Program areas at Friends of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center
Avalanche safety and awareness education program: the Friends of gnfac provides free, quality Avalanche safety education and information for all backcountry users in southwest Montana. In the 2021-2022 season, over 40 instructors coordinated and staffed 82 classes for 3,349 people, including 391 kids under 18 and 283 snowmobilers, and reaching grades 112, collegiate, search and rescue groups, ski patrol, and ski and snowmobile clubs.
Snowpilot software: the Friends of gnfac funds the maintenance and development of this open-source, free software that allows users to record and graph snow pit information in a secure database where researchers can analyze it to advance the field of snow science. Snowpilot has over 5,000 users and is the worlds largest snow pit database with over 36,000 snow pits in 4 languages (english, spanish, icelandic and swedish).
Direct support of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center in their mission to inform the recreating public about Avalanche danger: the Friends of gnfac hosts the mtavalanche.com website, owns and maintains 5 weather stations, and provides other direct support to the Avalanche Center by covering costs for snowmobiles, gear, and website maintenance. In the 2021-2022 season, 6,736 individuals subscribed to the Avalanche centers daily forecasts.