Friends of the San Juans (FOSJ) provide free avalanche awareness courses in Southwest Colorado. We offer 2-hour Awareness Classes and a series of topic-specific Workshops in an indoor setting, as well as single-day Avalanche Awareness Courses at local backcountry recreational areas. All classes are open to the public, and free of charge.
In our Avalanche Awareness Class, participants are presented with an overview of basic avalanche awareness, avoidance, forecasting, safe travel and self-rescue in a casual classroom environment. This course is a perfect introduction for novices and a great early season refresher for more experienced travelers.
FOSJ is recognized by the American Avalanche Association (AAA) as an Avalanche Awareness Course Provider, and we consult with highly respected educators in Colorado and elsewhere on our curriculum and course development.
FOSJ’s Avalanche Workshops are topic-specific, typically with a user group and experience level in mind. These Workshops are designed as an excellent continuing education model for all levels of backcountry travelers.
Our popular On-Snow Session and other Field Clinics complete FOSJ’s curriculum to take everything we learn in our Awareness Classes and Workshops and apply them in a practical and fun outdoor environment. Both novice and experienced backcountry travelers have lauded FOSJ’s Field Clinics as an essential learning tool.
Friends of the San Juans is a grassroots collective committed to creating a safe and educated community of winter backcountry users in the San Juan Mountains. We create a space and provide the language for sharing introductory information, contemporary concepts and practices, key issues, and experiences from the field for the purpose of growing this community.
Friends of the San Juans was launched in coordination with the Joe Philpott/Peter Carver Avalanche Scholarship (now known as Know the Snow Fund). Founder John Strand was reading the newspaper one day and read about the owners of Pine Needle Mountaineering and Carver Brewing, both of Durango, starting this avalanche scholarship along with other local businesses to help promote avalanche education. John came from a background of awareness-level avalanche education in the Colorado Front Range before moving to Durango, and after taking the only available avalanche ‘awareness’ class here in Durango at the time—which cost $75, had an outdated slideshow, and was focused more on snow science than applicable recreation-based knowledge. It ended up raising more questions than answers and the other 20 or so participants in the course. John felt the need to work with the folks at Pine Needle and this new scholarship to create a quality awareness education program, focusing on the practical/hands on portion now known as the FOSJ "On Snow" Sessions. We also felt the importance to make this potentially life saving information and training available to the public, and absolutely free of charge. We held an initial meeting in the back of Carver's Brewing and had standing room only, with full support from all sectors of the industry and the community. It was quite intimidating to pitch a room full of avalanche professionals on this idea. It was a great feeling to get this support right away, and that supportive base has only grown in the decade FOSJ has been in operation since.
Organization name
Friends of the San Juans
2014
Tax id (EIN)
47-1876039
Category
Recreation & Sports, Education, Community Improvement & Capacity Building
Organization Size
Small Organization
Address
10 TOWN PLZDurango, CO, US
Silverton, CO, US, 81433
CO, US
NM, US
Telluride, CO, US, 81435