by Trail Sweep Staff | Oct 23, 2025 | Division News, Program News
If you were not there, you missed it! The AMN 25 instructor continuing education refresher was a huge success! It’s going to be hard to find a location that will beat Pike Glades in New Hampshire. The weather was perfect, and we had the largest attendance ever for this event. This year we had many people who only did the online portion of the refresher. This is going to become a yearly requirement, with you only needing to attend an in person refresher once every three years.
AVALANCHE – Rob West, Supervisor
The leaves are changing, and the air is getting crisper. Winter will soon be upon us again. We had a great AMN refresher at Pike Glades in New Hampshire the last weekend of September. The avalanche station ran two beacon rotations, focusing on long-range searching and close-range bracketing. We also ran a station refreshing everyone on how to build hypothermic wraps for an injured partner in the back country with what they had in their packs. Thank you to all the instructors who came and helped out, and all the instructors who attended to continue their education and bring new knowledge to the students.
MOUNTAIN TRAVEL & RESCUE – Joni Porter, Supervisor
This portion of the refresher covered ‘How to Teach Low Angle Rescue’ utilizing a down-up-capture using a carabiner, pulley, and release, known as ‘DUC-CPR’ for short. This method has been chosen as the standard of training for the Eastern Division. Participants got lots of hands-on practice on Saturday, followed by an optional LAR Enhancement Seminar on Sunday.
The online lesson prepared the participants for the fieldwork by introducing the following objectives:
1. Why are we referring to foundational LAR as DUC-CPR?
2. The details of the process of Down-Up-Capture (DUC) using carabiners, pulleys, and release (CPR).
3. Show that there is room in DUC-CPR to create variations to fit specific needs.
Doing the online work in advance allowed AMN participants to dive directly into “doing” upon arrival at the field stations.
NORDIC/BACKCOUNTRY – Chuck Boyd, Supervisor
The field station involved navigation and built on the online pre-course work. Participants were given a set of coordinates which they had to add to their CalTopo app and plot a course. Then they went and located the plotted locations, which all returned to the start. Once back at the station HQ the students were given paper maps, and had to plot the same coordinates on the map. Patrollers learned a lot.
by Chuck Boyd, Nordic/Backcountry Supervisor | Sep 13, 2025 | Division News, Program News
I hope everyone had a great summer and accomplished their goals. Now it’s time to go to the AMN Instructor Continuing Education Event, September 26-28. This year’s event will be held at Pike Glades, NH as we move these events around the division.
Instructors, instructor candidates, and interested patrollers wishing to get involved with Nordic, MTR, or Avalanche are always welcome at this event. This year’s registration will close on 9/22, allowing all attending to have time to complete the online material before they arrive.
The Nordic/Backcountry station will focus on navigation, using CalTopo, and plotting a waypoint on a paper map. The MTR station will focus on low angle rescue as we try to standardize our systems throughout all NSP programs. The Avalanche station will do transceiver searches and exam prep for L2 avalanche and Nordic Master transceiver tests.
Plus, this year they will introduce the Hypo Wrap, a backcountry technique to help keep your hypothermia or injured patient warm until more help arrives and transportation is complete. With the online material ahead of time we can now adjust our schedule and spend more time outside doing hands-on training. This should make things a bit more exciting and fun!
We will announce the upcoming season’s events for Nordic/Backcountry on patrollerschool.org. When you sign up and access AMN you’ll find a video presentation of our program updates. AMN events will be posted on the division website calendar when the events are finalized. As a heads up, one of the events will be at Pike Glade, NH in February.
Did you know that Jesse Diggins came to Vermont and held training camps at Stratton? It’s fantastic to see Olympic Nordic skiers come east to help train our future Olympians.
See you all soon at the AMN. The winter outlook for the east coast shows lots of snow and cold temps for us.
by Joni Porter, MTR Supervisor | Jun 5, 2025 | Program News
The Avalanche (AVY), Mountain Travel & Rescue (MTR), and Nordic/Backcountry (N/BC) programs have scheduled the Instructor Refresher AMN 2025 for September 27-28, 2025, at The Pike Glades in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
AMN 2025 is open to instructors and instructor-candidates from all three programs. A gentle reminder that Avvy, MTR, and N/BC instructors need to recert once every three years. If you haven’t been able to do this, please contact your Region Advisor and/or your program’s Eastern Division Supervisor.
There will be pre-attendance refreshing to be completed online at Eastern Division’s Patroller School in addition to the in-person Global Continuing Education and program-run skill stations at The Pike Glades. You will be able to register for AMN 2025 at PatrollerSchool.org. Keep checking, AMN 2025 isn’t there yet!
Here are just a few of the details (more to come):
• On-site camping is available both Friday and Saturday nights.
• Breakfast and Lunch will be provided on Saturday.
• Breakfast will be provided on Sunday.
• Dinner on Saturday night will most likely be the usual potluck (we each bring something to share) but we’ll let you know.
Check out The Pike Glades or @ThePikeGlades on all social platforms.
Read the next Trail Sweep for more details!
