Avy 1 Course

For several years, I've been interested in backcountry snowboarding. The risk of avalanches has kept me in bounds until I could take a proper avalanche certification course. That was high on my list of things to do this winter and at the beginning of last October, I signed up for a course on Mt. Hood in January.

The course consisted of two evening classroom sessions and a weekend on Mt. Hood. During the classroom sessions, we learned about what causes avalanches, how to travel in avalanche terrain, and how to determine where avalanches live.

In the field sessions, we learned and practiced locating avalanche victims with beacons, probing for them with poles, then digging them out of the snow. We also did a mock backcountry tour on Mt. Hood, skinning around on the hillside assessing for avalanche danger, digging snow pits, and analyzing the snow pack.

I learned a lot and had a lot of fun, but more importantly I am now a safer and more aware backcountry traveler. Avalanches don't just affect skiers and snowboarders, they are a big part of mountaineering, too.

I only ended up with one picture from the course.