What’s next, after your AIARE 1 class?
What’s next, after your AIARE 1 class?
You’ve taken an AIARE 1 class with the Outdoor Adventure Club. Now what?
This page contains useful information for resources to continue your education and to apply your training after your class. Having taken an AIARE 1 is really just the starting point of a path of lifelong learning.
Here are a few things you can do to continue your education:
1: Go Skiing!!
You have to apply what you learned. Go out in the snow and have fun. Use the blue field book. Make good decisions. Make observations and compare them to the advisory. If your uncertainty about the avalanche problem is high, be more conservative. If you’re new to the backcountry, or have a new partner, or a going to new terrain, start small. Try to clarify what your ideal team looks like and recognize if the team you’re with with is far from your ideal. Speak up in your groups! Get a “cup of coffee”; don’t make big commitments when you’re not sure. When things line up, and your uncertainty is low around team, terrain and conditions….Send it!
2: Join the OAC AIARE Alumni Facebook Group
OAC AIARE Alumni Facebook Group
This is a small group of people who have taken an AIARE class from the Outdoor Adventure Club. It’s a great place to ask questions, find partners, and continue your education. Richard routinely contributes to the group and answers questions there. He loves it when people who recently took an AIARE 1 are engaged in the group discussions.
3: Take additional formal classes; AIARE 2, Avalanche Rescue, Mountain Weather, Wilderness First Aid
Outdoor Adventure Club AIARE class schedule
AIARE 2: The modern AIARE 2 class is a great class for anyone who is using the AIARE Risk Management Framework and wants to reduce their uncertainty while planning and executing trips. It’s three days, with tours on all three days. If you use the AIARE field book and have questions or have encountered issues while skiing, this is a great class for you.
Avalanche Rescue: We all learn in the AIARE 1 that the key to good avalanche rescue is practice. The Avalanche Rescue class provides a full day of structured practice with coaching, assessment, and feedback.
Being a well-prepared mountain traveler requires more than just AIARE training. You should learn about weather, Wilderness First Aid, winter camping, decision making, psychology, and leadership.
4: OAC AIARE Refresher
Our refresher class is unlike any others we’ve seen. Our refresher is a weekend of backcountry skiing in Lassen. You’ll be on a team of skiers/snowboarders who have all taken a similar AIARE class as you. You and your team will plan and execute two days of skiing in Lassen, factoring in the team, hazard and conditions. You’ll make the plan for day one, execute it, debrief it, learn from the debrief and make/execute a plan for day two. All of this happens under the watchful eye of an AIARE instructor. It’s a chance for you to apply what you learned and get confirmation that you’re making good decisions.
5: Read!!
The Avalanche Handbook, 3rd edition
Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain, by Bruce Tremper
SWAG: Snow, Weather, and Avalanche Guidelines, published by the A3 (American Avalanche Association
The Avalanche Handbook is a great reference book. If you want to learn more about how facets form, how mountains affect the weather, or where to place hand charges for maximal effect, this is the book for you.
Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain is a great book for recreational backcountry travelers. Tremper provides knowledge about avalanches and also provides useful tips for how to avoid avalanches.
The SWAG is the standards manual for avalanche professionals in the USA. It provides standards for observations, tests, and reporting. You’ll learn the vocabulary to say “Observations from the recent storm: HST35 cm, S5”, as opposed to, “dude, it snowed like a foot, and really hard”. (HST is height of storm snow and S 5 means precipitation in the form of snow, at a rate of 5 cm/hour)
6: Attend the California Avalanche Workshop and International Snow Science Workshop
These workshops skew toward a professional crowd, but can have some benefit to recreational mountain travelers as well.
The International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW) happens every two years, and rotates between Europe, Canada and the USA. It is a multi-day conference where snow scientists gather, present papers and learn from each other. There is a mix of backgrounds there; academic, patrol, guiding, and highways/industrial.
The California Avalanche Workshop happens every year, typically in Tahoe. It is one of several regional avalanche workshops. There are others in CO, UT, WA, WY and elsewhere. These regional workshops are one or two day events, and a great way to tune up your avy brain before the season.
7: Ask questions!
As alumni of an OAC AIARE avalanche class, you get free lifetime customer support! You can ask us any questions you have about avalanches, backcountry skiing/boarding, skiing in Lassen. Send us an email any time with your questions. Ask questions in the Facebook group. We’re happy to hear from you and see that you’re continuing to reduce your uncertainty!