In the neverending quest of all skiers to find skiable snow in this infectious-disease-hospital-laundry-room-fire of a snow year, much like many people I know, I decided to move my efforts to the backcountry. This came with pros and cons. Sure, the snow might be better, stay for longer, and remain ungroomed, but there’s still the ten-thousand pound elephant covered in spikes and lava to consider: avalanches. And because I didn’t want to end up buried one to three meters (the actual average burial distance in Montana avalanches) down in the snow, I signed up for one of MissoulaAvalanche.org’s Avalanche Level 1 courses.
Going into it, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had heard both good and bad things about the program, but the overwhelming consensus was that no matter if I had a good or bad experience, I was going to learn a lot about being safe in the backcountry.
The course is split sixty-forty between online lectures and in the field training. I went into the first of two Zoom meetings with very little expectations, thinking most of the learning would happen in the field, but the lectures were actually really informative. It was helpful to learn about the language and terminology that’s actually used in the backcountry, and our instructors did a good job of talking us through some of that.
During the second Zoom session, we looked at a case study on an avalanche that happened at a place called Cherry Bowl in British Columbia, Canada. The group was able to evaluate what the skiers did wrong or right, and having that knowledge in my head will potentially be really helpful if I’m ever in an avalanche situation.
For our in-the field days, we were able to get a lot of practice working with our beacons, which is typically the thing that even “experienced” backcountry skiers who haven’t taken ‘Avy 1’ struggle with the most. We also went through the process of rescuing someone from an avalanche; what to do and not to do, what procedures to follow, etc. Our instructors were super experienced and were able to give us a lot of insider tips that you wouldn’t get taking an online safety course or just watching videos. We also got to tour around Lolo pass, dig snow pits to observe snow layers, and practice transitioning from skinning to skiing.
My particular session of the class got really unlucky with weather for our in-the field days at Lolo pass. It was raining pretty heavily the first day and a little lighter the second, but our instructors did an amazing job still making the class fun and informative, and because of the rain we were actually able to observe some really dangerous avalanche conditions which was sketchy but also really helpful. It’s a huge indicator of how good the instructors are at their jobs that they were able to still run a really good class with the horrible weather, so big shoutout to Katie and Trask.
Overall, I would one-hundred percent recommend taking Avy 1 with MissoulaAvalanche.org if you have any interest in getting into backcountry skiing or splitboarding. The price is pretty heavy, but I’d rather pay a couple hundred dollars than be buried alive, know what I’m saying? That would suck. The course is incredibly informative, really really fun, and just overall a great experience with great people.
