About The American Avalanche Institute

DON CARPENTER has eleven years of experience guiding and teaching in the outdoors. Don works for Alpine Ascents on Denali, Mt. Rainier, and in the Cascades. He is also a Senior Instructor with the National Outdoor Leadership School with 170 field weeks in the mountaineering and winter programs. Don has worked 20 NOLS winter ski expeditions in the mountains of Wyoming and Idaho. His expeditions have taken him to Alaska, the Washington Cascades, Antarctica, Chile, Argentina, and India. Skiing and avalanche forecasting are a passion for Don. He is a co-owner of the American Avalanche Institute in Jackson, WY. His winters are busy teaching avalanche courses for the Institute and skiing. He loves skiing in his local mountains with numerous ski descents and tours in the Tetons.

DON SHARAF has spent the last twenty years skiing around the Western US. He has taught glacier mountaineering courses around the world, and winter ski/camping courses all over the west for the National Outdoor Leadership School. Over the last 15 years he has taught avalanche courses in Chile, Washington, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, California, Utah, Montana, and Colorado and has been a heli-ski guide and avalanche forecaster in Alaska for the last nine years.

SARAH CARPENTER has spent most of her life on skis. She has been working in the field of snow and snow science since 1998, when she started as a ski patroller at Bridger Bowl in Bozeman, MT. Sarah has led mountaineering trips in the U.S., Chile, and India for numerous companies. She teaches level 1, 2, and 3 avalanche courses throughout the west during the winter. She also works a ski guide for the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Exum Mountain Guides. In the summer, she is a mountain guide for Alpine Ascents International, where she does her best to keep up with her husband, Don.

ROD NEWCOMB is the founder of the American Avalanche Institute. Rod founded AAI the winter of 1974/75. He is a former forecaster at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and an avalanche researcher in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Rod has been a backcountry skier since 1961. Rod has taught avalanche courses all over the country, to thousands of recreationists and professionals alike. He was the recipient of Honorary Membership by the American Avalanche Association, the highest honor given to avalanche researchers and practitioners in 2004. More recently, he was the recipient of the American Mountain Guides Association Lifetime Achievement in Guiding Award.

TOM KIMBROUGH started backcountry skiing in the Sierras in 1965. Ski patrolling at Alpine Meadows, Squaw Valley and Alta taught him enough about avalanches for him to forecast at the Utah Avalanche Center for 17 winters. He has taught for AAI since 1986. As you may have gathered he is now really old.

JAKE HUTCHINSON is the Director of Ski Patrol and Snow Safety at The Canyons Ski Resort in Park City, UT, and has over 15 years working in avalanche terrain. He is the Vice President of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue and a delegate to IKAR on the Avalanche Rescue Commission . He has been teaching avalanche courses for AAI and others for many years. Jake is an avid peak bagger and desert wanderer, when his schedule allows.

JIM WOODMENCEY is a trained Meteorologist and the owner of MountainWeather. He has worked 20 winters as a heli-ski guide for High Mountain Heli-Skiing in Jackson, WY and was their lead weather and avalanche forecaster. Jim is a former avalanche forecaster for the State of Alaska, as well as a former climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park. He has been an instructor with AAI since 1990. Jim is an A3 certified instructor.

JOHN FITZGERALD is a guide and the snow safety director for Togwotee Snowcat Guides. He was the NOLS winter program coordinator for 4 years at the NOLS Teton Valley branch. John is a senior instructor for NOLS, specializing in working winter ski courses and avalanche courses. John has been backcountry skiing in the Tetons for over 15 years. He is an A3 professional member.

LYNNE WOLFE is a long-time resident of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. She is editor of The Avalanche Review, a publication of the American Avalanche Association, and is also a AAA Certified Avalanche Instructor. She has taught avalanche courses for schools such as AAI, Prescott College, Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center, Silverton Avalanche School, NOLS, Yostmark Backcountry, and Babes in the Backcountry. In the summer she is a guide for Exum Mountain Guides in the Tetons. She most enjoys helping avalanche course students translate snow theory into making better decisions in the backcountry.

NAT PATRIDGE is an owner and senior guide for Exum Mountain guides. He is a ski guide for the Jackson Hole Alpine Guides and is the former lead guide and avalanche forecaster for the Alpine Guides. He is a former heli-ski guide and forecaster for Valdez Heli-Ski Guides. Nat was also an avalanche forecaster and guide for High Mountain Heli-Ski. Nat co-guided the first winter guided ski descent of the Grand Teton in 2008.

JAMIE YOUNT grew up in Bozeman Montana where he spent his youth skiing at Bridger Bowl and learning the ways of the backcountry on second hand 3pins. Eventually he got some better gear and a meteorology degree from the University of Utah. He has been an avalanche forecaster with the Wyoming Department of Transportation since 2002, a member of Teton County Search and Rescue, and is the Intermountain South Representative for the American Avalanche Association.

DOUG RICHMOND is the Patrol Director at Bridger Bowl, MT. He was the Snow Safety Director at Bridger Bowl for 10+ years. Doug is retiring as the vice president of American Avalanche Association. Doug has over thirty years of professional ski patrolling experience in California, Colorado, and Montana. He is an A3 certified instructor. Doug teaches courses for AAI in Bozeman, Montana.

