Thanks for attending!!

Fellow Sledheads...

It was great to see so many of you at the Avalanche safety course!
I hope everyone learned a few things and came out of the class with a greater appreciation for avalanches.
Mike Duffy does a great job and makes everyone aware of the dangers that we all take for granted when we are out in the backcountry.
It's not to discourage riding in the backcountry but to make us all aware of possible dangers and to keep ourselves out of the reach of possible dangers with "safe zones"  Know which hills are loaded from wind and how to test smaller hills to see how extreme the avalanche dangers may be that day.


Beacons....
I was pleasantly surprised to see that so many of you at the class did raise your hands when asked how many of you have beacons...
Now if you are like me, the scariest part of an avalanche rescue is "am I prepared?" "Can I keep a cool head?" The best thing to do is PRACTICE!!!! with your beacon.
If you feel comfortable on how to use your beacon you will feel more confident during a search.
Get together with a few of your riding buddies and go hide a beacon and let the others go find it.. Time the search and keep trying to better yourselves.
A great place to do this is up at Beartrap Meadow. Use the big exposed hill as your site.. I bet as soon as other people see you doing this you would have more people come join in.
Barry and I will try to organize a day in Dec. to be up there and get things started.. We will keep you informed.

Mike Duffy also touched on what to carry with you for an emergency. I have touched on this last year on my BLOG.
Take a look at it and make sure you have all of the necessities to be able to stay the night out in the backcountry.
Scroll down to.. "What to carry in your sled for survival"
http://karstmotorsports.blogspot.com/

Here is the site to go to to check on Avalanche danger.. Unfortunately the only area that has info for our state is for the Jackson area.
I use the Colorado area to get a good idea on what's going on in the Snowy Range and the Sierra Madres.
http://www.avalanche.org/

Its always good to watch the weather for storms and to check how much snow our favorite riding areas are getting.
Here is the Snotel site for Wyoming. Mark this as favorite so you can keep informed.
 http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/Wyoming/wyoming.html

How to use it..
The map is of Wyoming.. the dots on the map indicate a snotel site. click your favorite riding areas and then another screen will pop up... go to the top row.. standard sensors. and go to the far right of that row and click last "seven days" under the "HOURLY"... This will bring up the history of the last seven days every hour and will show you... Temp. high and low. Snow depth. and water equivalent...  This is a great site.

Also don't forget to take advantage of the coupons you received at the Avy. class

As always Thanks for reading and I will see you on the mountains!!
David Chadderdon
DCTurbo