At the beginning of the year, I attended an avalanche awareness class at Mt. Baker, organized by KAF Adventures [1]. The class consisted of a three-hour theoretical introduction here in Seattle, followed by a whole day spent out in the snow at Mt. Baker.
It was truly amazing. I’ve never seen this much snow before. The group was a lot of fun, the three instructors (for six students) were very knowledgeable and friendly, and the weather was perfect.
We dug a study pit and found two layers where the snow had frozen in December 2013, and we also “rescued” a medkit that was hidden under about two feet of snow. It was a very useful class to get to know some general techniques, like reading NWAC (Northwest Avalanche Center) forecasts [2] and looking for avalanche red flags, as well as to get to know our gear, like the avalanche beacon, the probe, and the shovel.
But most of all, it was a ton of fun.
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