Common BC radio channel?

Is there a common radio channel that skiers are using in the backcountry in the Cascades?

A party I was in nearly knocked a wet slide on another party in the skin track below our exit from a saddle, by the time I got to where I was going and turned around to see what was going on I was too far from the other party do communicate easily with them and it would have been nice to have a common channel to flick my radio to.

I have a BCA Link radio and it came with "E" set to 9-11 which I've left and associate E with Emergency. I'd be up for changing "C" to something common, maybe 4-20 since that seems to be a common reason for people to stop for "safety breaks"...

What's the common collective here think of the idea of having a common channel that we can use to talk to other parties when there's something worth saying?

Several other regions have adopted common channels and it seems like its gone over well. Telluride was the first (that I know of), apparently at this point it is being used by pretty much all the local ski tourers.

www.telluridemountainclub.org/backcountryradios/

It sounds like the expectation in Bear Creek is that everyone will always be on channel 4-4 at all times. I guess that could work in the Cascades if we segregate the radio channels for touring use only and not using it in the ski area just to keep random chatter off the radio.

I was thinking more along the lines of having a channel dedicated to just my group and another available if someone yelled "common" at me or something similar.

Does anyone have a preference for a channel to use? It seems like 4-4 might be good since it's already in use by other backcountry skiers. If we can get support as a community I'll try touring in the Bagley Bowl area with a common channel to see how bad the chatter is.

A good common channel will be one of the GMRS channels.

If you've skied in a region with a common channel, how have you arranged to avoid inter-party confusion?

We're pretty new to touring regularly with radios, but we like them a lot. When running multiple WAC parties in one region or when our channel has overlapped with another party's, we and others have had trouble differentiating groups.

Clear enunciation of names helps, but there are lots of duplicate names in the world. Communication at the edge of radio range can be pretty confusing for a neighboring party, too.

Charlie, those are some of the same concerns that I have too and why I didn't think I wanted a common channel that I'd use all the time but some channel that everyone would know to go to for communication between parties.

I used to use radios a lot in the ski area but there is too much random chatter and noise on the radio that's distracting.  I don't know if that's better now or not.

Freeski, I don't have an airbag yet but I've mostly accepted that it will happen in the next year or so. The rest of your check list except for the avalung is standard for my pack too.

I'm not convinced that we can use radios for communication between parties and keep it civil but I would have loved to have been able to check in with the group that we almost knocked off the skin track and it would have been nice to have talked to a party that was peeling skins while standing on a cornice above the skin track out of Mazama Bowl that same day.