On a morning in December, I sat down on my couch with a cup of coffee and my laptop. It’s 6:30 a.m. Snow and wind pelt the living room window, but it’s still too dark to see. I have an hour before my first meeting of the day, and I plan to fill that time with something productive. I navigate to avalancheaware.com, the home page for Avalanche Aware, a free course from the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE) aimed at bridging the education gap for new backcountry skiers and mechanized users.
“This takes 45 minutes to an hour,” Emma Walker, AIARE’s Education Director, tells me. “One hour could save your life.”
Avalanche Aware dropped on October 28 of this year, but AIARE has been working on it for three years in collaboration with the Northwest Avalanche Center and the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. This isn’t AIARE’s first foray into online education. Their field-based courses have offered an online element since the 2020/21 season. Walker says that Avalanche Aware follows the same concept of AIARE’s Decision Making Framework taught in a recreational Level 1 or 2 course, describing basic topics like the definition of an avalanche and how they occur. The idea is to set those looking to take an AIARE Level 1 up for success by providing an intro to avalanche education.
There are two available Avalanche Aware courses, one for human-powered users and the other for mechanized users. The curriculum is based on the avalanche triangle, in which each leg represents a piece of the recipe for an avalanche to occur (terrain, snowpack and trigger). The lessons and quizzes are simple, and, while they can’t replace an in-person Level 1, they’re designed for those starting their first season of backcountry skiing and considering an Avalanche Level 1.
But just because the course is simple doesn’t mean it’s only for backcountry beginners. After clicking through the five modules, I found myself thinking about old knowledge in new ways and even learning new things. Most notably, that 90% of avalanche incidents are triggered by the victim or a member of their party, something I’d never thought of in my two decades of backcountry skiing, including a Professional Level 2 certification and a past career as an AIARE instructor.
“Avalanche knowledge really is a muscle, and it is a use-it-or-lose-it thing,” says Walker. “We want people to be refreshing that knowledge every year, and this is a great way to knock the rust off. It may even encourage you to open back up your student manual or your AIARE Blue Book and take a look at what you learned on your AIARE 1 or 2 course.”
She adds that, in the future, AIARE hopes to expand their free, online offerings to include Level 1 and 2 refreshers. “We really want to find ways to engage people after they do that level one,” says Walker. “Avalanche education really should be a lifelong journey. It’s not a box you can check off and just be done and you’re safe from avalanches forever.” AIARE also currently offers a Tuesday Night Education Series, which is a series of free webinars every non-holiday Tuesday night from December to February.
Growing free, easily accessible courses follows AIARE’s mission as a non-profit: to save lives through avalanche education. While nothing ever replaces time learning from professionals in the field, anyone looking to go into the backcountry this season would benefit from taking an hour over morning coffee to tune up or learn something new via Avalanche Aware. “It really costs you nothing, and this is the kind of work that is truly mission driven for us,” says Walker.
Related posts: