Read the snow.
Ride the mountains.
Avalanche Fundamentals is the online pre-course that prepares you for real field training in the mountains — so you arrive ready to learn, not just to listen.
Lyngen · 69°34′N
Observation becomes judgment.
Know the snow before you go.
Avalanche Fundamentals is a two-hour, self-paced online course built by the guides who run the Adventure Partners field programs in Finland and Norway. It covers the avalanche triangle — terrain, snowpack, weather — and the human factor, through short lessons with hand-drawn diagrams and check-your-understanding moments. Finish it before your field course and you'll spend your days on snow practising, not catching up.
The content draws on EAWS, Ian McCammon, the Canadian Avalanche Association, Varsom.no and regobs.no, and on scientific publications. The structure loosely follows FINLAV, the Finnish avalanche training system, so the course is also good preparation and supporting material for AP's FINLAV field courses.
Adventure Partners team: Iikka Salmi, Markku Mellanen, Mikko Routala and Elina Molkkari
In most fatal avalanches, the victim or their partner triggered the slide.
Short lessons.
More time for the mountain.
Each module gives you a practical lens: where avalanches live, how the snowpack changes, what the weather is doing, and how people distort good decisions.
Two parts, four entries in the field book.
Put the notes in motion.
Small groups, one guide never far away. The basic course runs one field day in Finland and two in Lyngen; the advanced course spends several days on snow. Your guide connects every online concept to the snow under your skis.
- Touring skis, skins and poles
- Transceiver, shovel and probe
- Warm layer and shell
- Lunch and a thermos
Mikko Routala
“The best avalanche tool is the one between your ears. This course builds it before you put on skis.”
Mikko's teaching begins with observation, then gives every observation a place in a repeatable decision system.
Elina Molkkari
“The mountains and the snow do not care about your goals and wishes. The mountains will teach you patience.”
Elina works as an avalanche forecaster, and she teaches you to read the avalanche forecast and to complete it with what you observe in the terrain. When the conditions and the goals do not match, it is time to change the plan.