DYLAN FREED was born and raised in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. He works as a ski guide year round in both the United States and New Zealand. In the wintertime he works for Mountain Mobility Group, contracting with the Department of Defense and training groups of the US military in winter warfare and teaches AAI courses in the Wasatch. Each spring he leaves for Alaska to work for Valdez Heli-Ski guides and is most recently beginning to work for Alpine Guides in New Zealand as a helicopter ski guide for Wilderness Heli-Ski and Methven Heli-Ski during the Southern hemisphere winter of July-September.

BILL NALLI is the director of the Utah Department of Transportation Avalanche Saftey Program in American Fork and Provo Canyons. His first exposure to avalanches was as a ski patroller at Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Since then he has worked as a snowcat and heli-ski guide in the Uinta Mountains and human powered backcountry guide in the Wasatch. Bill has taught classes with the Utah Avalanche Center and is currently with AAI in Salt Lake City.

DREW HARDESTY has been forecasting avalanches and mountain weather for the Utah Avalanche Center since 1999. After spending a good number of years working and guiding for NOLS and Outward Bound in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Alaska, he now spends his summers as a Jenny Lake climbing ranger in the Tetons. His passions include dip-netting kings out of the Copper, breaking trail, and following his son through the trees at Alta.

MIKE RUTH has been skiing and climbing in the Wasatch mountains of Utah since 1980. In addition to 15 years as a backcountry ski guide and ice climbing guide in Utah are 30 years as an elite snowcat operator on three continents. His love of snow and mountains have taken him to the southern alps of New Zealand for numerous ice climbs and ski tours,the frigid Alaska range, the incredibly remote ranges of Antarctica and to the beautiful Mt. Blanc for a ski descent of the North face. Mike has been an instructor for AAI since 2000 and is a AAA certified instructor.

RON SIMENHOIS always loved snow. As a kid he loved the way it looked, the way it felt, but most of all the day off school that came with a fresh layer of snow. The problem for Ron was that he was born and raised in Israel which is not known for epic snow falls. Ron's interest in avalanches started on a late fall search and rescue expedition in the Indian Himalayas. After a few years of trying to feed the hunger for snow remotely from his cubicle in Israel, he and his wife decided that it was time to move and try a different lifestyle. He quit his job as a mathematician and got a real job as a ski patroller in Colorado. A few years ago and after 12 seasons of avalanche forecasting in Colorado and New Zealand he started to work as an avalanche forecaster for the Kensington Mine in southeast Alaska. Although not considering himself an expert, Ron's inquisitive personality, borderline obsessive interest in avalanches and not being shy to ask questions helped him to become friends with some of the sharpest minds in the field and take part in very exciting research projects.

ARMANDO MENOCAL took one of the first avalanche courses ever offered, circa 1972, from Sierra Nevada legend Norm Wilson and was issued "Avalanche Hunter No. 15" certification. An Exum guide since 1997, dubbed by Outside magazine “a world-class Wyoming climber" with first ascents in Yosemite and Sierra Nevada and climbs in Asia, Africa, and South America, Armando also worked for 25 years on clinical education, developing techniques for teaching by participation in real-life problems. Founder, in 2009, of Access PanAm, first-ever western hemisphere access and conservation organization. Founder, in 1990 of The Access Fund, which works to keep climbing areas open and protect the mountain environment. Spearheading introduction of climbing and guiding in Cuba. Author of the guidebook, Cuba Climbing (www.cubaclimbing.com, 2009)

RON MATOUS first became aware of avalanches in Colorado's Sawatch range, where the thundering of the wind once had him jumping out of bed thinking that he most certainly had camped in a runout zone. He had, actually, but the fatal avalanche was a figment. After that he payed more attention, and it saved a lot of money when he insisted during a 1989 expedition to Manaslu, Nepal, that a particular tent be placed 100 awkward yards away from the standard base camp site. That night a serac-fall obliterated the proposed site. Ever since then Matous has been a staunch believer in the laws of physics. He is a certified AAA instructor.

ALLEN O'BANNON has been working in the cold for over 20 years and has been teaching about avalanches almost as long. As a NOLS winter instructor since 1988, Allen has honed his educational skills and has taught at all levels (avalanche awareness courses through level 3). He has worked as a guide and avalanche educator for Exum, American Avalanche Institute, Yostmark Backcountry Ski Tours and sits on the Educational Advisory Board for the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE).Allen has also spent 5 seasons in Antarctica doing safety trainings and guiding National Science Foundation research groups. He is the author of 3 books (the Allen and Mike Really Cool series) on camping and skiing.

CHELAN BABINEAU-Z lives, works and plays in the snow of southwest Montana. He is employed as an avalanche forecaster and assistant snow safety director at Big Sky Ski Resort where he has been patrolling for nearly a decade. He especially enjoys hanging from towers and splicing wires together in inclement weather conditions while fixing weather stations, a year round headache (occupation). When not working Chelan continues to seek adventure in the mountains around Bozeman and beyond.

ANGELA PATNODE has been working in a snowy environment for 20 years. Her avalanche education career began in 1997 with the National Outdoor Leadership School. She has accumulated over 200 weeks in the field teaching winter, mountaineering, rock, and instructor courses for the school. Angela has taught avalanche courses around the Bozeman area since 2005. She finds her passion in educating others from personal experience or text, and enjoys the connections she makes with her students on every course.