If you want to explore the mountains during winter, awareness and understanding of avalanches is essential to safe passage. Level 1 Avalanche Courses give you the technical skills to identify hazards and employ techniques to improve your decision making. They include everyday practices that help you mitigate risk and avoid the worst-case scenario. With these tools, you might even save someone's life one day. 

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Beyond the safety aspect of these courses, there are plenty of other reasons to join. Avalanche courses are a great way to meet other like-minded backcountry users; many times our students walk away with new (and educated) partners. Similarly, these course help you dive into the inner working of these backcountry partnerships. Hopefully, you'll come out of this course with an rough understanding of the mechanics behind group decision making and its implications.

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Our courses are also a great opportunity to get to know a new area. Red Lodge and Cooke City are off the radar, and no guidebook exists for the backcountry terrain nearby. Although there is class time, we make the majority of our courses in the field and, because of that, you can expect to learn more about the terrain in real time.

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Regardless, the Level 1 is an important step in your backcountry learning. Whether you've been doing this for years or your just starting, we hope you come out of this ready to practice and apply the skills you've learned.