Red Mountain 11-week instructor course diary – week 3

It’s been another action packed week for the skiers and snowboarders in Red Mountain, with highlights including their avalanche safety course. Thanks to Sharon for her diary:

Ok, so what happens when you put 25 NONSTOPers into backcountry snow, whilst training for an Avalanche safety course? Our enthusiastic team shovelled the biggest snow-pit ever… and yes, we were shovelling correctly. I wasn’t aware until this course that there is an efficient way to shovel!

The weekend’s course saw us being entertained and trained by the Canadian Avalanche Centre, who must have had the patience of saints whilst we got to grips with our new lifesavers, the transceivers. We learnt how to read maps and compasses, plan and prepare a back-country route, select the right equipment and discuss the finer points of expeditions. Whilst all this was theory driven, we also got to go into the field and test our new knowledge in the beacon pit at Red Mountain. Then, once competent in our new skill, we were privileged to go out of bounds (backcountry) to learn to cut into snow, build snowpits and conduct compression tests on the snow to check for fragile layers.

We had a great hike up in the fresh untracked snow which was mostly knee deep and reaching waist deep up towards the Headwall. Once we arrived at the selected destination after assessing the terrain for avalanche risk, we put our new skills and knowledge to test and had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

In summary: An excellent course but not for the fainthearted, as although we had fun there was a serious theme underlining this work. Avalanches are not fun and can be deadly. Planning is key when thinking about going for that untracked snow on a crazy backcountry slope. Assess the weather, check the bulletins, check the terrain, check your route, plan your team well, check your equipment (tranceiver, shovel, probe) and make sure your transceiver is turned on. Happy (and safe) Riding!

And here are some more photo updates from Technical Director Mark Impey:

Five Centimeters. It is amazing what that small amount of snow did. The skiing and riding was fantastic today. The NONSTOP groups were going non stop.

Del Hills leading the way. NONSTOP Instructor Matt Briggs in the background trying to keep up.