Avalanche! – Advanced
Avalanche! – Advanced is a practical three day avalanche education course for future VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) winters. Geared towards the user groups, and rapidly changing snowpack experienced in the Scottish winter.
AVALANCHE EDUCATION
Avalanche! – Advanced
A practical three day avalanche education course for future VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) winters. Geared towards the user groups, and rapidly changing snowpack experienced in the Scottish winter.
There is no doubt that Scottish winters are changing. Thin striated snowpacks with inconsistent weather conditions result in rapidly evolving avalanche problems, often dissipating as quickly as they arrived. Bare ground close to other locations with abundant snow accumulations creates a complex decision making environment. This combined with a limited opportunity to make observations demands that we change our approach.
Avalanche! – Advanced is about advancing our practice not theory. Perhaps even evolving the existing paradigm. You will learn how to reframe your existing avalanche knowledge using the counterpoint strategies of VUCA Prime. If you are working in the mountains professionally you may also be interested in Mountain CRM – Human Factors for Instructors.
AVALANCHE! – ADVANCED
Objectives of Avalanche! – Advanced
Scottish winters provide a considerable challenge to mountain users now and in the future, so much so that we have named them VUCA winters. This popular acronym describes these challenges as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
// Field Observations & Snowpack Evaluation
// Travel and TEM in Avalanche Terrain
// Inconvenient Truth – Rescue & Recovery
Objectives
- Know how to access the SAIS Avalanche Report for your area.
- Know how to apply the SAIS Avalanche Report to the mountain.
- Describe where and why avalanches occur.
- Understand the influence of Performance Influencing Factors (PIF) and human behaviour in avalanche accidents.
- Understand the key components for avalanche occurence.
- Understand how to apply decision making and risk management tools e.g. BAA and CASM v3.0.
- Know how to make key field observations and make simple snowpack evaluations.
- Know how and when, to do snowpack tests which are appropriate to the Avalanche Problem.
- Identify avalanche terrain through proper planning, and on the mountain.
- Know how to choose appropriate terrain for the prevailing conditions and avalanche forecast.
- Understand the challenges of avalanche rescue and recovery in Scotland.
- Know the procedures for basic companion rescue using a transceiver, probe and shovel.
Avalanche! – Advanced Programme
Pre-course Material
There are no formal pre-requisites to attend this course. But we anticipate that participants will have had some previous avalanche training, either through the NGB Awards such as the Winter Mountain Leader (WML), or Winter Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor (WMCI) Awards. We welcome participants from other backgrounds but request that that you are confident to travel the Scottish mountains in winter, and have completed an avalanche awareness course as a minimum.
To ensure that all participants are starting with the same pre-requisite knowledge we provide pre course study material. For most this will equate to 3-4 hours of contact time. This includes:
- Familiarisation with SAIS Avalanche Reports (otherwise known as forecasts or bulletins).
- Applying SAIS Avalanche Reports to the mountain.
- Avalanche types and unstable snowpacks characteristic of the Scottish mountains.
- Size classification and does it matter? Scottish incident statistics.
- Common terminology, both in Scotland and abroad.
- Understanding the Avalanche Problem, and how these are used in Scotland.
- Matching the Avalanche Problem(s) to appropriate travel mitigations.
- Cornices – what’s the problem?
- The Hazard Scale vs vulnerability.
- The infernal conditions: Scottish VUCA winters.
Avalanche! – Advanced Day 1
// Field Observations & Snowpack Evaluation
- Volatility and uncertainty…
- Snowpack development, storms and settled intervals.
- Weather events and how strong and weak layers develop.
- Snowpack evolution and change.
- Snowpack types, density and behaviour.
- Equipment, how to use a probe and clinometer etc
- Informal snowpack tests e.g. hasty pits, ski pole tests etc
- Snow profiles, layer identification, basic grain types.
Avalanche! – Advanced Day 2
// Travel and TEM in Avalanche Terrain
- Complexity and ambiguity…
- Terrain, critical slope angles and features.
