Online Avalanche Learning
Do you ever have a question about avalanches but aren't sure where to find the answer?Maybe you've taken an AST 1 (Canada) or Recreational Level 1 avalanche course (USA) but now have a question that your course didn't address. Or maybe you're just really into snow and avalanches and want to more.
In person courses are the foundation of lifelong learning about avalanches, however, there are numerous online resources that are worth checking out. Here are a few of my favourites.
If you're just starting out - begin with Avalanche Canada's suite of online learning resources. This includes Avy Savvy, an online tutorial that was developed as an introduction to the Avalanche Skills Training 1 (AST 1) course. Also on the Avalanche Canada webpage is Rescue at Cherry Bowl, an immersive, multi-media case study of an avalanche incident and rescue.
If you want to dig deeper - way deeper - you can find all the papers of the International Snow Science Workshop online, hosted by Montana State University. The available papers stretch from 1976 to 2023 and are easily searchable by keyword, author, title, etc. This resource is a great place to engage current and past thinking on avalanches and snow science.
The last two online resources I will recommend are the back issues of The Avalanche Journal (Canadian Avalanche Association) and The Avalanche Review (American Avalanche Association). These are the professional journals for the avalanche industry in Canada and the United States. Each issue includes a mix of industry news along with current research or incident reviews. I learn something new from every single issue. Many of the articles in TAJ and TAR are later developed as papers for ISSW.
Do you ever have a question about avalanches but aren't sure where to find the answer? Now you know!
Jerry Isaak is an Associate Teaching Professor and the program lead for ski touring in the Adventure Studies Department at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia. He is an AMGA certified Ski Guide and has guided backcountry ski adventures in Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, Japan, and throughout the United States and western Canada.