Prerequisites to Enroll
Most AIARE 1 Courses do not have any prerequisite experience to signup. While it is great to make these courses available to everyone, it does create an inherent contradiction when people with vastly different skills are all on the same program. If someone shows up wearing snowshoes it will make it hard for those people on skis to get the most out of the program. Same goes for skiers, if someone shows up never having skied before it will make it hard for those skiers with a lot of experience to get their moneys worth. It’s also really challenging for the instructor to manage the different expectations and goals and still provide quality learning outcomes.
Why are courses run this way? Without getting to much into the politics of it, the quick answer is money. Course providers are incentivized to make sure courses fill, not to maximize customer experience. And if the instructor in the field has to deal with the headache, so be it. Thats why programs run by owner operators are different, they are the ones in the field with you. Iff they allow groups with vastly different skillsets, they are the one who need to deal with the headache. Hence why my Advanced Movement Courses have prerequisites, to make sure I don’t have to get a headache… I’m kinda joking but not really. The real value of having team alignment is the value it brings to customers learning outcomes.
The Importance of “The Team”
There is a more fundamental issue at play here. One that informs how everyone should operate in the mountains and is worth discussing in more detail: the roll of the team. The teams role as a variable in the planning process is essential, and a key concept we learn about on an AIARE 1 course. This blog post dives into it in a little more detail but we can take a quick look here.
The Planning Triangle
We have three main variables when we make a plan to go into the mountains. The Team, the Terrain and the Conditions. This is known as the Planning Triangle. When these three variables get out of sync, is often when we see accidents happen.
There are two main approaches to syncing up your team, objectives (terrain), and conditions. 1) When you have a specific objective/piece of terrain you want to climb or ski. OR 2) When you have a certain day/specific group your going out with. When one variable is fixed, you need to be selective in controlling the others.
Objective (terrain) – focused planning:
When the objective is the fixed variable, you need to be selective in choosing the right team and conditions to set up for success. A prime example is when you’re focused on a specific piece of terrain, such as a mountain summit or ski descent. As objectives become more extreme, it’s crucial to select the right team and wait for the appropriate conditions.
This is also why it’s important to be selective when hiring a guide and choosing who else will be on your program. If you’re focused on an objective, having the right team is key to success.
Team and conditions – focused planning
When your team and conditions are the fixed variables, you need to choose an appropriate objective to set yourself up for success. This is common for recreational users, like a group of friends who plan to go backcountry skiing on a specific day. In this case, the team and conditions (weather and snowpack) are fixed.
Success here depends on understanding the group’s experience and abilities in managing the given conditions and then selecting terrain that won’t push anyone too far beyond their comfort zones. In groups with varying experience levels and goals, you should generally defer to the least common denominator and set firm expectations for the day’s objectives.
So why have prerequisites?
By being thoughtful about who joins a course, what we are really doing is being thoughtful about who is on our team. This makes it a lot easier to meet the teams goals. In this case to provide high level learning outcomes… and avoid headaches. The whole class gets a lot more leeway in terms of what terrain and conditions we can operate in and gets us much closer to everyones “zone of proximal development”. When can access more terrain, and in more conditions we can give students a better taste of what these phenomenon of the mountains are really all about.
Why is it important to get out and “experience the phenomenon”? Check out this blog post.