What a beautiful morning,

the sun was shining but the snow fresh and cold. So let’s take the blue wax and go to bortlied.

Today we want to make our first tour with Len, here the dates:

Distance: around 10km

Level: From 500m to 800m

Snow: Fresh, cold good snow

Tasks: Off pist walking as a group, downhill in deep snow, shelter building, study of avalanche II, navigating in snow and having fun

Group size: about 10-12

We startet at the alpine-center and with card and compass we navigate to our first break point. It is very usefull to make a little break after the first 20 minutes. Everyone of the group can wax again ore can adjust their clothers. After this first check we go on and follow the slope through a beautiful area along a Lake. After maybe 2km we decided to go offpist.

Offpist: If you go offpist with a group of this size, it’s important to change the person in the front regular. It’s very hard to go in front of your group. The person in the front is making the track for everyone else. This is hard work, and after a few minutes, the person in the front steps to the side and let everyone pass. And so everyone is one time in the front. The groupleader is the whole time on the second position. He needs to guide the group and he is the responsible person for making this trip successfully.

By the way, the first person should choose a good track for the whole group…if he is to fast ore to selfish. It’s good for everyone to be in the front for a while, you can choose the tempo and get more selfesteem and the rest of the group can relax a bit.

Shelter building:

After the half of the tour we made a break. We looked for a windprooft area and build a big bench out of snow. On the snow we placed a skin ore an iso mat and for the feets, we used our skiis on the ground. So you have a litte protection from the cold ground.

Avalanche:

Steep areas on the lee side of a mountain are dangerous avalanche areas. If you want to cross this areas you need to check out the the avalanche risk. For the check, you only need a shovel and a bit experience. You will read the snow in this technic and the differebt layers of snow…ice layers and snow layers. If you have by example lots of new snow ore warmer temperatures and very ice temperatures during the night you got a thin ice layer on the top of the snow. You can see all these layers in the snow.

It’s an own science, you can watch: avalancheGuys channel on youtube.com to learn more about it.