Level 1 AIARE Avalanche Course in Durango and the San Juans

Last week’s AIARE Level 1 Avalanche course was a huge success.  Four motivated individuals came out mid-week to improve their avalanche knowledge and skills.  There was a great mix of experience levels in the group including a professional skier, a competitive park rider, a recreational snowboarder, and a mountaineer.  During the course, we had an excellent opportunity to address the relevancy of avalanche knowledge to each person’s needs.

We were fortunate to have perfect conditions that made learning during this course optimal.  We began with a light snow on Tuesday which continued through the next day, leaving a new layer of San Juan snow to look at.  Observing how wind transported the new snow onto lee and crossloaded aspects was very valuable for bringing attention to obvious start zones as well as not so obvious ones.  We also enjoyed digging in the snow and observing all the previous snow storms and how those have changed over time.  Learning to identify the potential weak layers and to gather more information with different snowpack tests helped the students identify the potential problem layers.  As always, the San Juans obliged with an interesting snowpack structure!

This course was a great success with students leaving excited about the new knowledge and skills they learned.  No doubt these new skills will help keep them safe out there in the backcountry!

Aaron