Do you find yourself drooling during late spring storms when fresh white flakes fall from the sky by the feet, but are saddened because most resorts are closed? How are you going to visit the white room? Learn how to earn your turns safely and you can slide around Wasangeles until the trails turn to dirt.
I’m a lucky girl. I’ve always been able to go ski touring with a pleasing variety of medical professionals, meteorologists, mountain guides, and map-savvy logistics lovers. This equation has worked out really well for me. However, prior to getting my Avy 1 certification, I felt like the weakest link among my touring crew because I was the only one who hadn’t gone through the official course. Although my friends may have appreciated my traits of reliability, and, you know, considerable wit, I think I wasn’t bringing a whole lot to the table in terms of backcountry prowess. I had been relying on the expertise of said pro friends to make the decisions that kept us all safe. Sure, I had been to a few avalanche awareness lectures and participated in a couple of prep days with basic skills and beacon practice so I felt fairly safe, but it wasn’t enough. I signed up for the Level 1 Avalanche Course through White Pine Touring based on many great recommendations. They provide rental touring set-ups, but it does not include beacons, shovels, and probes. This is something I would encourage anyone to do who is participating in any kind of wintry backcountry activity—including snowshoeing and snowmobiling.
Courses are taught by professional guides and are usually three full days with around 25 students in each session. Participants learn basic avalanche safety by doing both classwork and field training. Students are given resources for ongoing education and are taught how to achieve backcountry confidence by making informed decisions on their own.
Day 1: We spent the first day of the Level 1 Avalanche Class in a classroom set up at the Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City. Our instructor, Matt, went through the gamut of snow safety issues, covering everything from how to identify avalanche terrain to map reading to snow science. Course booklets were provided that detailed all of the information covered, but the instructor also gave us quite a lot of helpful information that was not in the book. We also did a few case studies, which gave all of us a chance to interact with each other. This was one of my favorite parts about the class—socializing with fellow students and the instructors. There were some pretty cool people in my class who I now call my friends. We’re official on Facebook and everything so it’s legit.
Day 2: On the morning of the second day, we regrouped at White Pine Touring to go over how to read the daily reports from the Utah Avalanche Center and other topics we would be exploring in the field later that day. We met a few more of our instructors: Shawn, Bruce, Kevin, and Heather. Each has a sophisticated background in professional guiding and they all seem like the get-after-it type who would also be fun to have beers with. It was a gorgeous day to be in the backcountry, though we weren’t actually in the backcountry, more like sidecountry. Training wheels for touring, if you will. We were at The Colony near The Canyons Resort, which is sort of like the backcountry for absurdly rich people whose estates are so grandiose they don’t often find their way out, but when they do, their backyards are so expansive that they appear before them as vast remote wilderness. Shawn showed us how beacon radar works and Bruce taught us about snow stability. The best part of the day was when Kevin and Heather performed what they insist was a “scenario,” but what I’m instead going to call a “skit,” because it sounds more summer-campy. In the skit, they portrayed how to stay safe and the precise steps for rescuing someone they watched get caught in an avalanche. Kevin struck me as the kind of guy who has an awesome wife, is good at everything, and probably has random side hobbies like pogo-sticking and pole-vaulting. I picked him as my team leader based on these assessments when we broke into smaller groups for beacon practice, pit-digging, snow classification, column testing, and advanced rescue-shoveling technique. I was surprised to learn how terribly ripe I was at deploying my probe properly. Apparently this is a disturbingly common issue because many people assume ease of use.
Day 3: We met up again at White Pine Touring on Sunday morning to geek out more about snow science, discuss decision making in avalanche terrain, and group travel strategy. Accordion-style now has a brand new meaning to me. We were blessed with a rather large storm that came in early that morning. It was depositing about an inch of snow every hour. This was exciting because we were able to see how the new snow layer affected the existing layers while doing our column and tilt tests. We split into small groups and spent the day putting together everything we had learned into practice. Our group skinned up to roughly 9,000 ft. where we stopped to take turns digging pits, isolating columns, test for propagation and failure, and make determinations based on our findings. How have I made it this far in my life without possessing a snow saw? Aside from the obvious benefits of isolating columns for evaluation, I see this tool as also being useful for backyard igloo construction and pretentious cake slicing.
And then do you know what happened? We got to ski! Yes, we skied for whole minutes. It was superb. At the end of our very soggy journey we reconvened with everyone in the course at a yurt to defrost and share experiences. It was pretty cool to look back on the past three days and realize the entirety of what I had learned. There were so many helpful tips and tricks about everything from how to care for climbing skins to the best kind of under layers to wear touring. Merino Wool, if you were wondering–to manage the sweat and the wet. I’m glad I wrote it all down in my cute little blue field guide pocketbook provided by The American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE). I would share my notes with you, but I think it’s better if you learn by taking the course yourself.
You’ll be responsible for bringing your own lunch, snacks, water and whatever else you require to accommodate your needs during the long days in class. I recommend carb-loading and bringing candy to share with your classmates. Don’t forget to tip your guides.
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Helpful Resources:
Specialty Backcountry Gear:
Pieps Avalanche Transceiver Black Diamond Avalung