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Burnie Glacier Chalet is easy to get to - leave Vancouver in the morning and ski in the afternoon!

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The ultimate backcountry experience in the mountains of northwestern BC.

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There are many terrain options including tree skiing.

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When the powder is super deep, we take to the trees!

Advanced Avalanche Skills Training

Dates: TBD

This avalanche course is for experienced ski mountaineers who already have the knowledge of the basic snow avalanche safety course, advanced backcountry travel skills, and some experience. It happens at the Burnie Glacier Chalet, so some very good skiing cannot be avoided.

This six day avalanche course will expose you to the real thing; observation and decision making at a high level.

While many avalanche courses concentrate on delivering knowledge without showing how to apply it, this intensive course does both. Most of it takes place in the field, so there is a lot of skiing! We also have sessions on such important and little known topics as the dynamics of decision-making in the mountains and the limitations of snowpack tests. Come to this course if you are serious about your leadership skills. The course uses the format of a professional guiding operation, involving you in the day-to-day evaluation and decision making that is crucial to backcountry forecasting. We also introduce Werner Munter’s methods into North America. Both recreational avalanche courses are now a pre-requisite for the professional snow avalanche courses of the CAA.

 
 

We loved our course and the entire trip. Sensational views, excellent chalet, highly trained and informative guides, Molly's superb cooking and all that powder.

We have lived in Smithers for 14 years, have travelled the world, and all this time, since 2001, this gem of an experience was right on our doorstep. We will be back a lot more often. We enjoyed the chalet and really appreciated the course, patience and tips we received from Christoph and Lucas. The last time we had someone preparing food for us that was this good was nearly 30 years ago, in a camp where Molly's mother was the cook. Thank you for an amazing experience.

Sandy M and Karin B, Smithers