Avalanche Level 2 Course

• Advanced Snowpack Evaluation: Develop a deeper understanding of snowpack formation, metamorphism, and stability assessment through hands-on fieldwork and case studies.
• Enhanced Terrain Management: Learn to identify and navigate complex avalanche terrain with an emphasis on safe travel practices.
• Decision-Making Frameworks: Apply advanced decision-making tools and techniques to evaluate avalanche risk and make informed choices in real-time scenarios.
• Leadership and Group Dynamics: Strengthen your ability to lead a group in backcountry settings, focusing on communication, teamwork, and managing human factors.
• Companion Rescue Techniques: Refine your companion rescue skills with advanced scenarios, including multiple burial situations and rescue strategies.

Previous to the course, you will be required to complete an online module.

• Day 1: Classroom Instruction & Field Session
  • Introduction to advanced snowpack science and avalanche dynamics
  • Field session: Snowpack analysis and stability tests
• Day 2: Field Day
  • Full day in the backcountry practicing terrain analysis, route finding, and decision-making
  • Advanced group management and leadership exercises in real-world settings
• Day 3: Rescue Techniques & Final Field Session
  • Companion rescue drills with complex scenarios
  • Final field tour applying all Level 2 concepts in a cohesive group setting

• Successful completion of Avalanche Level 1 and Rescue Fundamentals
• Proficiency in backcountry skiing or splitboarding
• Experience with basic avalanche rescue techniques

If you need either prerequisite, we run both: Avalanche Level 1 in the Cottonwoods and the Provo area, and Avalanche Rescue as a one-day course. Level 1 taken with another A3 recognized provider is fine.

This course is ideal for backcountry skiers, snowboarders, and snowmobilers who have completed Avalanche Level 1 and have spent time in avalanche terrain. Best suited for serious backcountry enthusiasts looking to advance their avalanche safety skills.

Upon successful completion of the course, participants will receive an Avalanche Level 2 certification recognized by the American Avalanche Association (A3).

• Avalanche transceiver, probe, and shovel
• Touring skis or splitboard with skins
• Snow study kit (crystal card, loupe, thermometer, etc.)
• Appropriate backcountry gear and clothing for 3 days in winter conditions

If you do not own a snow study kit, tell us when you register. They are inexpensive, you will use it for the rest of your touring life, and we will tell you what to buy rather than leave you guessing.

Yes. Both are prerequisites. Level 1 covers rescue as one component; the standalone Avalanche Rescue course is a full day on rescue alone, and Level 2 assumes you arrive with those skills already working so the course time can go toward complex scenarios instead of basics.

Yes. A Level 1 from any A3 recognized provider is fine. Bring your certificate when you register.

 Students who took Level 1 several seasons ago will want to know whether they should refresh first, and a rescue course is usually the right answer if they should.

This is the recreational track, for people who want to make better decisions for themselves and their partners. Professional Level 1 is the entry point to working in the avalanche industry — patrol, guiding, forecasting — and it has different prerequisites, including a standalone Avalanche Rescue course.

This typically takes 4-8 hours.

You need to be proficient enough that skiing is not occupying your attention. Level 2 field days involve moving through complex terrain while assessing it, and that only works if the travel itself is comfortable.

Big Cottonwood Canyon. Most Salt Lake–based courses run out of Days Fork, Cardiff Fork, Mill B, and Butler Fork. These zones give us the full range in a short approach: low-angle skinning terrain to build travel skills, adjacent slopes steep enough to be genuinely consequential, and enough aspect variety to show you how one snowpack behaves five different ways on the same morning.

Little Cottonwood Canyon. When conditions or the forecast point west, we use Grizzly Gulch, Flagstaff, and the White Pine drainage. Little Cottonwood’s persistent weak layers are the reason Utah has the reputation it does, and there is no better classroom for understanding why the Wasatch snowpack demands more caution than its reputation for light powder suggests.

Your instructor picks the specific zone the morning of, based on the Utah Avalanche Center forecast, overnight loading, and what the group needs to see. That’s not a scheduling inconvenience, it’s the first lesson. Watching a professional change the plan at 7:30 a.m. because of what the forecast said at 6:00 is worth more than any classroom slide on decision-making.

We currently hold one course a season. Contact us — if there is enough interest we will look at adding a second, and we can tell you about other A3 providers in the area if the timing simply does not work.

Introduction to Backcountry Skiing— before any avalanche course, if you are new to touring. We also have a more in-depth 2-day version of this course called, Backcountry Essentials.

Avalanche Level 1 — terrain, snowpack, and decision-making. Our Level 1 also runs in the Provo area.

Avalanche Rescue — a full day on rescue alone. No prerequisites, recommended annually, required for Pro 1.

Avalanche Level 2 (this course) — the next step in the recreational track.

Backcountry Ski Mentorship — for applying all of it across a season with a guide. Also available as a women’s program.