Ice diving

[arcFlash]

Freaking out is the biggest problem. Don't freak out and you'll have time to think about what you can do to improve your situation. Once someone is truly frightened even trained skills break down. I've seen it on technical rock climbs more then once and I got gripped once myself. It you believe your minutes from dieing your mind does what it can to prepare. After a few minutes, I accepted dieing as a possible outcome then I was free to work out a solution. Before that I was too frightened to do anything.

For Rec. ice, I really only see 2 signals and they are mostly all the same, regardless of agency, 1 is ok, 4 or more is bad. The 2 and 3 aren't really needed if the tender is paying attention. They tend the tension on the line and pay out what they have in kind. Retracting any extra so unless your working on a task, 90% of us will only give 1 or 4.

Color codes need to also account for color blind. I like using numbers.