The school
Three guides and a hut
We teach avalanche rescue and tour planning from an office in Andermatt, 1,437 m up in the Urseren valley, and from our own hut above the village.
Why Andermatt
Andermatt sits where three passes meet: the Oberalp to the east, the St Gotthard to the south and the Furka to the west. In winter that means slopes facing every direction within a short climb of the station, which is what a course needs.
Who teaches
- Ladina Arnold
- Lead guide. Runs the office, answers the email, teaches Level 3.
- Mattia Regli
- Guide. Levels 1 and 2, and the hut kitchen on Level 2 nights.
- Corsin Danioth
- Guide. Level 1 drills, and the person who buries the transceivers.
- Bruno
- St Bernard. Not a rescue dog. Comes to the office, never to the deposit.
About the dog in the footer
Barry (1800–1814) worked for the hospice on the Great St Bernard Pass, at 2,469 m, and is credited with saving more than 40 people. He weighed 40–45 kg, lighter than a St Bernard today. The story that he died on a rescue is untrue: he retired to Bern, and his body is in the Natural History Museum there. The brandy keg is a 19th-century myth.
Sources: Barry (dog), Great St Bernard Hospice.
Sources and credits
- Avalanche rescue: survival 92 % within 15 min, about 30 % after 35 min (422 buried skiers); 45 min for a helicopter team in France; 80 m search range; shallowest first; debris sets hard.
- Avalanche transceiver: 457 kHz since 1986; the dipole field and the direction arrow.
- Avalanche: the European danger scale (April 1993), loads, slope angles, 38°, deaths at levels 2 and 3 in Switzerland.
- Andermatt: altitude, valley, passes, railway.
- Every drawing on this site is made for it, in code. No photographs.
- Type: Golos Text, by the Golos Text Project Authors, SIL Open Font License 1.1.
- Icons: Akar Icons by Arturo Wibawa, MIT licence, via Iconify.
sonde, its guides, prices, dates and hut are invented for this site. The facts about avalanches, rescue, Barry and Andermatt are real and linked above.
Ready to start