Weekend recap and then some

The reason I have not posted much lately is because I have been immersed in avalanche education. I finally got around to taking my level 1 avalanche from the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education. The course was supposed to be one evening classroom session and 2 days of hands-on backcountry sessions. Well, the Crested Butte Mountain Guides who put on the course really weren't quite truthful about the classroom time. There ended up being 11 hours of classroom time instead of the 3 that were advertised. The only thing worse than sitting through 11 hours of class time is sitting through those same hours with a bunch of idiots. It was bad enough that I had nearly as much backcountry experience as some of the instructors but that they treated me like I was one of the drooling morons I was sitting with was worse. Anyhow, the class was repetitive and while I did pick up a few things it wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I really got to go out, dig a snowpit, check stability, and do a mini-tour. I generally like to ski with no more than 1 or 2 people in the backcountry and we must have had a group of 16. It was such a fuster cluck and I am glad I finally got level 1 out of the way. Level 2 should actually be a lot more interesting and should focus solely on snow metamorphism and not on idiot simple things like how to turn on your avalanche beacon. I am pretty confident that out of the 20+ people taking the class only 2 of us even knew how to use our beacons. I was assigned to do beacon practice with this one guy and the drill was to uncover a buried beacon in less than 2 minutes (kind of like high tech hide and seek). This really isn't that hard and most of us who ski regularly in the backcountry can uncover 3 buried beacons in under 5 minutes in a search space equal to 3 football fields. Well this guy I was partnered with couldn't uncover 1 beacon in under 15 minutes which is pretty much the last point at which buried victims can be found alive. Needless to say I will never enter the backcountry with that guy.

Ok enough ranting. I am pretty tired from the weekend but I did go up to get some turns in at the resort today. The skiing is definitely less than stellar as we have had nothing but sun and really cold temps the last few days. There should be some snow coming during the midweek but I will probably head out to the backcountry to get some fresh turns in. By the way this is just Western skiing snobbery, Eastern skiers would think the skiing is unbelievable. Suckers.