Welcome to AviAlert: Our Vision for Backcountry Decision-Making

Every year people that love backcountry skiing and split-boarding die from avalanches. And as a ski guide with friends and colleagues active in the backcountry, too often it is someone we know. My longtime friend, guide and educator Colin Zacharias and I have both expressed our frustration with the fact that, despite the efforts of so many, every year accidents still happen. Backcountry forecasts are improving, backcountry avalanche courses are everywhere, but every time the hazard increases, backcountry travelers die.

So I asked the question—is there anything we can do?

The Seed of an Idea

Colin told me he has previously advised on the development of several decision-support tools for use in avalanche terrain, but that he had yet to see one translated into a usable digital app. We talked about a problem avalanche educators know well: all avalanche courses detail interactive trip planning workflows that assess today’s hazard and plan to reduce the risk. But post course, students short cut the process.

The challenge was clear: How do you build a tool that people will understand and actually use?

That first conversation led to many more, all centred on decision-making and how technology might meaningfully support it. We’re well aware people have notification fatigue. The wilderness is often the last refuge from pings and noise. The last thing you want is a bell ringing in your ear when you’re listening to the wind move through the trees. If this was going to work, it had to respect that reality.

Who We Are

A brief word on background, because it matters in this domain.

I’m Marc Dubé—an ACMG-certified ski and rock climbing guide, CAA Level 2, and a founding member of the Canadian Climbing Team, with over 30 years of experience guiding and leading safety and rescue teams.

Colin Zacharias is an ACMG certified IFMGA mountain guide with more than 40 years of experience and is among North America’s foremost avalanche professionals. He’s a lead investigator of mountain accidents, a standards committee member for HeliCat Canada and a lead instructor for the CAA Industry Training Program. He has contributed to developing avalanche education curriculum internationally.

Development is supported by a team of developers and advisors in Canada and Europe.

We built AviAlert because we believed we could help—but also because we couldn’t find one app that had everything we needed. There are strong features spread across many tools, but none brought it together in a way that matched how we actually work in the field. We wanted one toolkit—maps, weather, forecasts, planning, observations, navigation—designed around real backcountry use.

Our Philosophy

We anchored AviAlert around a simple belief: better methodology reduces risk.

That wording is deliberate. We are not offering safety—we can’t make that promise, and we won’t. The inherent risk of traveling in mountain terrain will always exist. No app, no tool, and no certification can guarantee your safety.

But we do believe this: if you gather the right information, build a plan with the right mindset, match terrain to the hazard, communicate effectively with your partners, stay aware and flexible in the field, and reflect honestly on outcomes, you develop better processes over time—and those habits help you manage and lower risk.

A core part of that winter methodology is learning to identify the problems in the snowpack and what terrain to avoid based on those problems. Not starting with an object-oriented mindset on where to go. Not what line to ski. But what to avoid.

A Toolkit Worth Carrying

How do you earn buy-in? Our answer was to build something so practical and well-designed that it becomes the one app you reach for—not a novelty, not a gimmick, but a modern toolkit you actually carry.

Our goal is to be best-in-class across the categories that matter most in the field. That’s a high bar, and we’re still building toward it—but the intent is clear: make the “right thing to do” easier to do.

We rethought even simple interactions. The map scale slides vertically so you don’t have to move the map. Slope View Inclinometer uses your camera to record easy-to-read slope angles and includes a target-lock system designed from the ground up. Offline map captures use defined boundaries so you know exactly what you’ve saved before leaving cell service, with adjustable tile sizes so you don’t overload your device. We designed AviRecon—a streamlined way to log field observations you can save, share, or submit to official reporting where applicable. One of our most time-consuming development integrations is a four-step planning wizard that walks you through the proper stages of preparing for a winter mountain objective.

AviAlert includes: - an avalanche centre directory with 100+ listings worldwide - on-app weather with point forecasts and 200+ preset backcountry locations in the U.S. and Canada - multiple map styles - AviPace travel-time estimates for different modes of travel - a compass, inclinometer, and barometer for field awareness

But at the end of the day, these are tools. What matters is what you do with them. We hope AviAlert helps you gather information, identify what terrain to avoid, build a stronger plan, and make better decisions with your group. AviAlert is meant to support your decision-making process—not make it for you.

What Comes Next

AviAlert is still evolving.

At the heart of our long-term vision is what we’re calling the Decision Engine—a system designed to bring together the information you’ve gathered and support your decision-making process at key moments. It’s still in development, and we’ll share more as it takes shape. But everything we build is oriented toward that goal: helping you learn, plan, and decide more deliberately.

If you’re willing, we’d love your help. Download AviAlert on the App Store, try it in your workflow, and tell us what’s useful, what’s confusing, and what you’d want improved. We’re building this for the community, and your feedback matters.

We’re glad you’re here.

Marc Dubé Co-Founder, AviAlert (on behalf of the AviAlert team)