Avalanche training

One of the cool things about living here in the beautiful mountains is that I get to take part in a lot of the courses and stuff that are organized here at the cabin. Several weekends now in the winter, we have avalanche courses. Just to be clear; it is courses on how to AVOID an avalanche, not how to make one!

It has been snowing a lot lately together with a lot of wind. This makes it a very high risk of avalanches, so the conditions were perfect for this type of training. We were out skiing from 9 in the morning looking at formation in the snow, how the wind shapes it, steep angles and mountain formations that can easily cause avalanches. The instructor was brilliant and I learned so much. But I want to know more, to make sure that when I go alone or take other people skiing, it is done in a safe manner.

Cutting out large blocks of snow to look at the various layers.

Cold, as usual... :-)

Has anyone else been to this type of courses? Any recommendations?