I’m at a bit of a loose end in Jan (i.e. I have no ski trips planned), so I was wondering about taking a weekend avalanche foundation course, such as http://www.mountaintracks.co.uk/winter/alpine_skills/avo_awareness_foundation.

Has anyone ever taken one of these courses? If so would you recommend it?

I am under no illusions, a weekend course is not a subsitute for skiing with a knowledgable and expereienced local guide. However I would hope it would give me a bit more of an insight to add to my book knowledge and the info I’ve just picked up over the years from skiing with more experienced people.

Cheers,
Steve

I went on one of these courses a few years ago. I learnt plenty and found it interesting but was very new to touring when I did it. We spent quite a bit of time doing searching using transceivers which was useful. It isn’t a substitute for a guide and how much fun you have will depend on the guide leading the course and your fellow course members. Having been on the course I always talk to the guides about what are the risks they are thinking about for any area/slope etc when we are out and about, based on what I learnt. If you are already quite experienced you could learn just as much talking to the guides as you go.

The Mountaintracks course would be pretty good I would imagine. Chamex would be another choice: http://www.chamex.com/.

Over a couple of days you should be able to cover route planning and terrain choices which are really the most important aspects of safe back country travel. As long as you don’t spend too much time in snow pits, although it is always good to take a look at the snowpack history and identifying weak layers, if you can find them (shouldn’t be a problem in January in Chamonix).

The course seems to be very “on the ground” oriented, which is good. Nothing like learning from someone who knows their stuff on the ground.

This is a video of Nick Parks of Mountaintracks giving a short impromptu chat to people from Snowheads.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7478392676777497157#

Here’s a short film we made a few years ago (note the state of the art avalanche beacons

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7478392676777497157#docid=-4754827470183911840

Thanks for the info, and the Chamex link. Interesting… Now you’ve given more information I have more decisions to make The Chamex one looks a little longer (3 days as opposed to 2.5 days), and I like the level of detail on their site.

I just did the ChamEx one at the weekend.
I enjoyed it, especially the hands-on outdoors stuff. The classroom material was fine, but I’m a geek and tend to read up on it anyway, so not much actually *new* info, but good to have it reinforced.

They’re running a second session in early Jan.
Only thing to watch is the days are long, so if you’re expecting to fly out of Geneva on the final evening, you better have a late flight.

I stayed at chalet 200m up the road which was very friendly, comfortable etc, so worth a plug: google for ValleyFever.

Whether you do the ChamEx one or MtnTracks it is worth downloading & printing some of teh technical & scientific papers on the AIARE site.
If you do the MtnTracks I’d like to know how you find it: I was torn between the two and ended choosing based on work pressure (no regrest thought).

Next: need/want a glacier travel & crevasse rescue course.

Cheers, Martin.

Thanks for the feedback, let us know if you sign up for the crevasse rescue. Were ChamEx following the AIARE syllabus then?

Yes, the course is AIARE level 1, given by Miles & Liz Smart (UIAGM and guide aspirant respectively).
They’re Americans based in Chamonix and are qualified to teach the AIARE course (all 3 levels I think).

Can’t remember your site policy on embedding commercial links, so please remove if inappropriate:  Smart Mountain Guides

Thanks for the info martinr, very useful.

I was actually tentatively booked on the Jan course with ChameEx… then something came up at work and I’ll need to be in the US at that time so I had to cancel. It seems there is some demand for another course, so there *might* be an extra one later in the season.

The only obvious difference between the ChamEx and the Mountain Tracks course is the duration, Mountain Tracks is 2 days, with some classromm work on the evening before (maybe 2 1/2 days then). The other thing I was keen on with ChamEx was the detailed info on the website - from this and from what you say this sounds like exactly the course I want to do. I am sure the Mountain Tracks one is great too, but the info on their site isn’t as detailed.