Ready to step out of bounds and into the backcountry? Knowing how to judge avalanche conditions, where it's safe to travel and where it isn't, and being able to carry out a successful rescue if caught in an avalanche are essential skills that everyone should be aware of and familiar with before stepping under that boundary marker and heading for the backcountry.

On average 37 people are killed each year by avalanches in the United States alone. Almost all of these avalanches are started by the people caught in them. Some basic level or training and knowledge can dramatically increase your margin of safety while traveling in the backcountry.

In this three-day course, we will teach students what to look for in the snow pack, how to test stability, how to read terrain and avoid danger zones, and how to rescue themselves and partners if caught in an avalanche.

If you are unable to make any of the scheduled course dates, or are interested in any variation of the Avalanche program, please contact us.

The goals of this course are to:

• Provide a basic understanding of avalanches.
• Describe a framework for decision making and risk management in avalanche terrain.
• Focus less on providing "answers" and more on identifying the right questions.
• Provide lessons and exercises that are practically oriented, useful, and applicable in the field

The objectives of this course are to teach:

• Types of avalanches
• Characteristics of avalanches
• An introduction to how avalanches form and release
• Avalanche terrain
• Trip planning and preparation
• Travel techniques
• Decision making
• Avalanche rescue

This course does not cover snow science or avalanche technology in any detail. While it touches on and introduces advanced subjects such as snowpack development and metamorphism, these are discussed at a basic, non-technical level.

Instructor Lyle Haugsven demonstrates the use of a Rutschblock Test to determine slope stability. Photo by Rick Kaiser

When you leave this course you can expect to have a good grounding in how to prepare for and carry out a trip, basic decision making while in the field, and rescue techniques required to find and dig up a buried person if an avalanche occurs and someone in your party is caught. Most of these techniques require extensive practice before you can expect to be proficient and no course, this one included, can provide all that experience.

To establish and maintain proficiency in the knowledge and techniques covered in this course, you will have to practice extensively and regularly on their own after leaving the program.