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The carnage is everywhere. A mass of snow and debris cover the runout zone of an avalanche path on Observation Mountain in Banff National Park. Martin Papillon, a ski patroller from Sunshine Village on backcountry skis, is the first on the scene. Within seconds, his seven partners are busily unpacking shovels, probes and tuning their 457 kHz transceivers to the “receive ” position. Papillon hollers instructions as they pass. Sara Jaward, the local Parks warden, rushes to the only sign of life in the disaster area —an upturned ski. Methodical and co-ordinated, the expertly trained crew is well aware that with no one visible on the surface, the chances of survival are slim. Add on the factors of time —Papillon looks at his watch again, another 30 seconds have gone by —and their probabilities are dropping like a stone. Jaward shouts; the ski is attached to somebody. Together she and her partner carefully uncover an air hole. While releasing the skier from the snowpack, she rapidly checks vitals. Just breathing, he is too disoriented to release crucial information: How many others were caught in the slide? How long ago were they hit? Were they all wearing transceivers? Within seconds, a member of the group locates another signal, just metres down the fall line. A probe strikes an inert body and the shovellers get to work. As Papillon orders the rest of the group into an advancing probe line, the fi rst victim suddenly shakes the snow off his collar, stands up and calls off the search. Enter James Blench, legendary ski guide and avalanche expert. The students on the Canadian Avalanche Association ’s (CAA) Avalanche Operations Level 1 course quickly gather around the soft-spoken, blue-eyed instructor. Yes, they did their job well —in fact, in record time —however, “watch where you shovel ” and “be careful not to compress the snow atop your victim, ” he says. As in every simulation in this life-and-death business, the underlying lesson is you need a thick skin and a passion for detail. Blench ’s tone sobers as he drives home the point he has been instilling into his academic offspring for the past two decades: search and rescue is a last resort. The way to stay alive in the alpine is to avoid avalanches completely. But since these students are focused on becoming avalanche professionals, sitting on the fence or riding the couch aren ’t options. в–в–в–в– It looks like an avalanche of sorts hit the Wilson Room. Crates of electronics, ski equipment, piles of charts, tables, books, pencils and snacks litter the green-carpeted conference space on the basement level of the Lake Louise Inn. It will be like this for the next seven days since it doubles as HQ and dry-land classroom. This is and has been the CAA ’s rite of passage for the past 26 years for those wanting to get their chops wet in one of the most exciting and dangerous industries in ski country. The names of the 24 bed-headed students scribbling in dog-eared notebooks reads out like an immigration almanac of western Canada. There is Andrei Axenov from Moscow, Selena Raven Cordeau from Quebec and Stanislaw Faban from Slovakia.

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