chance of getting stabbed in a knife fight? Words and pictures Keith Munro Tim Robertson posed this question to the attendees of a recent Avalanche Awareness course held at Arthurs Pass. Good question! As we were spending three days in terrain with a moderate avalanche danger level it helped focus the mind. The course covered trip planning and preparation, identifying avalanche terrain, decision making in avalanche terrain, route finding, track setting, safe travel and small group rescue. While we all had varying levels of theory and practise in our backgrounds, everyone was stoked with the quality of the information presented - in particular, being brought up to date on the latest thinking and approaches. Tim is an IFMGA guide based in Wanaka who guides climbers and skiers in New Zealand and Switzerland. He has also guided in the Himalaya. Day two was spent wholly in the classroom as, while we were there to study snow, we didn’t want to get soaking wet doing it. This turned out to be a bonus as we were taken through in-depth learning from Switzerland, as well as theory and New Zealand examples. The course format switched between providing information and getting us to apply the learning. Temple Basin and a gully adjacent to Broken River provided locations for the outdoor sessions. Consensus was – regular practice is a must, particularly for such skills as victim search. Given the number of snow pits Tim has dug he has become an excellent demonstrator of shovelling technique. Technique in hard snow? Drive the shovel down vertically with heaps of effort. Avoid levering the shovel back and forth once in the snow. That’s when you’ll break it. Lots of straight up and down to break up any hard layer. Don’t extend the handle if the snow is particularly hard. A bonus was to attend the Mountain Film Festival at the Arthurs Pass community hall. The seven of us boosted audience numbers significantly. The fruit punch a local had made for everyone was pretty good and certainly did have a punch. Good thing the NZAC lodge was a short walk home afterwards. I have carried around string to cut the back of a compression test block for some time. A post course action was to buy a snow saw, much more useful for cutting through typical New Zealand snow. I found mine in Bunnings labelled ‘tree pruning saw’. There are a number of options, starting at less than $10. I went for the stiffest available and forked out $45, making sure it was long enough to cut 30 cms. Wellington section participants were Simon Williamson, Carolyn Ellis, Aviette Musin, Richard Young and myself. The
