An avalanche transceiver costs between CHF 245 and 449. Using one costs nothing, and that is precisely the part most people leave out.
The reason is mundane: they do not know where. Testing a transceiver in the garden achieves little, because the signal behaves differently under a metre of snow than under a hedge, and the real time sink is not the finding anyway but the probing and the digging.
There are permanent facilities for this, and Switzerland has a surprising number of them.
What such a facility is
An Avalanche Training Center, usually abbreviated ATC, is a marked field of typically a hundred by a hundred metres. Several transmitters are buried in it permanently. At a control post on the edge you select how many should be active and start the clock.
That allows you to practise what counts in an emergency and what cannot be done at home:
- the multiple burial, that is, several signals at once, where entry-level devices and practised hands differ most clearly
- the fine search in the last few metres, where the signal becomes confusing
- probing through to a strike, in real snow and at real depth
- the time, and this is the unpleasant part: most people take a multiple of what they expected on their first attempt
The facilities in Swiss ski areas
The largest operator runs a network of over seventy facilities across the Alps. In Switzerland our count of that list gives 27 sites, plus Malbun in Liechtenstein. The operator itself speaks of around 25; the difference comes from some entries grouping areas together.
These sites map to an area in our dataset:
| Site | Region |
|---|---|
| Adelboden-Lenk, Tschentenalp | Bernese Oberland |
| Airolo | Ticino |
| Andermatt-Sedrun | Uri and Grisons |
| Aletsch Arena, Bettmeralp | Valais |
| Belalp | Valais |
| Bivio | Grisons |
| Braunwald | Glarus |
| Champéry, Les Crosets | Valais |
| Crans-Montana | Valais |
| Disentis | Grisons |
| Flumserberg | St. Gallen |
| LAAX, Freeride Base | Grisons |
| Leysin | Vaud |
| Villars-Gryon-Diablerets | Vaud |
| Meiringen-Hasliberg | Bernese Oberland |
| Minschuns, Val Müstair | Grisons |
| Moléson | Fribourg |
| Mürren-Schilthorn | Bernese Oberland |
| Pizol | St. Gallen |
| Chäserrugg / Toggenburg, Sellamatt | St. Gallen |
| Verbier | Valais |
| Grimentz-Zinal | Valais |
There are six further sites that are not ski areas in our dataset but smaller villages and touring areas: Avers/Juf, Fideriser Heuberge, St. Antönien, Val Bedretto, Wasenalp and Les Crosets as a separate entry.
St. Antönien is a special case worth knowing: the village is not a ski area but one of the best-known touring areas in eastern Switzerland. The facility is free to use, advance notice is requested, and transceiver, probe and shovel can be hired from the sports shop in the village. For somebody without their own equipment it is the cheapest possible entry point.
Two facilities outside this network
Not every practice facility belongs to this network. Two well-known ones are run separately:
Davos, Jakobshorn. Operated by the Davos section of the SAC, a hundred-by-a-hundred-metre field near Chalet Güggel that reproduces a realistic avalanche deposit. Free to use with a valid lift pass. Part of Davos Klosters.
Titlis, Laubersgrat. Below the Laubersgrat base station, installed for the winter. Part of Engelberg-Titlis, which at 1,978 vertical metres is one of the largest freeride areas in Switzerland.
So anyone looking for a facility in their area and not finding it in the list above should still ask the area directly. There is no central register spanning all operators, which is the reason this list was needed at all.
What practising achieves, and what it does not
The honest assessment at the end, because a false impression forms easily here.
It buys time, and time is the quantity on which everything in avalanche rescue depends. The survival probability of a completely buried person stays at around ninety per cent to about eighteen minutes and then falls steeply; the curve is in our piece on the first 15 minutes. Every minute saved in searching is saved at the steepest part of that curve.
It is not training. A practice facility drills one skill under friendly conditions: a known, marked field, no time pressure, nobody injured, no second avalanche. A real accident is none of those things. Anyone who believes three runs at a practice field means they can perform a companion rescue has not yet seen the hard part.
The right way is both: a course with the SLF or SAC for the procedure, and then the facility so as not to forget it. What the equipment costs is in our breakdown.
Sources and caveats
- Avalanche Training Center, the operator’s site directory, retrieved in August 2026. It lists over seventy sites across the Alps as well as in the Black Forest, the Abruzzi, Sweden and Australia. For Switzerland the operator names around 25 sites; we count 27 Swiss entries in the published list plus Malbun in Liechtenstein. We give both figures rather than choosing one.
- SAC, overview of Avalanche Training Centers, and the Davos section of the SAC for the Jakobshorn facility.
- Titlis Bergbahnen for the Laubersgrat facility.
- Sites were matched to our resort pages by hand, not automatically. Matching by name similarity assigns “Avers” to Val-de-Travers, which is what happened to us on the first pass.
- Operation, opening hours and costs can change and are set by the individual area. What counts is the information on site, not this list.
This piece says where you can practise. It is not training. The procedure of companion rescue is learned on a course with the SLF and the SAC.
