To ski or not to ski?
Seriously. I am not just trying to sell you a trip. I promise, I don’t teach avalanche courses for SJMG, but the folks who do will save your hide. Better yet, they will teach you to save your own life in your quest for untracked powder. In the San Juan snowpack this has been a good year for basal facets and windslab. Two features that make for avalanche prone slopes in the mountains here and anywhere there is snow.
The thing is, the skiing here is phenomenal. With a wide variety of terrain from alpine to glade skiing to couloirs and bowls, the San Juans offer diverse skiing terrain with powder that sticks around. If you ski, it behooves you to get to know how to safely navigate the bowls, ridges, and couloirs that define the skiing here, or anywhere for that matter. You will ski until a ripe old age. Which is kind of the point, isn’t it?
Justin S. conducts a quick, on the fly stability test. 5 minutes of digging could save your life.
Surface hoar. We’ve heard what ever you were about to make.
The SJMG AIERE Avy level I and level II courses will introduce you to snow science though a particularly complex and therefore educational San Juan snowpack. You will dig pits, you will do stability tests, and you will ski powder, safely. Ok, maybe I am trying to sell you a trip, but it is for your own good, it will likely save your life.
So, why haven’t you skied here yet?
