Prep For Level 2

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

I am taking a Level 2 course in 2 weeks or so and was curious if there were any suggestions on prep for the course. Recommended pre-reading, etc...? Got a copy of S.W.A.G.s, but no way I get through that entire handbook in 2 weeks.

Particular chapters of Tremper or McClung/Schaerer to brush up on again, perhaps? Just any suggestions from past Level 2 course-takers if there was any info you would have looked at before hand to get more out of the course.

Thanks

[summit]

Reread the stuff on metamorphism and make sure you are good on single burials and basic snow pit tests (compression test etc).

[mc_roon]

i took a level 2 last week. knowing the basics of metamorphism helps, but you should be fine without any real knowledge going in. knowing the basic shorthand form for recording would help you get more out of it.

the first day of our program was all about single and multiple burials, shoveling, and probing, so brushing up on those wouldnt hurt. hopefully you have an interesting snowpack to learn from; it makes it easier to learn.

[BFD]

whoever your taking the class with should of sent you some info on what to read up on.
Here is from the Avie 2 we took last spring


The Alaska Avalanche School is a non-profit organization created for the purpose of promoting public safety in and around the mountain environment through education, research, publishing, and consulting. You have our commitment that we’ll provide you with the highest quality of training possible. What you learn during the workshop will depend upon how hard you work during and prior to the course. We’ll provide you with the opportunity, the tools, and the encouragement. The rest is up to you. Please read the following information carefully.

DETAILS:
Cost of the Course: $375.00 Per Person
Course Duration: 3 Full Days
Tuition Includes: Instruction, floor space within the Hatcher Pass Visitor Center for sleeping the night before the course begins, and the 1st night of the course, and instructional handouts.
Tuition Does Not Include: Round trip transportation to and from the class-site, accommodations for the 2nd night of the course, “The Avalanche Handbook” by McClung and Schaerer and “Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain” by Tremper, food and water for the duration of the course, all personal gear and clothing (see the Equipment List for more information).
Required Reading: “Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain” by Bruce Tremper
Recommended Reading: “The Avalanche Handbook” by McClung and Schaerer.

COURSE CURRICULUM:
The purpose of this workshop is to enhance your skills in avalanche hazard evaluation, forecasting, and decision-making. Classroom sessions will focus on the development of unstable snowpacks including long lasting and deep slab instabilities, and some of the newer concepts in snow science. In the field we’ll concentrate on snow stability evaluation techniques, detailed snowpack analysis, and documentation. We’d like to seek out recent avalanches so that we can investigate the contributory causes of fracture, but if there are no crown faces to be found, we’ll seek out a variety of snowpack conditions. The training will be intensive. This course consists of 33 hours of classroom and field training.

Program curriculum consists of:
Group rescue techniques
Beacon use
Beacon Park practice (EasySearcher) for multiple beacon searches
Terrain analysis
Snow stability evaluation
Decision making
Route selection
Safe travel procedures
Documentation of Pits
Forecasting
Snowpack Analysis

COURSE SCHEDULE:
The Night Before the Course Begins: We encourage participants to travel to the Hatcher Pass Visitor Center on the night before the course begins so that you won’t be late the first morning of the course. The Visitor Center will be open as of 8 pm the night before the course begins for those wishing to come up early. If you come in late this night, just find a space on the floor of the main level and don’t snore too loudly. Remember, driving time from downtown Anchorage to the Hatcher Pass Lodge is usually around 1.5 hours if the roads are in good shape. Don’t forget to factor in time to travel from the Lodge parking lot to the Visitor Center.

First Day: The pre-registration check-in will take place the first morning of the course from 8:00 – 8:30 am at the Independence Mine State Historical Park Visitor Center in Hatcher Pass. The course will start with the indoor class lectures and then continue that day in the field.

Second Day: we will continue the course at the Hatcher Pass Visitor Center. After the morning lecture and afternoon field session there will be a break in the course to travel back to the Anchorage area. You are responsible for your accommodations this night. Before we break we will establish a meeting time and rendezvous point for the following morning.

