Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering

by Martin Volken, Scott Schell, Margaret Wheeler

* 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.

Genres: Outdoors, Nonfiction

344 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2007

Reviews

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone interested in traveling on skis in the backcountry.

[Sara Hlín · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lesin fyrir SKI 1 námskeið og reyndist vel!

[Doug Canfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS STAFF PICK (I work at Mountaineers Books): If you want to start backcountry skiing or snowboarding (in my case), make this book a required first step. It is hands down the best book on the topic. It's comprehensive covering everything you'll want to know before taking up this sport and, even after that, you'll want to have it on your bookshelf for reference. There's a pretty big learning curve to backcountry skiing and the intellectual aspects (the decision-making process is key to staying alive)are as big a part of the sport as the athletics. I got this book as a rookie splitboarder, and a couple seasons later when I took an indepth backcountry ski course it was the text. B.C. ski/snowboard equipment is expensive. The investment in this book will be one of your best purchases.

[Matthew Thyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book for the basics. Worth the time if you plan on going into the back country