Guest Info — Safety

At Great Northern we are well prepared for any eventuality that may occur on the mountain during the day that might affect your personal safety. It all starts with our professionalism — extending from the excellent guides we employ to the well-maintained snowcats we work with. We do all we can to ensure that your skiing holiday is a safe one.

Our professional staff and their skilled approach to each day's skiing helps us to make your skiing vacation as safe as possible

• Lead Guides are Professional Members of the Canadian Avalanche Association.
• Guides — experienced professionals — trained in avalanche operations, ski guiding, risk management, first aid, and mountain rescue, and carry extensive rescue gear.
• Annual in-house staff safety and guide training program.
• Groups always accompanied by two guides.
• Guides don't work shifts — they are on the mountain every skiing day – no guest appearances.
• Snowcat carries emergency medical equipment, rescue equipment, and spare ski equipment.
• Radio communication between guides, snowcat driver, mountain base lodge.
• Guests equipped with avalanche rescue transceiver, trained in transceiver search techniques.
• Guest safety briefing on cat skiing procedures, avalanche safety, snowcats, lodge / fire safety.
• A comprehensive snow & avalanche information management system for collecting observations, evaluating snowpack stability, and evaluating terrain safety and selection.
• Safety program is monitored and adjusted continually, according to changes in conditions and avalanche risk.

Risk and Waiver

We take the safety of our guests and staff seriously. Although we continuously strive to minimize the challenges inherent to backcountry cat skiing, there are many risks associated with wilderness skiing. Guests are asked to sign the release form, “Assumption of Risk and Waiver” prior to their trip (see a sample), which acknowledges that they are aware of these risks, dangers and hazards.

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“Up at Great Northern earlier this week, we all had such a good time on the mountain and we were so well looked after in the lodge and on the hill. The care taken when it came to safety was also a huge plus for us, as it made it easy to have fun on the hill and to know we were in good hands.”
Kate and Lindsay Fischer, Calgary, Alberta

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