Highland Ascent announces extended season for Winter Skills Courses.
This year Highland Ascent has had a good start in running winter Skills courses. For the first time they ran a 5 day course, which included an over night stay in a snow hole.
As many people know hillwalking in the winter is a different ballgame to the summer. You are depending much more on your personal skills to walk on snow and you have to be able to read the surrounding area of snow to make sure there isn’t any danger of an avalanche. You also need to know what weather conditions you are able to walk in. You could end up in a white out and then you would have to be able to navigate yourself out of it by just using your compass bearing and a map. You have to ask yourself if you are able to do that. You can then decide whether to pay a guide to take you safely up a hill and back down again or you could learn those skills so you can walk in winter conditions in the future. It can’t be just done by reading a book. You have to get out there and do it.
Highland Ascent offers Winter Mountaineering Skills Courses and guided winter walking in the Highlands of Scotland. After the success of Winter Skills courses in December 2010 and January 2011 Highland Ascent has decided to extent the Winter Skills Course season into mid March. Usually the company would run these courses only till late February. However due to last year’s great winter season and the high demand on courses, they have decided to run one more course on the weekend of 19-20 March 2011. All Winter Skills Courses are based in the Aviemore area.
A 2 day course covers all personal skills required for winter walking in the Scottish Highlands. That includes kicking steps, cutting steps, walking with crampons, tripping and last not least ice axe arrest. All these skills are really required when you walk in snow. After all you need to know what to do when you end up on neve or ice.
A 5 day course usually covers all the skills of the 2 day course plus much more. You will also learn how to build an emergency snow shelter, avalanche awareness, winter some navigation, rope work, snow anchors and stay overnight in a now hole. Staying in s now hole can be a lot of fun since you build your own accommodation. You can make them as comfortable as you like, all depending on how hard and deep the snow is. This is pretty much the ultimate winter skills course to get you from a summer hillwalker to a winter mountaineer.
Contact Highland Ascent to find out more about Winter Skills Courses in Scotland.
