Hello there!

Hearing about all these avalanches in the newspapers all the time has made me start thinking to buy some protection.

I'm used to snowboarding in Canada, where there is a huge amount of off-piste which is avalanche controlled, meaning you don't need any protection once you stay within the bounded areas.

I've been snowboarding mostly in verbier and almost never ride on piste, theres tonnes of great off-piste relatively close to lifts there etc.. I'm not talking about hiking for hours to really deserted areas, but you know like small little hikes (15-30 minutes) or just big traverses to get some fresh lines.

For this kind of off-piste riding should I really be more carefull in carrying a receiver and shovel even? I see other people wearing them, and seen there was an avy this weekend with two teenages, and you can see the drag lift literally just behind where the slide was set-off, so they were'nt exactly in the backcountry!

Cheers for any help (any any tips of where to get cheap avy receivers)
Alan