The course

On Sunday evening, Jan 23rd we were required to meet here at 8:00 pm for orientation.

We were informed of the following.

- Daily starts 8:00 sharp, finished at 7:30 pm. Various locations TBD

- Evaluations based on scores in the following categories:
-- Experience: Overall participation, work and application during the week

-- Practical Exams: DVA (beacon) Search & Shoveling
Cartography and Orienteering
General Application of Knowledge (interview)

-- Theory Exam (written): 13 pages - a mixture of essay, multiple choice and various
theoretical exercises: Nivology(Snow Science), Weather, Avalanches - general knowledge,
Avalanches - Risk assessment and tactical decision making, First Aid and Rescue,
Cartography and Orienteering.

The first two days began with lectures, approximately 1 hr each, after which we would go out on snow to apply the general principles from the lectures as a group, mostly led by our guide. Each day ended with a lecture, again about 1 -1.5 hrs.

We went home with an assignment: Plan either a day of randonnee, or hors-piste (yes they are different) taking into account the following: Avalanche and weather bulletins, overall group makeup, timetable, route and terrain selection, tactical considerations, plan for continued evaluation and preplanned variations ready and calculated in case a plan B or C were needed.

At 8:00 each morning we had to present our map and notes to the guide & group for discussion. The rest of each day was spent with one of us leading the group at a time for a portion of our chosen route. Throughout each day we would also have beacon, shoveling, probing, cartography, navigation, nivology, slope angle/exposition estimation and risk assessment exercises thrown in at the guide's behest.

The pic at the top of the page was the location for all of our indoor sessions; a makeshift discotheque creatively fashioned out of curtains and lighting in the bowels of the Hotel Mont Fort's remodeling zone. The curtains and lighting were a 360 degree effect. I am once again in touch with Abba and the Bee Gees. You can see me in the back (black jacket) of the room trying to write my entire exam in French, which took me too long so I had to revert to English to finish it.

Doing one of our estimation exercises.


Looking over the next stage of our route
during lunch at Col de Momin. Rosablanche
in the background.


Another day another tour. Me as "guide," last pitch up Le Ferret,
with Bec des Étagnes (link is not my video)
looming over 700m vert of pow and variable snows.

During my Le Ferret ascent, Xavier intervened with several situational considerations, changing a 1/2 hour angled traverse into a 45 minute fall-line bootpack variation for human factor/snow condition considerations ( 1 snowboarder w/snowshoes, and 1 alpine skier sans vibram soles). In reality it turned out to be more of a "possibly needed" variation, but lessons were learned and eyes opened further to what "continuous assessment" of every factor can mean. We were rewarded for our work, which included a short skin out at the bottom, followed by multiple burial scenario training and more timed shoveling. The shoveling wasn't TOO hard, but it is revealing to find out exactly how quickly one tires when shoveling AFAP and just how well, or not well one's shovel works. After all, the digging out of victim(s) is likely to be the most time consuming part of getting in under that 15 minute mark.

Xavier, changing our itinerary once again!

Though this isn't my FAVORITE picture of Xavier, it really sums up how simple and direct the man is. He didn't make points often, but he made them in the company of very final looking hand gestures, visibly relevant physical evidence and with a moment of silence to soak it all in: the point, the hands and the evidence.

In this picture and the first pic in the "Xavier Fournier" post, we weren't exactly suffering from "L'Ivresse Blanche" (literally translates as The White Drunkenness), but after weeks without snow, touring and hiking to areas with available freshies proved to be distracting. Xavier always chose a beautifully untracked slope just after areas of transition from less-fun to more-fun snow to do "manteau de neige" (snowpack) inspections or tests. His moment of silence allowed us to weigh our desire for turns in the good stuff against the point, the hands and the evidence. In each case, his compression columns failed upon isolation to a depth of at least 22 cm, 30 in one, of combined weak layers and crust layers. Admittedly the results were not super dangerous. Each of these areas was highly localized mostly due to aspect, but they were still during level 1 avalanche conditions, which would seem to say not to worry..unless one has read and understands the daily avalanche bulletins entirely.

And again... because this is my favorite pic

This is not my pic, but we did see some of these
'bouquetin' (locally), or ibex as we might know them.

I don't have enough action pics of the course, to tell you the truth. I wish I had pics of 13 people simultaneously digging individaul 2m x 2m square pits as deep as they can go in 7 minutes, or video of multiple close proximity victim beacon training, or the scene when Xavier gave us coordinates for our next meeting point and disappeared over the knoll while we got out our maps. I can see how people get interested in becoming documentarians.

Stan