How - Where - Why

Allow me to reintroduce myself (yes that’s a Jay-Z reference), we’re The Mountain Training Center, formerly known as MTN Mapping Edu.

Part 1: How It Started

We’ll start at the beginning as I don’t believe we’ve ever done a deep dive into the origin story of this website. Back in the winter of 21/22, I (Will McKay, Owner) was busy during the hustle of the ski guiding and avalanche education season. As many instructors know, it can get pretty hectic. Finishing one day of ski guiding a group of ex-racers from Vermont, getting home, entering a PM hazard report, scarfing down whatever food was near and then hopping onto Zoom to give an avalanche lecture to the Level 1 course that started the next day.

I was working and still do, in the mecca of backcountry skiing, the Central Wasatch of Utah. Aptly referred to as the Center of The Backcountry Skiing Universe. Due to it’s popularity, the mountain range hosts likely more avalanche courses per year than most places in North America.

While working for a couple of different companies, I started to notice there was a bit of a gap in terms of the content we were delivering on the lecture component of avalanche courses. I even noticed it on my PRO level courses as well. The issue is/was that instructors are usually bound to a specific curriculum to meet industry standards (a good thing) but are also bound to a time frame (in this case, not a good thing). When you’ve got a lot to cover and not a lot of time, most folks just focus on the critical components like identifying avalanche terrain, understanding snow metamorphism or learning to read an avalanche forecast.

I come from a navigation background as I was somewhat of a mapping nerd in college while I pursued an undergraduate degree in environmental science. Also, being an elder Gen-Z, I tended to be a bit more hip with digital programs than my Millennial and Gen-X counterparts. This led me to always have a desire to teach more on the tour planning side of things, which is primarily done digitally nowadays. But do not fear keyboard warriors, I can still handle a physical map, I promise.

I always was of the mindset that you could have all the snow science education in the world but if you’ve never planned a ski tour, nor knew how, then wasn’t most of that information somewhat irrelevant? If you don’t know how to get out on your own then how can you put that into practice? That’s like gaining your masters degree in a field you’ve never worked in… You’ll be passed up for the person with no education but plenty of real-world experience.

I started to notice that folks gradating from a Level 1 Avalanche Course end up just skiing in the same location that their instructors took them, which is completely valid. It’ll reinforce what they learned and improve their mastery of that slice of terrain. But you’ve got to branch out eventually and lots of people don’t whether it’s from fear, lack of partners or just an overwhelming sensation of having too many options.

So I attempted to create a resource for my students called MTN Mapping, which I hosted originally on my personal guiding website but quickly transferred to here. It was simply a library of in-depth video tutorials covering the popular digital mapping programs. From the basic controls to learning how to create a backcountry ski atlas for a hut trip in a location you’ve never been. It still exists today and is now hosting around eight total hours of content.

Part 2: Where We Stand

Flash forward to the Winter of 24’ and MTN Mapping had evolved to something I didn’t anticipate. I was somehow graced with the opportunity to provide my tutorials to guide services across the country as a form of pre-season training, the videos were getting to be required for avalanche course assignments (that I wasn’t teaching) and the program was adopted by the University of Utah as part of their curriculum for avalanche education. I’m honestly still shocked that we’re sitting around 500 members as I sit here typing this on September 10th, 2024.

And it’s beginning to evolve. Just this summer, we launched a fully online Avalanche Awareness Course that is entirely self paced and is in the process of gaining accreditation from the American Avalanche Association (A3). This eliminates the issue of cramming that I previously experienced while instructing courses.

And just on the horizon, we’ll be coming out with an entirely online Avalanche Level 1 Refresher and an Avalanche Rescue Fundamentals course. Both products are aimed to the experienced backcountry skier looking to brush up on their existing knowledge before the season starts. Maybe it’s the Gen-Z in me, but I find I learn much better from watching videos than I do from reading a book. Okay, that’s definitely the Gen-Z in me but I’ve got a feeling that a lot of my compatriots would agree. Plus, you get to hear (and watch, that’s new) my pretty decent jokes throughout the course.

Now, as of September 10th, we’re officially known as the Mountain Training Center or MTC for short. More on this below.

Part 3: Why We’re Moving Forward

New name, same mission.

The goal was always to provide quality education at a lower price. Nowadays backcountry skiing is very, very, very expensive. The amount of money it takes to get started is the definition of a barrier to entry. It’s simply not possible have people of lower income levels getting into the world of winter backcountry recreation with the prices of education and gear. And that sucks. Because backcountry skiing is like… really fun. And everybody deserves to have a really fun time, no matter who they are, where they grew up or how much money they have.

I also firmly believe that getting people involved in backcountry recreation can ignite a passion for their surrounding environments. It’s hard to go for a long ski in the woods with friends and come out thinking “Well that was stupid, never again”. If that was the case, nobody would do it! And if folks can become inspired by their local environment, well then maybe they’ll get involved in a local effort to protect that place. And I think that is pretty fucking cool.

We’re in the unique position of being a small, but mighty, company with extremely low overhead since we’re entirely based online. This means a lower price of education for the public and guide services that provide our product to their students.

We transitioned our name to The Mountain Training Center to showcase that we’re not just some dorky mapping tutorial website. We’re a force to be reckoned and our instructors are some of the best in the space.

We look forward to you joining our community.