This course is a much more in depth look into backcountry travel and snowpack assessment. This 4-day course is for someone who has done their AST 1, has spent time in the field and is looking for more information to help their decision making. There is no better way to learn the nuances of decision making than to spend time in the mountains with our experienced professional mountain guides, engaging in collective discussions and live time decision making as a group. You will do a brief review of the curriculum you learned in AST 1, travel extensively into complex terrain, work on transceiver techniques, and learn a wide variety of new skills in awesome places.
Topics covered include but are not limited to:
- Transceiver skills and companion rescue using the latest transceiver technology.
- Single and multiple person extraction will be practiced.
- Group management skills and group dynamics and decision making will be discussed and put into practice.
- The latest digging and probing techniques will be practiced.
- Introduction to snowpack evaluation such as compression tests, extended compression tests, rutsch block tests, and more.
- Weather forecasting.
- Information documentation, snowpack analysis, and stability analysis.
- Pre-trip information gathering.
- Introduction to the daily trip form.
- Refine route finding and decision making, before, during and after the day, with an emphasis on information gathering throughout the day.
- Introduction to the latest safety gear, specifically air bag packs.
**snowshoe specific AST 2 courses can be arranged**