AMGA Partners with Avatech to help bring new technology to the guiding community
BOULDER, Colorado (July 6, 2015) – The American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA), an educational non-profit dedicated to supporting the American mountain guiding community, partners with Avatech, a technology company developing the first ever global, crowdsourced platform for mountain safety information and that is a key technical and supporting partner for 2015-16.
“Managing the inherent risks of mountain travel is paramount to the AMGA,” explains AMGA Interim Director Ed Crothers. “Our partnership with Avatech offers our guides and instructors a critical tool that helps them analyze the snowpack quickly, gather more data, and make informed decisions in the mountains. Further, by working with Avatech, we have access to an even broader network of information that helps our guides share real-time observations, plan routes more efficiently, and visualize terrain in new ways. The power of this shared network is something we are extremely excited about.”
The AMGA and Avatech have been working together over the past season testing and evaluating a pilot program in an effort to assist Avatech with its next generation of hardware and software tools.
Continues Crothers, “By being early adopters of Avatech’s SP Smartprobe technology and its Avanet web platform and mobile application, we are fostering an atmosphere of proactive decision-making for AMGA guides in the field, and advocating the importance of sharing information with the greater community of snow professionals around the world.”
Avatech’s connected Smartprobe digitally reads snowpack structure, slope angle, and aspect in seconds, and then geo-tags the data. Guides can upload their data in real-time via the Avanet mobile application onto the Avanet Pro web platform. In addition, this coming winter, guides can use Avanet mobile to take real-time avalanche, snowpack, and weather observations, plan and track routes on multiple topo and satellite map layers, and analyze their terrain management decisions with numerous web-based mapping visualizations. Any information can be shared across the entire professional community or a consortium of professional organizations, or kept private.
“Sharing real-time information that helps the mountain community learn and make better decisions is a central mission of both Avatech and the AMGA,” states Thomas Laakso, brand president for Avatech. “The continued engagement and guidance from the professional community is foundational to our progress, and our partnership with the AMGA is a great example of how we can help build a safer mountain community together.”
Avatech is building the largest and most intelligent network of mountain-safety information in the world, powered by connected hardware and software. For more information on Avatech, visit Avatech.com.
