Molly Hagbrand
Breathe in cold air as you ski down fresh snow. Feel your muscles burn as you top a ridge showing you a view of the next snow-covered valley. Enjoy the quiet of a winter night after a good, hard day of work. On this course, you’ll join a group of motivated adults to learn to ski or splitboard in the backcountry.
You’ll start with ski or snowboarding lessons at the Grand Targhee Ski Resort, then head to the mountains. During the day you’ll work on your touring skills, spending some nights in yurts and others in snow shelters you’ll build yourself. You’ll find fresh powder for skiing or snowboarding and start learning snow science. In addition to these technical skills, this course will focus on leadership. Every day will give you new challenges to meet and practice growing skills in risk management, communication, and decision making. Leadership on this course is about doing and practicing as much as possible. With this combination of outdoor and leadership skills, you’ll go home prepared for a lifetime of enjoying the wilderness in the winter.
“I really enjoyed learning about the native plants, animals and ecology of the mountains in winter. I have been interested in scientific research for a while and this course helped to focus my desired areas of study.”