Choosing the right winter mountain course
Choosing the right winter mountain course can be a confusing process. Winter mountaineering can mean different things to different people. The idea of this page is to help you in choosing the right winter mountain course by listing them in order of the previous skills required. We will look at the skills covered on each course and the previous experience needed to get the most out of the instruction.
To become a competent mountaineer is an apprenticeship and there is no short cut for experience. Traditionally people have started hill walking in the UK, progressed onto scrambling and climbing and then served an apprenticeship in the Scottish mountains in winter. With the skills of a winter mountaineer or climber in Scotland the world is your oyster and the Alps and Himalaya await.
Of course each of us will have our own end goal – for many people winter walking in Scotland is the pinnacle of their outdoor ambitions. I hope to set out clearly how the skill sets build on each other so that you can choose your own target and achieve it – whatever that might be.
Summer - the start of the pathway
All winter walking, mountaineering and climbing start with their summer equivalents and build on them in a winter environment. I illustrate this relationship with the following pathway.
Our winter skills courses are designed for the summer hillwalker. They build on the skills that a summer hill walker has and winterise them. These skills allow people to continue hill walking all year round and also form the foundation skills required for winter mountaineering and climbing – when teamed together with summer scrambling and climbing skills.
We offer two day courses which are ideal for people who want a taster to see if winter walking is for them. We also run five day courses which allow time for the skills to be practised in a variety of snow conditions. A five day course is recommended for people who want a good skills foundation that allows them to be self sufficient walkers in the winter mountains and also allow them to progress on towards winter mountaineering.
Skills covered on the Scottish Winter Skills Week include:
– Five full days of practical instruction in the mountains
– Choice and use of equipment for the winter environment
– Movement skills on snow
– Use of the ice axe
– How to fit and use crampons – when to put them on and take them off
– Use of the rope in winter (winter belays, snow bollards and as a navigational tool)
– Emergency snow shelters
– Mountain journeys putting all of the skills into perspective
– Mountain navigation
– Planned snow shelters
– Avalanche avoidance & snow analysis
– Diet & nutrition for winter walking
– Cold weather injury avoidance
– Emergency procedures
Winter Mountaineering Courses
Our winter mountaineering courses take the skills learned through roped scrambling (on our advanced scrambling courses for example) and winterise them. They build on the foundation skills covered in a winter walking environment and rely on people having gained enough personal experience on snow and ice as a walker to be competent in a set of crampons and with an axe in a variety of snow conditions.
Our winter mountaineering courses look at the following:
-Ice axe and crampon refresher
-Avalanche Risk assessment
-Ropework for ground upto Grade III
-Route Finding and personal travel on rocky ridges, gullies, steps, cornices and steep snow.
-Cold weather injuries and avoidance
Winter Climbing courses
When we progress people onto winter climbing we are building on the skills of summer climbing and winter mountaineering to progress onto steeper winter routes. To illustrate this point let’s think about the skills covered during a winter climbing day.
Planning
Our experience as winter walkers and mountaineers has taught us the value of planning our day properly. We can access weather and avalanche forecasts and use them to pick a route that will be in condition and objectively safe.
The Walk In
We often set out in the dark in winter as the days are shorter and we want to maximise daylight. We need to be able to walk and navigate efficiently to the base of the route.
The Approach
As we approach the base of the climb we will often cross ground that would be classed as winter mountaineering in its own right. Our experience built up through winter walking and mountaineering allows us to move safely and efficiently as we approach the climb. The skills we learnt on the easier routes help us to identify our line in more complex terrain and assess the avalanche conditions now the sun has risen. We have been efficient on our gear selection and able to arrive at the base of the climb fit and ready to go.
the climb
As summer rock climbers we are familiar with racking our kit methodically and systematically. We know where everything is and our ropes don’t get tangled as we flake them out at the start of the route. Our experience on mountaineering routes has taught us the additional protection we use in winter and we have a nice selection of screws & pegs as well as our usual summer kit. We are used to doing everything in gloves and many layers of clothing and happy operating in Scottish weather. We climb the route efficiently with a good safety margin as we gain experience of the upper grades. We see the gear placements and we place good runners and build good belays, confident in the skills we have learned in the warm summer together with the easier grade mountaineering routes in winter.
As we top out we are back onto winter mountaineering terrain. Our previous experience allows us to make sure that the 35 degree slopes stability tie in with what we were expecting in our planning stage of the day. Our good crampon skills keep us safe as we top out on easier ground with little in the way of protection.
The Walk Off
Despite an early start we are now racing the fading daylight hours. There is no visibility in the wind and the snow and we are glad of the polished navigation skills that see us safely off the plateau. Tired legs still do as they are told as we descend consequential grade 1 ground using good crampon skills to stay safe.
This has been a great day – the culmination of many years of walking, scrambling, mountaineering and climbing. It is also just the start of many more adventures to come, for every summit climbed a new one beckons to give a lifetime of adventures.
So what do we cover on our climbing courses?
Here is a summary of the hard skills that we cover during a climbing course:
-Ice axe and crampon refresher
-Ice axe arrest refresher
-Avalanche Risk assessment
-Climbing routes upto Grade IV/V
-Route Finding and personal travel on rocky ridges, gullies, steps, cornices and steep snow.
-Cold weather injuries and avoidance
-Movement skills on graded winter ground
-Use of the guidebooks, weather forecasts and avalanche forecasts
-Plenty of mountaineering and climbing
Of course the final point in that list is the most important one. We can only really become competent winter climbers by going winter climbing and again we need to serve the apprenticeship. There is no hardship in that though – it just means we get to go climbing!