught in a situation where the mountain starts moving, you know you have a fighting chance of getting out of that predicament alive.
When it comes to a product review, well, try as we might, no mountains started moving (thankfully). Even with the shortened snow season, we found the Float MtnPro Vest to be just the kind of product that incorporated everything we needed for protection in one package.
By combining a backpack, avy bag, and protective vest, this product provides front, side, and back protection and allows for full control over the snowmobile.
For years we have used the BCA Float avalanche airbag backpacks. But we found that wearing them over chest protectors created a layer of bulk that restricted our movement, which led to restricting our ability to have full control over our snowmobile. We were forced to choose either protection of a moving mountain or protection from a moving tree.
You don't have to compromise avalanche protection for mobility. The BCA Float MtnPro Vest avalanche airbag incorporates everything needed for protection in one product.
The Float MtnPro Vest is designed to accommodate other great BCA products, including an avy beacon, probe and shovel, and BC Link radio, along with a few other essentials. It provides full front, side, and back protection through a combination of a hard shell and polyethylene foam.
The airbag part of the vest utilizes a small compressed-air refillable cylinder that fills a 150-liter bag at the pull of a cord. Overall weight with a full cylinder is 7.5 pounds. The price of this system is $799 and should be available this fall.
BCA stands behind its products and features a 30-day return policy and 3-year warranty.
Started in 1974, SnoWest is the world's authority on how-to-ride, what-to-ride, and where-to-ride when snowmobiling in the West.
Read the original story on SnoWest.com.