Avalanche danger
For those who want to improve their avalanche knowledge, there will be an NSP Level II Avalanche Course on the weekends of February 2-3, 2008 (Classroom) and February 23-24, 2008 (Field) in the Tahoe Basin.
This class will concentrate on field exercises, with the students expected to be already familiar with the material from the Level I course, and to have hands on familiarity with avalanche beacons.
Feb. 2 will be a dryland classroom day (always guaranteed to bring a new snowfall). Topics covered will include weather, snow mechanics, stability evaluation, human factors, backcountry rescue, organized rescue.
The balance of the sessions will be held at Alpine, Squaw and Homewood. Field sessions will include familiarization with area control techniques, snow pit analysis, beacon searches, hasty search exercises, organized rescue exercise.
Each student will be expected to have beacon, shovel, probe, and access to a snow science kit - basic kit would be inclinometer, snow thermometer, crystal card, snow saw or knotted cord for rutschblock cutting, metric ruler, snow pit field book). Beacon practice before class is essential. One of the class goals is to acquaint the students with multiple victim search techniques, and to practice multiple victim and deep burial searches.
Level I is a pre-requisite for this class.
To register or find out more details, contact
Phil Chernin
pchernin@cherninco.com
(415) 518-0776