I inadvertently kicked off a beacon storm with a post on Instagram complaining about wearing my avalanche transceiver. Specifically, I was griping about wearing it in a harness instead of in a pocket. Like most outdoor products, beacon harnesses/holsters are designed for men and don’t function well for women. The resulting malady is called Beacon Boob, and we (the women) are over it!

For the uninitiated, an avalanche beacon should be worn by every backcountry traveler on any trip into avalanche terrain. They transmit a signal to other beacons to find you in case of a slide. Basically, it’s the technological equivalent of playing Marco Polo (not the app; the game some of us remember from middle school).

Beacons are about the size of a small hoagie. You typically wear them in a holster above your base layers – in theory, the top layer(s) of clothing protect the harness from ripping off in an avalanche.* The harness itself is three parts: a strap over your shoulder, a buckle-in strap around your belly, and a holster. The beacon should sit near the center of your torso, just above your belly button, and between your rib cage. It’s designed to lay flat across your chest, resulting in a hoagie-sized protrusion beneath your jacket. Think of it as a seatbelt, or just look at the diagram below.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. 

If you’re female and have a new-fangled thing called breasts, the harness doesn’t perform as intended. Instead, you deal with the uncomfortable reality of Beacon Boob. Following the properties of gravity – what goes up must come down and all that – your breasts create a curve in the shoulder harness, causing the top of the beacon to protrude as it follows the curve of your body. The beacon therefore does not lie flat against the torso as intended, but rather the top protrudes, or flops, away from your body.

This is annoying for many reasons:

• As you move, the beacon flops around, smacking against your torso with every step and turn.
• The straps have limited adjustability.
• If you do try to adjust its placement, it either ends up between your boobs or down near your crotch. I think we can all agree neither of those are optimal locations.
• You wear a backpack 99% of the time, and with shorter torsos women have less play in terms of where the beacon can go without getting tangled with the hip belt. 
• It looks ridiculous, and it’s perfectly reasonable not to want to look like a giant boob in your ski pictures (pun intended). 

To avoid the frustrations of Beacon Boob, some people opt to put beacons in their pockets instead. This goes against the advice of manufacturers, but many ski pants are now designed with special beacon pockets.** I wear a beacon 75% of the time (most of the summer skiing I do is not in avalanche terrain), and 90% of the time my beacon is in my ski pants pocket. But, for Volcano season – a magical time in April and May – you still need a beacon but you no longer need pants. Volcano season is my favorite, and I celebrate by donning my favorite leggings and skiing as much as possible….

…with Beacon Boob.

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It’s time we take action!

Beacon Boobers: what are we going to do about this predicament? Bind our breasts? Ski in silence? NO! We need someone like Anastasia Allison, designer of the Kula Cloth, to come to our rescue with a better solution. Skiing like this is not right! We should have our boobs and shred it too!

The obvious solution to Beacon Boob would be designing a better harness. It would be easy enough to add a second around-the-body strap to hold the top of the beacon in place. But since this hasn’t happened already I don’t have high hopes for female-friendly harness options (see also: womens pockets). Instead, we’ll have to make a racket to make this happen. That’s why I’m asking you to contact your beacon manufacturer and tell them about Beacon Boob! Demand better solutions! Or, better yet: pull an Anastasia and design something better yourself! I’m only good for complaining***, but I’ll happily share your Beacon Boob hack with my tens of readers.

Together, we can mitigate Beacon Boob for the next generation of ripping chicks. Join me, won’t you?

*Skiers, split boarders, snowshoers, and snowmobilers should all take an AIARE I avalanche course to learn how to use a beacon, choose safe terrain, and practice burial scenarios. 
**Disclaimer: where you wear your beacon should be something everyone in your group has discussed and is comfortable with.
***I want to recognize that my ability to get on my blog and rant about gender inequality is a privilege, and one that comes because of the emotional labor of BiPOC, women in particular. I will continue to name these inequities, and work to break down the systems of oppression in our society.