From mellow beginner-friendly rides to steep and challenging chutes, backcountry skiing in New Hampshire is full of variety. Its often underrated but nonetheless stunning backcountry is a world-class destination — everyone will find a slope they’ll love. However, there’s a degree of risk to braving New Hampshire’s scenic slopes. Avalanches come fast and without warning, and even if you have your avalanche safety fundamentals down, It never hurts to know more about keeping safe in life-or-death situations. This is why you should take the AIARE Avalanche Safety Level 2 course to up your safety game. Refresh old knowledge and master advanced techniques and use this winter to become a safer and more self-assured backcountry adventurer!
Relax and ride some of the finest dry powder in your off-time
The choice of routes in New Hampshire is abundant
Learn to read the snowpack, interpret weather reports and lead a small team in a crisis situation
Review your AIARE 1 skills, and learn about mountain weather and the layered mountain snowpack. Following a trip planning review, head to the field to learn about snow profiles.
Your instructor will teach you about avalanche formation and release, interpreting weather data, snow surface conditions, and snow profiles. Learn about craftsmanship, relevancy, and verification of snow observation and risk management in small groups. In the field, partake in a snowpack test.
Travel as a small team in the field. Learn about field risk management and during-action review, as well as communicating your observations to your group, other travelers, and local experts.
By the end of this course, you should be able to differentiate where specific avalanche hazards exist within the landscape and identify avalanche terrain with more severe consequences. You will demonstrate leadership skills that include facilitating small group discussion, promoting appropriate terrain selection, and utilizing simple risk management strategies, as well as implement a basic forecasting framework that can be used in conjunction with and in the absence of local supporting avalanche information.
57hours is committed to providing safe outdoor adventure experiences. We require all guides using our platform to have a COVID-19 safety plan and to make the details of that plan accessible to travelers. In most cases, group sizes will be reduced, guides will avoid overcrowded locations, and other safety measures will be met depending on the location and activity.
We also expect clients to respect local regulations and take measures to protect themselves, their guides, and the communities they’re traveling to. For more information on COVID-19 measures in New Hampshire, please refer to New Hampshire’s COVID-19 guidelines for out-of-state visitors.
Please contact us if you have any questions or require further information. We are happy to provide you with the most up-to-date information!
What you get in this adventure:
What’s not included:
In order to get the most of this adventure, you need to have a moderate level of fitness. You will be on your feet for a full day. You will need to manage controlled descents in variable conditions. All participants should feel comfortable on challenging blue or black level resort runs and be able to carry a loaded daypack while skinning up variable degrees of terrain.
Prerequisites:
Participants must have the ability to travel in avalanche terrain. An AIARE 1 Course (strongly recommended) or equivalent Level 1 training is required. A winter of practical experience after the Level 1 course is highly recommended before taking the AIARE 2 course.
For technical backcountry ski touring gear, you will need to bring:
For personal items, we recommend bringing:
All mandatory gear can be rented if you don’t have your own. You can rent:
If you choose to rent from your guide, you will receive an exclusive discount of 50% on your beacon, probe, and shovel and an additional 20% discount on all rental equipment and clothing.
Ski rental locations are in Glen, NH, and should be picked up the night prior to your outing. If you need to rent gear, let us know and we can help make arrangements.
Group sizes and pricing:
AIARE courses in New Hampshire can be arranged for larger groups. Contact us to make arrangements.
Min. age requirements:
If your group has skiers under the age of 18, contact us prior to booking to make arrangements.
To get to Glen, NH, the starting point for the course, most people fly into Portland International Jetport. From there, you can rent a car and take a 2-hour drive to Glen, or take a bus to Naples American Legion and take a taxi, which will take you around 2h15min total.
Once you and your guide agree on the details of your itinerary, your guide will suggest the best place to meet, whether that’s at the guide’s Bunkhouse in Glen, NH, or a predetermined location. The guide will choose the appropriate terrain dependent on conditions and the ability of the group.
This course was designed to build upon the introductory avalanche hazard management model introduced in the AIARE 1 course, adding to it the evaluation of critical hazard assessment factors. Among other things, you will learn about:
