Snowmobile training-intermediate class. Intermediate courses in snowmobile training shows students how to think outside the box. If you've ever thought about taking an off highway vehicle training program...
If you've ever thought about taking an off highway vehicle training program for snowmobiling, you'll find there are beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Our OHV training expert, Bill Uhl, who has more than 48 years teaching experience, says the intermediate level is where training becomes more intricate.
"In beginner classes you teach cornering, how to shift your weight on the machine back and forth. It is like the cornerstone of everything. As you move into the intermediate classes, things are taught with a little greater speed in mind. You start teaching how to climb hills, how to go around hills or straight up them, how to drive around the trees safely, and utilizing your head to think outside the box. You have to be able to look at your surroundings and use what you can when you have an accident or your vehicle breaks down," Uhl says.
Uhl says when a student's snowmobile breaks down, the best advice he gives is stay calm and figure out a plan.
"Don't wander and explore the area. But, before you go anywhere let someone know where you will be riding that way if you have an accident and break a leg, whatever the case may be, you can get out of there. Someone will come look for you. If you're in the powder snow or early snow in the season, where you don't have the base to walk on, it will support the human weight, you can walk out of some place. I go into those kinds of details to keep my students safe. I tell my students: know what you carry, where you are carrying it; carry items on your body, and something on the snowmobile, because you may end up becoming separated from your machine," Uhl says.
One of the concepts Uhl goes over with his students in intermediate snowmobile courses is flat light.
"Flat light is when everything is white. You have no depth perception. There can be a hole or something else and everything looks flat. They call it whiteout and/or flat light depending on whether there are shadows. If it is just all white snow, you can't tell what's there. You may end up riding along a narrow ridge in a flat light condition and then hit a ravine that you can't see. You get bucked off your snowmobile and your snowmobile keeps going. It drives off side and disappears down in the canyon; now you're separated from your survival gear. You can't get to it, because it is steep snow, so what do you do? What do you do with what you have with you on your body? How can you survive from that point on? You may want to fly down the hill and go to your machine, but now you're stranded," Uhl says.
In intermediate classes, situations like this are explored and resolutions are discussed with instructors. A person finds out what they did wrong, and what they can do better.
"You start to understand all the variations of what we're dealing with, and what we have to teach is for people to think outside the box, to be conscious of the surroundings and to function at their skill level and ride in areas that fit their skill level, to ride with other people, for everybody to have a partner. Everybody needs to keep track of everybody else so nobody gets separated from the group. We get into all those kinds of things," Uhl says.
From beginner to intermediate to advanced snowmobile riding, Uhl says the first and primary concern is always safety. Always travel with friends, and always let people know where you are going.
