Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering

Martin Volken · Scott Schell · Margaret Wheeler

Nov 2007 · The Mountaineers Books

About this ebook

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* For intermediate-to-advanced backcountry skiers
* Includes trip planning, navigation, fitness, and avalanche safety information,
in addition to techniques
* Provides advice on how to make well-informed backcountry decisions

Martin Volken and his co-authors provide skiers with all the tools and knowledge they need to safely and successfully travel in the mountain backcountry. The guide features intermediate-to-advanced techniques for ski touring and ski mountaineering, from planning backcountry trips to perfecting turns in rolling terrain and mastering uphill climbing. For those skiers ready for a more technical, high alpine environment, they draw on traditional mountaineering skills, including roped climbing, setting protection anchors, using ice axes, climbing on bare rock, and more.

In addition to mastering techniques, Backcountry Skiing also features information on recent evolutions in ski equipment; avalanche safety tips; a primer on mountain weather and glaciers, trip planning tools, a discussion of emergency situations, nutrition and fitness advice, and winter camping basics.

Throughout this guide, a special emphasis is put on being well-informed and making good decisions -- whenever you strap on your skis and skins and head out into the backcountry.

About the author

A native of Switzerland, MARTIN VOLKEN is one of only three officially certified Swiss Guides working in the U.S. today. He is also an instructor and examiner for the American Mountain Guides Association's (AMGA) elite certification and founder of Pro Guiding Services.

Coauthor SCOTT SCHELL is a certified AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guide and has led numerous single- and multi-day trips in the Cascades, the Coast Range of British Columbia, and the Alps.

Coauthor MARGARET WHEELER started guiding for Pro Guiding Service in 2002, becoming a certified AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guide shortly after.