Avalanche Institute - Avalanche Course FAQs
If you think this course is expensive you haven't done much of a comparison. Sure, there are some cheaper ones out there. However, the highest quality courses that are taught by professional guides using a well developed curriculum all cost significantly more than this course. And while those are excellent courses they are still limited by how much can be crammed into three days - including field sessions and the coming/going that goes with that.
As an example, here are prices for a few of the top programs. Some are probably still 2007-08 prices. Alpine Skills International - $395. Mountain Adventure Seminars - $375. Sierra Mountain Center - $350. We could not find current prices at this time for a few others we consider to be high quality. Our program is $299 without a discount - less if you can assemble a group, are part of an organization we have an agreement with, or are an avalanche center member.
The lower cost courses are often taught using very limited curriculums, sometimes by instructors with less comprehensive backgrounds. You can take those if you want to save money, but we will not compare our courses to those in any respect, including cost. (Nor would we compare the above listed programs or similar ones to these budget operations.)
If a cost comparison, considering how much is covered, doesn't justify our pricing then consider the development costs that need to be recovered as well. This course has been a couple years in the making, and the only pilot program was run on a break-even basis. Our course is very comprehensive, and its development will always be ongoing so that you are always getting the most up to date material possible.
If you have ongoing or serious technical problems during the first couple modules and decide you are unable to deal with online work we will refund your course fee, minus the cost of any modules you completed had you taken them on a stand-alone basis. After 2-3 modules you're either ok with the online work or not and at that point there is no refund. While you can work on the material at your own pace it's up to you to complete it, and it's up to you to make arrangements for the field work and follow through on them. Just as it's up to you to show up for a traditional course, where a refund is usually only offered up to a certain date.
We do offer opportunities for field work, we just do it outside the official course and its fee structure and outside of the avalanche center. You can register for field days with AlpenPro just as you would register for a weekend course with anyone else. We also offer a few other ways of meeting the field requirements if you prefer them. This actually gives you more flexibility than most courses.
Once you are certified you are eligible to attend many of the scheduled field days if you wish to at no cost, as long as your certification is current. This means you can potentially attend multiple field days in different areas with different climates and snowpacks and different groups of students. No other program offers this possibility.
We are also covering material most programs leave to Level 2, and in some cases such as the decision making module we are offering unprecedented coverage of the topic. This makes our course a much better deal than most as long as you are committed enough to complete the work and meet the field day requirements (which shouldn't add anything to the cost).
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