Have you ever fallen into a crevasse intentionally?
High mountain area tours are a fascinating discipline and one of the greatest aspects of Alpinism. Some of the tours are simply magnificent, offering unforgettable experiences and breathtaking views, unbelievable sunrises and much more. Mountaineers return home from their long tours when the sun is setting. What sounds beautifully romantic can become nightmarishly dangerous if mountaineers are not prepared and lack the necessary skills and knowledge. Good Alpinists need to know all the wrinkles and need to know certain movements and procedures in their sleep if they want to climb safely.
The necessary knowledge can be acquired in our great Faszination Berg - Fascinating Mountain World courses. The course contents are varied, the approach is often practical and almost playful. You will practise standing on rock and ice wearing crampons and we will simulate the rescuing of a mountaineer fallen into a crevasse. You will find answers to essential questions such as How can I cross a glacier? How can I understand where the crevasses lie? Is the red morning sky just pretty or can it tell me something more?
Overhand bend and Alpine Butterfly Loop -
what's that?
Overhand bends, alpine butterfly loops, crampons, ascenders, pulleys... you will learn what they are and when and how to use them correctly. You will also discover what a proper "Hüttenabend", an evening in a mountain shelter, typically looks like. The courses will make you sweat, but you will find them highly entertaining and good fun. There'll be theoretical parts and loads of practical exercises, all useful and needed. You'll learn how to judge and interpret weather and snow conditions correctly, you'll practise reading maps, you'll learn how to orient yourself in more adverse circumstances etc.
Do we have a volunteer who wants to try out an icy prison?
An Alpine shelter will serve as our base. The mountains and glaciers surrounding it will serve as an outdoor classroom and will teach us everything we need to know, preparing us for unexpected situations and emergencies on mountaineering tours. You may have to simulate falling into a crevasse and perform a rescue. We'll be using crampons and we'll learn different ways of handling the rope(s). We'll be using ice pricks and practise abseiling manoeuvres. We'll have fun laughing together but we will also discuss more serious topics, such as the risks of mountaineering and high mountain area tours in particular. The mountains are dangerously beautiful, and beautifully dangerous. At the end of the course, we expect you to be well informed and well prepared for high mountain area tours, the supreme discipline of mountaineering.