Introduction to Ski Mountaineering
Ski Mountaineering. Andy showing good style skinning up a glacier in Chamonix.
An increasing number of UK based mountaineers are realising what a fantastic activity travelling in the mountains in winter and spring on skis is. Some say that to be a complete alpine mountaineer you need to ski. You may disagree but try travelling any distance across a glacier covered in deep soft snow without skis, things generally descend into frustration and excessive energy expenditure....because it's not efficient. On this introductory course we aim to train you in the essential skills the ski mountaineer needs to have and complete some fine short tours to enable you to practice them
From a base in the Chamonix valley we can utilise a wide variety of lifts to access some good ski touring terrain. The start of the week will focus on teaching and becoming efficient with the essential ski mountaineering skills of:
- Understanding your ski touring bindings and becoming efficient in their use
- Skinning - How the skins work, putting them on and taking them off, picking a line, easy angled turns and steep turns (Kick turns)
- Understanding the application of your essential avalanche equipment, shovel, probe and transceiver
- Avalanche awareness and safe travel techniques
- Managing 'transitions' (e.g. being efficient transferring from skinning to skiing modes)
- Effective skiing techniques for different types of off-piste terrain
- Storing skis on your rucksack if you need to travel on foot
- Familiarising with your mountaineering equipment - ice axe, crampons, harness
- Introduction to skinning and skiing roped together for glacier travel
- Crevasse Rescue training
There is a lot to take in for the newcomer to ski touring so we try and distill things to the essentials and drip feed information throughout the week. We will also aim to get out and do some good day tours from the Chamonix Valley. Towards the end of the week we can visit a mountain hut to help complete a high mountain tour.
Click the link on the right to explore potential ski tours and venues visited during this course.
Fitness and experience pre-requirements:
Ski touring is like many other activites in that the better you are, the less energy you use. Therefore whilst we will not be aiming to complete huge days (around 6 hours maximum) beginners should be prepared for a tough pyhsical week with a fair bit of wiping out, getting up and dusting the snow off. Sense of humour obligatoire! Folk with a ski background can soon be instructed in basic mountaineering techniques but the same can not be said for mountaineers wishing to start skiing. This is a course for folk who can already ski with linked short radius turns on pisted red runs and can descend in a controlled manner off-piste.
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