- Before leaving the valley, spotting a potentially dangerous day.
- Using decision making and risk management frameworks.
- Threat and Error Management (TEM).
- Matching observations with the Avalanche Problem.
Avalanche! – Advanced Day 3
// The Inconvenient Truth – Rescue and Recovery
- Rescue and recovery the inconvenient truth.
- Scenario based avalanche companion rescue, using transceiver, probe, shovel.
- Managing the scene.
- Providing a handover to an MRT.
Case Study – Accident Analysis
- An avalanche incident in Scotland.
Is this for me?
Avalanche! – Advanced offers the opportunity to build on existing knowledge to face the challenges of VUCA winters. Perhaps you are:
- An experienced Instructor looking to develop decision making in volatile conditions?
- A newly qualified leader keen to build on NGB syllabus knowledge? Or,
- Perhaps you are a Scottish winter activist who recognises that winters are changing fast?
AVALANCHE! – ADVANCED – TRAINING LOCATIONS
Our Locations
We hope to be able to bring Avalanche! – Advanced to participants across the UK. However for this course, we need snow and have chosen to use the Cairngorms as our main delivery location.
This first pilot will be located in the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands. Ideally situated to provide access to the most reliable snow fields in Scotland on the Cairngorm Plateau. Avalanche! – Advanced will be based in Aviemore.
The classroom training location is to be confirmed. With sessions on the mountain in the Northern Cairngorms.
Note: Like many of our offerings, niche subjects are unlikely to be of interest to everybody, and probably won’t allow us to deliver a regular course programme. Please contact us now to secure a place.
AVALANCHE! – ADVANCED – MORE INFORMATION
Bookings
Maximum Number of participants: 6
Cost: £480
This includes seminar based teaching representing 21 hours of contact time with our team, and supporting course materials. A further ~3 hours of pre-course material is also available. Coffee will be available!
Avalanche! – Advanced can also be delivered at your centre or place of work for a fixed fee for a maximum of 12 participants. Please contact us for further details.
Bookings can be made directly, please see the links below.
Dates
2nd, 3rd and 4th of February 2026. If you can’t wait please contact us for private course delivered at your centre or place of work.
Our Team
Avalanche! – Advanced is delivered by a small team, with each perspective comes the opportunity to learn in a different way. In short, we believe that having access to these different view points enhances the learning that we can offer. Particularly for VUCA winters. Between us we have experience on just about every continent, but together we most importantly share our experience of the Scottish Winter.
James Thacker
IFMGA Mountain Guide, WMCI, SAIS Forecaster
James is an SAIS Forecaster and CWMT Trustee, and has and interest in avalanche training through the whole spectrum of snow science, managing our risk exposure and the psychology of our performance. PgCert in Workplace Psychology.
Andy Townsend
IFMGA Mountain Guide, WMCI, SAIS Forecaster
Andy Townsend is an avalanche forecaster and well known IFMGA Mountain Guide. Previously the Head of Skiing at Glenmore Lodge, he is an often to be found skiing searching out the best snow conditions in the Cairngorms and elsewhere in the world.
Dr Blair Fyffe
SAIS Senior Forecaster, WML
Blair aka “Dr Snow” is an SAIS Senior Forecaster and has a PHD in dry slab avalanche release. It is fair to say that that he has more of a passing interest in snow. A exceptionally keen winter climber and skier often found in the Scottish hills.
What is VUCA?
VUCA is an acronym that stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Originally used by the US military after the end of the Cold War, it was not until the terrorist attacks of September the 11th 2001, that the term took hold. It was later used in the business world to describe the complex, and unpredictable “new normal” in which many organisations operate.
Despite the military origin, the term has been widely adopted as a persuasive framework for adapting to change. VUCA Prime provides the counterpoint strategies where volatility becomes vision, uncertainty becomes understanding, complexity becomes clarity and ambiguity becomes agility…
Make a booking for Avalanche! – Advanced?
Check for places and book here…