Day 4- only 2 days left at Icefall Lodge

Well, it has been incredible so far. We have hit a pretty steady storm system, but today we got a little break in the weather and were able to make it onto some steeper more exposed terrain. Enjoy the pics!

Day 1- Ice Fall Lodge Arrival

Well, it has been quite the journey. With much anticipation we made it through the Canadian boarder and arrived in Golden last nigh and now we have made our way north to the Ice Fall Lodge.

Candy getting the coordinates

Heli TIme!!!

Freeride Avalanche Summit

The past two days I have spent waking up well before the sun rise and heading over to Snowbird for the First Annual Freeride Avalanche Summit.

Mineral basin snow profile

The point of the summit was to discuss the many snow safety issues facing todays freeride community. We hit on all the major avi 1 topics, such as beacon search and rescues, snow pits, reading terrain, and mountain travel.

Logan Shows us how the BCA new Arsenal saw shovel can save time and lives!

However, the Summit also pulled on huge resources that the Utah Avalanche Center has. We were able to take a trip over to the Wasatch Powder Birds to discuss Loading Zones for potential emergency evacuations, then the AirMed bird landed just down the hill and we were able to learn a bit about packing a patient and calling for life flight.

Wasatch Powder Birds

AirMed

We also were able to use the Snowbird Avalanche training center and worked on probing, beacon searches, Recco locator detection, and group dynamics when an avalanche hits.

Along with having an incredible amount of activities and local resources put into action, the leaders of the course and discussions were also quite remarkable. We had some incredible big mountain legends such as Jenn Berg, Brant Moles, and Gordy Pfeiffer. Not to mention an alstar staff of avalanche and snow safety specialists such ad Bruce Tremper, Craig Gordan, and Jim Conway.

Weston and Noah Howell getting cozy while learning the extended column test

All and all the past two days were the best put together avalanche discussion and education I have yet to receive. If this is just the first season for the Freeride Avalanche Summit, I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the Summit and the potential reduction of Avalanche fatalities in the backcountry.

Sam, Jason, Forest, and Barker get ready for the early morning Tram lap