To All Patrollers
All of you who are instructors and instructor candidates, along with those of you who are familiar with Avalanche, MTR, and/or Nordic/BC skills, and are interested in becoming an instructor in one of these programs:
This year’s Avalanche, Mountain Travel & Rescue, and Nordic/Backcountry Instructor Refresher, best known as AMN2025, is being run September 27 & 28, 2025, at The Pike Glades in New Hampshire. Camping is available on-site, free of charge, beginning on Friday, September 26, 2025. Register on Patroller School for more details.
In Other News
National is beginning work on a hybrid MTR Level 1 course modeled on the Eastern Division’s hybrid MTR Level 1 course. The anticipated release date is March of 2026. There are three Eastern Division MTR ITs on the committee: Matt Karpinecz, Jeff Sargent, and me. The MTR Instructor Manual has been updated to align with the recently released “Mountaineering – Freedom of the Hills, 10th Edition,” which is used as the textbook for MTR Level 1 and Level 2 courses.
All division MTR Region Advisors have been invited to add their region’s 2025/2026 courses and clinics to an ‘MTR Course Schedule’ in Google Docs. This schedule also includes division-run courses. This is one of the ways we are achieving our goal of inter-region collaboration.
We will be asking every MTR Instructor and Instructor Candidate to do the online portion of the AMN Instructor Refresher every year. They’ll do this by registering for the hybrid portion only when registering for the AMN. This won’t fulfill the requirement of attending an instructor refresher once every three years, but it will keep all our instructors and instructor candidates engaged, informed, and current.
We’ve found that one-day MTR clinics are being very well attended and generate a lot of positive feedback. Some recent ones have been an MTR clinic for women, a navigation clinic, an uphill-travel clinic, and a low-angle-rescue clinic. Clinics are also a great way for instructor candidates to get in their required mentored instructing in their quest to become an MTR Instructor. Reach out to your region’s MTR advisor to find out where and what type of clinics will be offered this season.
Our newest MTR Region Advisors are Todd Wildman for EMARI and Monica Lee Zablotny for WNY. Much appreciation to John Caron and Mary MacQueen for previously serving in those positions.
I’d like to remind everyone that downloadable lists of all current MTR personnel appear on the Eastern Division’s website.