Third Day: Plan to rendezvous in the morning to spend the day in the Chugach or Kenai Mountains. This will give you the opportunity to study two different snow-packs during the course. The formal portion of the training will end when we reach the parking lot (by 5:30 pm). However, we encourage you to keep this evening free so that we can have an informal wrap-up/discussion session at a nearby restaurant.

PRE-REQUISITES:
At least intermediate backcountry travel skills. Participation in a prior 3 day AAS Level 1 Course or equivalent and at least a year of experience since your Level 1 Course.

PRE-COURSE WORK: We expect a high level of commitment from Level II participants. In order to make the workshop work for you and for others, please complete the following assignments BEFORE the workshop.

1) Re-read any avalanche materials you have, especially Snow Sense, and Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain. Also recommended is the Avalanche Handbook. Most importantly, drawing from your previous experience and reading there must be some things that are not clear to you. What are they? Jot down questions to which you would like answers. During the workshop we’ll work on answering these questions and hopefully raise a few more. We expect every participant to come with written questions.

2) If you haven’t practiced your rescue skills lately, what are you waiting for? Review your plan as a victim and plan as a rescuer, and practice beacon searches BEFORE the course.

3) Come to the course with a concise written snow stability synopsis of the conditions you expect to find in Hatcher Pass. If you’re on a roll, please do the same for Turnagain Pass. Helpful hint -- useful web sites include:

www.arh.noaa.gov (National Weather Service – Alaska Region, includes satellite images, weather synopsis, current observations, and public forecasts)
www.aprfc.arh.noaa.gov/ (River Forecast Center – Snow pillow sites throughout Alaska, including Hatcher Pass and Turnagain Pass. Data includes temperature and water equivalent. You can access this information off the NWS (hydrology) site above). These sites are in protected places, and do not always reflect local wind events.
www.akrr.com/community/hourly_rpt.htm (*NEW* -- Hourly weather and snow data from Indian Pass, Alyeska, Max’s Mt., Portage, Whittier, Turnagain Pass, Granite Creek, Summit Pass, Cooper Lake, Moose Pass, Grandview, and Tunnel)
www.avalanche.org (Westwide Avalanche Network, includes link to Chugach National Forest)
www.dot.state.ak.us/iways/roadweather (Stations along Alaska’s road system)
www.mountainweather.com/alaska.htm (Compilation of key weather links)

4) If you have a computer download snowpilot from www.snowpilot.org. SnowPilot is a FREE software program that allows you to collect snow pit and avalanche occurrence data onto your PC, Mac or PDA. This data is then uploaded to a database on the web where others can view it and researchers can grab the raw data. If you have a laptop please bring this with the snowpilot program to the first and second day of the course.

5) Get out and dig some pits! Draw between 5 and 10 pit profiles of your findings and bring them with you to the class. We want folks to have some personal experience documenting the snowpack.

6) Complete the pre-test included with this letter and bring to the first day of class.

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Reread the stuff on metamorphism and make sure you are good on single burials and basic snow pit tests (compression test etc).

Thanks - that is what I was thinking. Was going to hit that from McClung/Schaerer as I *recall* that book going into more detail.

hopefully you have an interesting snowpack to learn from; it makes it easier to learn.

Interestingly (and pretty atypical) we have a persistent faceted layer down near the base here around Tahoe that is sticking around. Formed near a rain crust from back in Oct 19th.

Good call on shorthand pit profile notes. Will take a look at the the abbrevs. in my blue book. Have some of them down already from reading our local forecast obs.

whoever your taking the class with should of sent you some info on what to read up on.

Yeah - I received the list and it was similar to what yours had (although not as extensive). Have already read both *required* books in the past, but as noted to Summit above, was planning on re-reading the snow-science chapters.

Thanks.

