Island Alpine Guides

12/27/2024

We were sold out into February but have just managed to open up eight spots on an Avalanche Skills Training One course at Mount Washington January 11th and 12th. We're guessing they'll disappear quickly. Grab one at https://www.islandalpineguides.com/trips/31

12/27/2024

Last minute AST1 Washington for Skiers/Boarders course spot currently available for this weekend - December 28th - 29th! Check out our website for availability / to book. Happy Holidays! ❄

12/23/2024

Fun and games and some seriousness all at once on our avalanche skills training this weekend. If you find this at all stressful imagine what really being buried might be like. Photo by IAG instructor

12/19/2024

Check out this awesome news story about our friends Kindred Custom Snowboards & Skis. This is one fantastic local company making really great (and beautiful) skis and boards. (Also, nice hat Evan!)

The abundant early snow has also meant an increase in business for an island maker of custom boards and skis.

12/15/2024

IAG winter staff training today. We feel so fortunate to have such an exceptional team of mountain professionals ready to deliver your training and riding experiences for what is shaping up to be a great winter. From left to right: Rob Coates, Graeme White, Niko Weiss, Helene Steiner, Casey Watamaniuk, Nathan Seal and Jan Neuspiel.

12/09/2024

Give the gift of adventure and education this holiday season! Gift certificates in any denomination and with no expiry. Available now and in digital form if you like, to skip the need for post. Just shoot us an email at [email protected].

12/03/2024

Check out this link from 'Avalanche Canada' with "Eight reasons you should take a Companion Rescue Skills course": https://avalanche.ca/training/companion-rescue

We have our first Companion Rescue course of the season scheduled for Saturday December 14th on Mount Washington! ❄

11/27/2024

We set a high standard for our instructors which means we have a limited number of them. That limits how many courses we can offer. So for now anyway, we have just six spots remaining on AST1 courses at Mount Washington up to the end of January. So grab one of those spots and when they fill up, grab a spot later in the season. That will ensure that you get a course booked and If we manage to add some more courses in December or January we'll be happy to move your registration to an earlier course. We also have a course running at Mount Cain in January that has a few spots.

11/20/2024

It continues to absolutely slash up in the mountains with yet another system on the way. Getting measurements on accumulation is tough with the extreme winds so we’ll just have to go for a tour somewhere when the winds let up a little and do some measuring for you all 😊

11/18/2024

Bomb Cyclone! There is not doubt about it. We have some snow coming to our mountains! Models vary on amounts but even the most conservative long range outlook has us receiving well over a metre in the coming week. The Canadian model in the second image puts it at three metres by 28 November at 1000m elevation!

11/16/2024

Snow! Cool temperatures and precipitation for the foreseeable future are painting a very pretty picture for us snow lovers. You can see the details in this image. This is the long range Canadian model for the mountains of the east coast of Vancouver Island. The modelled elevation is 961 meters, and yes, you are reading that correctly, it's predicting 162.9cm of snow by 25 November. We say, bring it on!

11/15/2024

Things are filling in nicely for our avalanche courses to start .📷

11/07/2024

Come for the Vibes ⛷ Stay for the Door Prizes!! 🎟🎟 IAG gift certificate giveaway + an HVI toque! Friday, 15 November ❄

11/06/2024

We've managed to organize another iteration of our very popular on-line weather forecasting course. The last time we offered this it filled up in about 24 hours so don't delay in registering if you want to take it.

Everything we do in the outdoors relies more on one variable than any other: THE WEATHER.

As professional guides and avalanche forecasters some of the most common questions we get are "where do you get your weather" or "which website is best to get my weather information from".

Most of the weather forecasts that people look at these days are output from numerical weather models about which users know little of the strengths and limitations. To really get a handle on the weather you need a basic grasp of how weather works and access to resources other than just numerical model outputs.

Join meteorologist Matt Macdonald for a short training that will significantly up your weather game. In two, one hour, online sessions separated by a week for you to practice in between them, Matt will teach you a forecasting process that will improve your weather predicting capabilities many fold.

It's All About the Weather! Everything we do in the outdoors relies more on one variable than any other: THE WEATHER. Join meteorologist Matt Macdonald for a short training that will significantly up your weather game. In two, one hour, online sessions separated by a week for you to practice in betw...