Headway Systems: Avalanche Awareness

AVALANCHE
AWARENESS
COURSE

Kananaskis Country

January 18-19th 2003

Six of us took part in an advanced awareness avalanche course put on by the U of C, Outdoor Program Centre. Stefan Price was the Instructor and Guide for Dominik Modlinski, Yehudi Fleising, Lanice Jones, Rona Fluney, Roy Scarisbrick, and Carol Guthrie.

Click any image for a larger view.

Day 3 Black Prince Today our mission was to work on route finding. We were limited to where we could go as the snow was still fairly scarce in the Smith Dorien area. The ridge in front of Black Prince was chosen as there was less likelihood of running into others on the slope. This would give us a great opportunity to set our own up-track.	First we had to navigate our way across the creek and find a way up through the lower trees.


The trees were pretty tight and there were lots of obstacles to navigate through, around, over, under beside......... We soon enough broke through the lower trees only to be greeted by alder bushes. Everywhere!!
Yehudi with a big smile on his face.		Roy takes the lead from Lanice and continues to snake through the alders.

Dominik	Lanice	Rona
Now we're really into some really tricky navigation. Not only was it steep, but there were so many alders out to grab our skis and generally make the going even tougher. Who's idea was this anyway?
Rona hanging on	Yehudi	Lanis


We stopped for a well deserved snack break when we finally found a clearing.		Carol

Yehudi with a somewhat forced smile. "Are we there YET?"	The top at last. The going was tough enough on skis, but just ask a boarder how much fun the ascent was. NOT!


Finally at the top, a happy group relaxes in the sun while having lunch. But even that was to come to a sudden end. Some of the group had already put their skis back on and others were still enjoying lunch when Stefan came running up to announce that there had been an avalanche (scenario).
The camera person was too busy digging out bodies to take any photos of the search process. Most important lesson learned - practice, practice, practice.		End of the day and Dominik says it all. Yahoo!!!!
Many thanks to Stefan for leading a great course and also to all the participants. . It was a great learning experience and also a lot of fun. And remember, snowboarders have feelings too!