WSC Level I

This is a bit of a delayed post...but last week I had the good fortune to teach an AIARE Level I with IFMGA guide Steve Banks. We taught 9 students from the WP program at Western State College in Gunnison, CO. The class began on Friday night with a series of powerpoint presentations on avalanche terrain, the mountain snowpack, and avalanche types and charactoristics. 

 

We spent saturday outside practicing effective companion rescue. We had plenty of practice with our beacons, but more importantly we practiced strategic shoveling techniques for excavating buried victims. Rescuers need to move over a ton of snow for a 1 meter burial. Steve and I had our students digging in the snowplow banks at the trailhead to simulate hard avalanche debris.

On Sunday the class put all their recently learned skills into practice and went on a full day tour up Washington Gulch. We had great weather, and even milked a few turns out of the process.

Students learned show to skin, they dug around in snowpits,  and practiced safe backcountry travel techniques and proper terrain selection. Great Job to all!