2025 SKI MOUNTAINEERING courses

progression with the Zenith guide team

What's this about?

In 2022, we offered a pair of two-day small-group, intensive ski mountaineering skills clinics. The goal wasn't just another crevasse rescue course prettied up by calling it "ski-mountaineering" but a useful look into how professionals use strategy, specialized techniques, and equipment to move through complex terrain in the high mountains. These aren’t esoteric skills that are going to be learned once and never used but actual things you can do to make every day in the backcountry more successful.

This season, we're back again, with some pre season training and prep, 2 classic ski courses mid winter and a final/flexible smash and grab spring ski trip - think fly in camp to classic lines.

Here’s the lineup:

• Ground School Evenings

• Avalanche Refreshers

• Weekend Ski Mountaineering Camps

• Pro Lines: Advanced Decision-Making for Big Mountain Skiing

• Spring Basecamp Trip!

This is not your typical clinic. We want to show you our approach to accessing and moving smoothly through complex mountain terrain. This will be a combination of skill development and objective oriented travel. 

We will start the course with a Zoom call to complete our trip planning. We'll review how we go about planning and preparing for the weekend ski opportunities. 

Our first field day will be primarily skills based. This will most likely be held off of Whistler-Blackcomb. The focus of the day is technical skills required to arrive at a ski line or ridge and assess how best to move through that terrain with a variety of solutions. 

Our second day will be objective based where participants will be expected to put to practice the skills we use and over the course of a single-day traverse, approach a handful of lines and make good decisions throughout!

Being able to quickly move through complex terrain while ski mountaineering often comes down to ability to use the rope efficiently with a variety of transitions. Arriving at a ridge crest, you may need to build a quick ski belay to scout the cornice, then establish a fixed anchor to rappel over the edge and into the line. The rope is stowed quickly while skiing the first pitch, then pulled back out for another rappel mid-line after building an anchor using a horn and piton. All of this is done with limited equipment on the harness and with a solid understanding of a few knots and other tools.

This half-day session will review all of these rope skills that get a little fuzzy in the summertime.

You're standing at the top of the line you've been dreaming about all season. It's boot-top pow condition and sluffs are running hard but you're confident it's ready to go. As you're pulling down your goggles, the last thing you want to be thinking about is: "when did my partner do that AST course? 10 years ago? When's the last time they even practiced with their beacon? Last year doing one drill at the resort beacon park?". 

Our ski crew is tight because we know we can depend on each other if the worst happens. One way we know this is by practicing together, every season. For this refresher course, we'll run you through the same review and drills we do every season. Bring your ski partner or your whole crew and you won't have a second thought if they'll be able to dig you out - because you'll have seen it.

Pro Lines:

Advanced Decision-Making for Big Mountain Skiing

This is the culmination of all of our courses. Four days moving through complex terrain, dealing with the conditions and weather that’s handed to us. Our focus is bringing you into our professional level decision making process for choosing objectives, hazard assessment and mitigation, team tactics, and debrief. Each day will include a component related to route choice and navigation, technical ski mountaineering, avalanche forecasting, avalanche rescue, and more.