Are you looking to learn more about how to look at the snow under your feet? Do you need to sharpen your snow science skills in preparation for the CAA professional courses? Have you taken your AST1 or AST2 and are looking for a refresher on commonly used snowpack tests? 

This one-day field course will teach you how to gather relevant snowpack information quickly. We will show you how to effectively and efficiently use hand shears, burp tests, compression tests, extended column tests, and deep tap tests.

We also include an optional short online learning model to help you sharpen your skills before the course. 

• The challenges of digging profiles, when to dig and how to do it safely.
• The pitfalls of performing snowpack tests. 
• How to do an extended column test, compression test and deep tap test and interpret the results. 
• How to do hand shears and burp tests. 
• How to look for and identify weak layers in the snowpack
• Intermediate understanding of snow metamorphosis and how it relates to avalanches.