Better safe than sorry…a wonderful and exiting ski trip can lead to a situation due to poor judgement. You could find yourself benealth a ton of snow and ice. Good preparation can avoid human errors and deadly mistakes. We all like to have fun but always remember to listen to your guide or use common sense. This will assure you to have an awesome and superb story to talk about later.

Pass it on,

Dr Anthony   

This article titled “Crash course: mountaincraft skills for off-pisters” was written by Susan Greenwood, for The Guardian on Saturday 5th February 2011 00.04 UTC

It is amazing how the obvious only becomes obvious when you are grinding your face into icy terrain, dignity and ski poles lost amid the carnage familiar to most skiers when they attempt to push their grade but instead catch an edge.

Turns out – and this wisdom I offer at the expense of my ego and the skin on my chin – luminous pink freestyle skis are not well suited to hooning it through the powder and avoiding the crevasses of Europe’s most famous off-piste ski run, which slides from the Aiguille du Midi cable car in the Vallée Blanche, down the Mer de Glace to Montenvers. Ramming my left foot back into my binding, I looked round to see the rest of my mountaincraft coursemates waiting patiently, technical backpacks secure on their backs, neat outerwear perfectly suited to the terrain, powder skis floating primly on the snow, with the backdrop of the Dent du Géant dwarfing them.

Sweet Zeus, I bloody hate this, I thought, as I skied towards them, hitching up my baggy salopettes and feeling desperately ill prepared.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I had signed up for the Ski Club of Great Britain’s week-long mountaincraft course in Chamonix, off-piste, extreme-ski capital of the world, in an attempt to gain some mountain skills and ride deep powder snow with style. But unease set in from the first night, when I appeared, late, in the lounge of the Hotel de la Couronne in Argentière, clad in a fluorescent hoodie, only to find everyone else unclipping avalanche transceivers and comparing stories from the previous year’s off-piste Ski Club trip.

My fellow pupils were all high-level skiers, early-40s, professionals eager for a challenging week. Then in walked our instructors: Rémy Lecluse, a professional extreme skier and mountain guide, and Jim Kerr, not the Simple Minds singer but one of the most experienced guides in Europe.

We would cover everything from map work and ski touring, to avalanche knowledge and rescue skills. I lurched into the Rusticana bar across the street and wondered what I’d got myself into.

With hindsight, this week improved my skiing and my mountain skills exponentially, if only by pushing me way out of my comfort zone. But four hours into day one I was longing for a half-pipe, a beer and a pair of thighs that weren’t screaming. We were in Le Tour, an area of the valley that is very avalanche-prone thanks to changing gradients and a grassy underbelly.

“The idea,” Jim said, “is to leave with your life. Ski the first run conservatively. If it looks avalanche-prone, don’t all ski together. Hopefully it will never happen, but you have to make these judgements. Some people panic and some don’t. Your job is to equip yourself.”

I had a transceiver (which I now knew how to use), a shovel, a probe, a Snickers bar and a Thermos. But I had the feeling the Snickers wasn’t going to cut it as a replacement for responsible skiing and terrain awareness.

“Whoa, whoa, left!” yelled Jim the following day as I careered off course on the Grands Montets glacier, catching a glimpse of the rest of my team ably following the guide’s line and coming to a graceful stop behind him. Just so you know: when turning on windblown snow, don’t try to carve an edge, because you’ll break through the crust and lose control of your skis. And your bottom lip.

“You do realise this is supposed to be fun, don’t you?” asked Hilary, a transatlantic yachtswoman. Which probably translates as: toughen up, princess.

But first I had to get over the Vallée Blanche pratfall, which had culminated in Jim pointing out that I was sipping tea from my Thermos while perched on a block of ice that had recently fallen from the serac above my head, and perhaps it would be prudent to refuel somewhere else. Terrain awareness? Fail. Yet, slowly but surely, the beginnings of a ski mountaineer were being dragged out of me. From nightly lectures I now have detailed notes (if not memorised knowledge) about hoarfrost, Prusik knots and the dangers of good weather.

On our final day, I hired wide powder skis with touring bindings and a set of skins, which effectively allow you to ski uphill. We set off from the top of the Index lift in Flégère, traversing around the Aiguilles Rouges, before skinning our way up the Col de l’Encrenaz – a process that involved a hairy moment every five minutes when you have to change direction in order to zigzag up the slope. The official term is a kick turn, but execute it incorrectly and you inevitably end up with skis pointing in opposite directions and your arms windmilling wildly as you try not to topple backwards off the slope. Not cool.

After an hour of trudging uphill, we reached the top. Below us lay a wide powder field, track-free under a clear blue sky. No one would appreciate me wrecking this blank canvas with a perfectly executed faceplant. But after six days of facing my fear, this was one challenge I was determined to rise to. And I almost did. Unfortunately, the final traverse out to the village of Le Buet was a thin, tight-cornered tree run next to a river. Turns out – and I tell you this at the expense of my right hip – powder skis aren’t particularly suited to quick carving through trees on an icy trail.

But a heady sense of achievement coursed through me as I lay on my back and munched my emergency Snickers. Crikey, I thought, I bloody love this. My salopettes are still too baggy, though.

• Ski Club Freshtracks (0845 458 0784, skiclubfreshtracks.co.uk) runs off-piste courses throughout the winter in Chamonix, from £995 for seven nights in a three-star hotel (three nights’ half-board, four nights’ B&B) and mountain guides. Its next mountaincraft course will take place in December 2011, from £795. Swiss (0845 601 0956, swiss.com) flies from Heathrow to Geneva from £101 return

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