The Colorado Rapid Avalanche Deployment (C-RAD) Winter Course is known as a sort of Top Gun school for avalanche rescue dogs and their handlers. Every winter, a different Colorado ski resort hosts the annual training event, known as Dog School, and last season it was Snowmass Mountain’s turn. In February 2023, photojournalist Jeremy Swanson spent four days on the mountain documenting how green handlers and their pups learn to search for and find victims buried beneath tons of snow. This is his visual diary.

To capture the above image of Vail Mountain Rescue Group's K9 Stryker making a find, photographer Jeremy Swanson had to hide in a quinzee—one of more than 100 hollowed-out mounds of snow that Snowmass groomers and ski patrollers built on closed runs across the mountain for the February 2023 C-RAD training event. After Swanson crawled inside the quinzee, a ski patroller sealed the entrance with blocks of snow. Outside on Slider, a closed blue run, Stryker followed Swanson's scent percolating through the snow and carried on the wind, until he arrived at the quinzee's door, dug furiously, and broke through the snow blocks to receive his reward: a game of tug.

Above: On the initial day of Dog School, C-RAD assistant instructor and Snowmass ski patroller Emily Casebeer and her Labrador retriever, Odin, share a ride up the mountain in a towed snowcat trailer with Aspen Highlands patroller Sam Seward and Sawyer, a border collie/golden retriever mix named for Seward’s  summertime gig as a Carbondale arborist.

Above: C-RAD instructor Jay Pugh, a Calgary-based firefighter and disaster dog handler, takes a knee in honor of Roy Fawcett, his late dog training mentor, before leading a morning session of marching drills at the Fanny Hill base area, where dogs and handlers practice obedience then break for a moment of group play.

Above: Novice handlers and their pups unload at Slider’s Cabin, the staging area for C-RAD Dog School basic training, also known as Puppy Class.

In the above sequence of images, Puppy Class instructor Jay Pugh helps Winter Park patroller Erica Gilbertson and her 9-month-old golden retriever, Charlie, learn a fundamental skill:  a “blind” search, where neither the pup nor its handler knows which of several quinzees on Slider conceals a buried patroller. After Gilbertson releases Charlie to search, the pup follows her quarry’s scent on the wind to the correct hole, burrows inside, retrieves her tug toy, and receives ebullient praise. “What we are doing in Puppy Class is laying the foundation for a dog using its nose to find live human scent and associating that with the best game in the world, which is tug of war,” exlpains Pugh, a C-RAD instructor since 2016.

At the end of a long training day, ski patrollers use different modes of transportation and strategies to safely convey their K9 charges to the base area.

Top to bottom (above): Arapahoe Basin patroller (and C-RAD president) Erich Swartz descends with golden retriever Tikka trotting between his wedged skis; Emily Casebeer uses a modified toboggan to shuttle a goggled Odin (a vocal backseat driver) and Ripp, a 6-month-old yellow Lab, down the mountain; Erica Gilbertson slings Charlie over her shoulders and backpack.

On the final day of Dog School, instructors, handlers, and dogs (including Snowmass patrol pup, Ripp above) gather outside Slider’s Cabin for a debriefing, which includes a lecture by Emily Casebeer on the need to keep a detailed training log (pictured below). “Dog School is immersive,” says Casebeer, a Snowmass native and 16-year ski patrol veteran who also works as a community response officer with the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office. “As a handler it gives me the opportunity to solely focus on me and my dog and build friendships and relationships with other trainers and patrollers.”

Snowmass Ski Patrol Supervisor Ryan Carlson follows Ripp up Slider as the pup searches for his quarry during a snowstorm. “The dogs love having a job, and it's an absolute blast to watch them work,” says Carlson, who took on the added responsibility of training his first avalanche dog after 16 years on patrol. “It’s a ton of fun.” But hosting C-RAD Dog School—the largest annual avy dog training event in North America, with 42 dog teams from 22 resorts—also was a lot of work for patrollers like Carlson and the entire mountain operations crew. “It was really a team effort,” adds the 41-year-old Minnesota native, whose parents met at Snowmass. “To be putting on the event but also to be participating in it was especially meaningful for me.” And his dog. “Having Ripp there at 6 months when he was in a very formative period, having one-on-one instruction and a community of people to bounce ideas off of and share training tips and stories with was very special. It was an absolutely wonderful experience.”