What started as a niche now is a megatrend. Ski touring established itself as a popular mountain sports and is increasingly popular in the Berchtesgadener Land. There is such a strong demand that the 4th Ski Touring Festival Berchtesgadener Land is taking place from February 20th to 22nd 2015. The ski centre Hochschwarzeck in Ramsau is going to be the venue.
What’s on offer?
In practice-oriented workshops, beginners are introduced to the versatile sports and advanced participants are schooled in technical details and get avalanche training. For that, numerous guided ski tours at different levels of difficulties are organised on two days. An extensive equipment testing is also organised: here you can find out how to climb the mountain safely and smoothly with high-quality gear by famous producers like Dynafit, Hagan and La Sportiva. You can test the equipment on tours of all levels to your heart’s content. You have a choice between roughly 200 types of gear, such as touring skis, skins, poles, ski bindings or ski boots, and can have all as a set or separately. In the evening there is a charity race in favour of the Berchtesgaden mountain rescue service. The festival welcomes everyone who acquired a ticket. It allows you to take part in the workshops, the equipment testing and watching the charity race. The festival offers an extensive programme and is aimed at both beginners and advanced ski mountaineers.
Offers for beginners
Safety first! This is why first of all, a safety workshop teaches a practical approach to using an avalanche transceiver, probe and avalanche shovel. Another course, “Safety on the piste – the right way to go ski mountaineering!” introduces participants to the German Alpine Club’s 10-points-rule concerning how to climb up the mountain on the pistes. Only then it gets right down to business. What’s a strategically clever way to climb up, how do I ski down safely? All important techniques, such as e.g. kick turns or Stem Christie are explained in another workshop. An airbag can save your life in an avalanche, which is why another full workshop is about using avalanche backpacks.
Offers for the advanced
All those who have knowledge of the aforementioned skills and who have already taken their first steps in the deep snow can focus on technical details. In half-day courses, intermediate ski mountaineers will be taken to the mountains to climb up to 800 metres of altitude and ski in deep powder snow. In order to know how to act in case of emergency, search of multiple avalanche burials and perfect use of the avalanche shovel is practised. A special workshop is dedicated to further snow and avalanche training. Here participants are able to deepen their knowledge of how to understand avalanche warning, snow profiles and how to evaluate avalanche risk. Useful tips are given concerning parallel turns and how to ski in unprepared terrains.
Additional specials
Why is ski touring so healthy? The Mittendorff Institute will give answer to this question with its presentation about “Healthy ski mountaineering in theory and praxis” which takes place on Sunday morning. There also is a workshop called “Fascination of ski mountaineering live”, and a special highlight for touring cracks: on the same weekend, the “Jennerstier 2014” takes place, a touring race at Jenner, the “mountain of artists”. One part of the all-day workshop is to climb along the competition route and to get to know interesting details about its course. After that the participants can attend the German championship as single. After crossing the finish line you can meet professional athletes like e.g. Toni Palzer, European and World Champion in ski mountaineering, who is also the face of the Festival.
Guided day trips
Those who prefer another day tour in order to enjoy the landscape can participate in a ski tour to Kleinen Reib’n or on the Predigtstuhl turn (including the train ride from Bischofswiesen to Bad Reichenhall Kirchberg). The condition for participation is competence in climbing technique and being able to safely ski in deep powder snow areas. If you’re looking to buy new boots or touring skis you have the possibility to buy specially priced equipment during the festival in Ramsau.
The festival in Berchtesgadener Land from February 20th – 22th 2015 welcomes everybody who has always wanted to find out more about ski mountaineering!