[homemadesalsa]

My suggestion would be to download the April 09 issue of The Avalanche Review (27.4) and read the series of articles on propagation propensity. That's the crux of the biscuit for a level 2, I think.

http://www.americanavalancheassociat..._archives.html

Full disclosure: I am the editor of the above, but I learned a ton from reading and re-reading those articles.

[Missing Link]

This will help too:

http://www.avtraining-admin.org/pubs/L2%20Quiz.pdf

ML

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Thanks - will take a look at both of the above.

ML - we are actually supposed to complete that and bring it with us to class (or a similar version that was pre-distributed to class participants).

[Missing Link]

Awesome - if you're good with all of those questions/concepts you're ready for an educational upgrade.

M

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Bump. So last year, unfortunately, I had a work commitment come up the week of Level 2 and let one of my primary ski partners take my spot (damn you Enginerd!!!!).

So here we are again. Level 2 is about a month away.

Any recent info, etc... I should brush up on or new concepts over the next month before heading in?

Thanks.

[srface_hoar]

Unfrozen,

I teach Level II courses and will try to give you some thoughts from an Instructors perspective. There is nothing more annoying than having to go over basic Level I information in a Level II class where time is valuable. I would recommend reviewing all of the Metamorphosis chapters as well as all of SWAG chapters on the same topic. These are the areas in which students typically have a difficult time. In addition, make sure you review all of the stability test scores, pit diagrams and symbols.

Because this is a more detailed look at the snow pack, you should also have a detailed history of the current snow pack. When you dig a pit(s), you should already know what you are looking for and understand the history of the snowpack and the possible affects at various elevations and aspects. Be prepared with this information and you will get much more out of the class.

Rescue practice and more practice. As you ski at resorts, have friend bury beacons along a run and practice your search technique or use the nerf ball method described in previous posts. The more practice the better. Make sure you have an entire Avalanche Rescue plan worked out in you mind step by step. This would be for both companion rescue and organized rescues. Other than that, enjoy the class and realize you are just getting started. There is a lot to learn and it will continue throughout your lifetime.

[Hacksaw]

Getting a field book for snowpits might help you...

I guess, I shouldn't post my company's website, but if you look harder at my profile you might find out where to get a snow related field book...

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Thanks guys. Hacksaw - have a rite in the rain book and have been using one for 2 seasons (assuming that is what you are implying).

Good info srface hoar - I read the avy forecast and all the submitted obs on a daily basis (as well as check all of my *favorite* weather sensors) to really keep up to date on what is going on at the forecast-zone-level throughout the season. Pretty fun actually to see how it develops.

I actually like to look at the weather reports first and figure out what I am going to see in that day's report, before looking at the actual avy report. Really emphasizes (to me at least) how weather (precip., wind, temp, sun) really the the controlling variable and unifer.

[leifar]

on this note...thinking about registering for Level 2 course without taking the Level 1...not sure if this is kosher, but hear me out. I'm an avid disciple of Mr Temper's book, weather and science nut who reads a lot, and have been backcountry skiing in a variety of mountains (and snowpit digging, beacon practicing, etc) for about 5 years.

It's not that I'm not interested in a Level 1 curriculum, but just that I'm looking for something deeper, more detailed, and in depth. Ideally taking both levels in sequence would work, but the $$ are probably not going to suffice this season and I'm hungry for knowledge. Any advice is appreciated.

[summit]

If you are confident that you understand most of Tremper's book, you've been judged to have competency in basic snow pits, have a competent understanding of route finding and hazard identification, and can get a single beacon in less than 2 minutes in 100x100, and you have multiple seasons under your belt at the above levels of proficiency, then you might be a good candidate for skipping level 1. Then again, I don't know you or how *you* would judge the above.

I'd check with the instructor of your desired level 2 course. They will be the one teaching you. As mentioned before in this thread, you aren't doing ANYONE a favor if you need a level 1 review during your level 2.

[leifar]

Well put Summit thanks for the info; I'll certainly get in touch with the instructor and think over your post.