Finally, the weekend had come to get AST-1 avalanche training! I'm normally the type of person that likes to learn and do things myself, but in this aspect I wanted to put up the money to get proper avalanche training. Anyone I've spoken to since that is curious, I tell them it's WELL worth it and I learned a lot in this course. I booked it through Canada West Mountain School which came highly regarded. I ended up getting Brento in the Backcountry (also a great MTB trail builder) as my in-class instructor, and ended up in a smaller group with Will for the on-mountain portion on Sunday at Mt Seymour.
The in-class portion was held on Saturday in West Vancouver, and covered mostly trip planning. Looking at weather, forecasts, avalanche reports, time of day, ATES ratings, and everything to determine IF you should even go out in the first place, and what you can do with a plan A, B, or otherwise to help mitigate the risk. This was a super helpful portion to understand all that goes into reading snow pack and signs, even throughout the day, and just being more aware of your surroundings when recreating in the backcountry.
We met with WIll on Sunday morning to skin up to a location near Brockton Point at Mt Seymour to do our on-mountain training. We had learning opportunities on the way up with cutting snow pack and assessing and visualizing the layers within that can be signs of potential avalanche risks.
There may have been some stops to have fun with the wildlife as well.
We arrived at the location and practiced single and multi-burial situations with extra beacons buried in the snow. We had to work together as a team to locate, probe, and dig out the beacon(s) in order to get hands-on practice. There's no better way to be familiar with what to do, than do it. I'm sure you would agree I'd rather do it in training then have to actually use it in a real world situation, but I feel better knowing how now.
This is a pretty accessible area, and of course these two individuals show that you can continue to skin up past Brockton Point, of which I would like to do at some point once I'm more comfortable as well.
We had an amazing day up on the mountain, and got done before the rain arrived. The other group from our class wasn't as lucky, as they had a later starting time.
Before leaving, as we were making good time and had good weather, Will gave us a demonstration and additional information about tree wells, and not only the danger of them, but some good tips to attempt self-rescue if you find yourself in one.
Small bit of exercise, big amount of learning!
