Even before the pandemic, it was challenging for backcountry skiers to find a mentor—which is precisely why we started Powder Cloud. Now, a multitude of online education options have popped up, but it’s not easy to figure out which courses are worth your time. And even the quality options are still not exactly scintillating material you want to dig into after a full day of hunching over your computer at the dining table, picking up after children who no longer go to school, and reheating the least freezer-burned thing you can find for dinner.

Enter Crux Academy, an immersive online education platform where you can learn from the backcountry master himself, Chris “Dav” Davenport. (Read our exclusive interview with him to find out more about why he’s so cool.) The idea behind Crux, which also offers courses on rock climbing, fly fishing, trail running, and trip-planning, is similar to the popular online Master Class series, which offers affordable online classes with heroes we all know and love. (Violin lessons with Itzhak Perlman? Sign me up.) The Crux Academy professors are no less famous in their spheres—Brody Levin, Maddie Brenneman, Nina Williams, to name a few—but they’re all solidly established in the niche of outdoor enthusiasts.

The Davenport course will be focused on how to ski safely in the backcountry and will be released around Feb. 20. It’s tailored to both beginners and seasons veterans, and it will feature hours of in-field educational content broken into segments of bite-size learning modules. Crux users will be able to purchase Dav’s course a la carte for $49, or have unlimited access to all Crux courses for $129.

The goal is to encourage people to make educated decisions, and to be inclusive to all who are interested in getting into the backcountry safely.