Jeff has taught AIARE Avalanche courses for 18 years to beginners, IFMGA mountain guides, and the U.S. Special Forces. He’s seen students and professionals struggle with uncertainty and lost more than a dozen friends and colleagues to avalanches.
Statistics on avalanches show a clear relationship between the stability of the snow-pack and the slope angle in which avalanches occur. We use this information to provide recommendations that take the guesswork out of determining what the safe slopes are.
• The Avalanche game is poker–not chess. Not all the information is knowable and we must play the odds to win.
• The snow-pack is uncertain-even to experts. So let’s look at probability models. The Swiss algorithm is from a large data set of avalanche accidents and then applied to a North American data set.
• Leverage Neuroscience & Social Psychology to how we make group decisions in uncertain, high risk environments (VUCA scenarios: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous)
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• IFMGA Guide know how: Jeff is former North American Ski Mountaineering Champion, AMGA Instructor team trainer, teaches avalanche courses for the U.S. Special Forces Mountain Guide Unit & the British IFMGA guides in the Alps.
• 4 hrs of Podcasts on neuroscience & psychology with direct tie in to avalanche safety
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• 2 Field days
• Purpose built interactive curriculum – No textbooks
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• Zoom check-ins to answer burning questions.
Tell me a little about what you want to learn and your group size
