Backcountry Skiing

Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering

Backcountry Skiing is for intermediate-to-advanced backcountry skiers. Includes safety, navigation, nutrition and fitness information in addition to techniques, providing advice on how to make well-informed decisions.

Martin Volken and his co-authors provide skiers with all the tools and knowledge that they need to safely and successfully travel in the mountains. The guide features intermediate-to-advanced techniques for ski touring and ski mountaineering, from planning wilderness 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.

Author
Martin Volken is one of only three officially certified Swiss Guides working in the U.S today. He is an instructor and examiner for the American Mountain Guide’s Association (AMGA) elite certification. Scott Schell is an AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guide and Margaret Wheeler started guiding for Pro Guiding Service in 2002, and is now a certified AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guide.