Cross country ski trips, Bavaria Feb 2014

Photo courtesy of Exodus travel

Work is starting to shape up for the winter season and this season I will be leading 3 cross country ski trips for Exodus travel, in Bavaria an area I know well.  Oberammergau is a great area for cross country skiing and steeped in history.  For more details of the trips and booking please visit the Exodus website
I did plenty of cross country skiing in my previous career in Norway so really looking forward to this winter. As you'll read from my blog I have been to Bavaria a number of times and last winter did quite a lot of ski touring out there.

Hope to see you there.

Avalanche cat 1, they don't make it up you know

Well, out on a ski tour today taking in another part of the fantastic Allgäu region.  For the past few days the Avalanche category has been level 1 - low rising to 1* in the afternoons in the middle mountain regions (up to 2000m). Today I was skinning up (at approx 1250m) and round the corner came accross this (excuse the angle of the camera I was trying to ski over the blocks) on a South facing slope at an angle of around 30 degs.


The slide was around 200m and the larger blocks are around 1m in height.  For cat 1 the trigger probability is 'Only small natural avalanches are possible'.
So this was a good example of the forecast being spot on.  This had probably released yesterday in the afternoon.

The rest of the day was great, some good skiing coming back down through the trees but near the bottom the snow is very 'spring' like.

Xmas in Bavaria

Out in Bavaria for a spell over the festive period. Taking advantage of the good snow conditions and doing some skiiing and snowshoeing. It's been a while since I was on skis and the last time was on telemarks, so yesterday was my first time out on fixed heel, but as they say its just like riding a bike. Now into the debate of 'free the heel'.
Today went out snowshoeing on the Imberger Horn to test out my new TSL 325 escapes. Enjoyed using them, nice and light. Hopefully get some more days in although due for a rise in temperature over the next couple of days.