Winter Field Sessions: Rescue Practice

If you have your own avalanche rescue gear, be sure to practice once (at the very least) in between the Fall Session and the Winter Field Sessions.
Ideally you should also practice at least one "three-dimensional" burial with a beacon buried about a meter below the surface.  This is both to provide some more challenging beacon searching in the final search phase, as well as to practice strategic shoveling.  Be sure to read this article:
The ABC's (and D) of Digging
... and also watch this educational video (although it doesn't actually become educational until around the 0:48 mark):

Even if you lack another beacon to use as a target:

1. read the user’s manual;
2. practice putting on the harness with whatever clothing layers you would typically wear for a winter backcountry tour;
3. load up your pack with probe, shovel, and all your other gear and clothing for a winter backcountry tour; and,
4. practice unzipped clothing layers to reveal the beacon harness, removing the beacon from its harness, turning it from Transmit to Search, then finally removing your probe and shovel from your pack and assembling them.

If you do yet have your own avalanche rescue gear, then make sure that you let us know that well in advance of the Winter Field Sessions so that we have a full set available for you! We will also have various models for you to practice with at the Fall Session, and some of them will even be available for on-site purchase (at a substantial discount off regular retail).