Advanced ski touring

Four Sundays in February to take a step further in ski touring

Ski touring, at a certain point, presents you with a choice: continue repeating the itineraries you know or start looking at steeper slopes, ridges and longer trips. The more you level up, the more the terrain asks you specific things: reading the snow, choosing the right track, managing the group, knowing what to do when the situation gets serious. It's no longer a question of going up and down, but of deciding well.

This course is designed for those who already have experience and want to acquire new skills. There are four Sundays in February, one of the best months to be on the snow, in which we work on the ground on three topics: snow and avalanches, planning and leading a trip, and the approach to steep terrain.

Why these themes?

Advanced ski touring courses have always focused on some central aspects: risk assessment, choice of track, group management and emergency situations, advanced progression and descent techniques on steep terrain. These are the points that make the difference between those who frequent the mountains and those who know how to read them, and they are the ones we will address on these four Sundays.

Steep terrain, in particular, requires respect: even a small avalanche, on a steep and complex slope, can have serious consequences, for example due to dragging. For this reason the course starts with snow and self-rescue, and only then leads us to move on more challenging terrain.

Where?

The course does not have a fixed location. Every Sunday we go where the conditions are best at that time, gravitating around the Val di Susa, the Briançonnais, Prali and the Cuneo area. The choice is made in the previous days, looking at the avalanche report, weather forecast and snow conditions, and it is already part of the course: I'll show you how to think about choosing where to go and where not.