When my ski touring buddy told me that you could win the 3-stage training with risk'n'fun at PowderGuide, I didn't hesitate for long and applied. The training session, the Next Level Camp and, as the icing on the cake, the Chill Out fitted in pretty well with my plans for this winter.
After spending last year in Chile and discovering my love of climbing there, as well as doing some ski touring and other mountain expeditions, I have some pretty ambitious projects on the agenda this winter: contrary to those nasty voices that say a splitboard isn't worthwhile from an alpine perspective, I want to start doing alpine tours and slowly approach more challenging, alpine tours. To do this, it was really important for me to update my knowledge about avalanches and safe behavior in the terrain. Unfortunately, this has become a little patchy in recent years, as I have done relatively little to refresh it.
Practical practice for routine handling
I have been studying the theory a lot since the start of winter and have already tried to apply it on a few tours (thank you Peter for this brilliant start to winter!). However, practical exercises on the routine use of avalanche transceiver equipment and the correct behavior in an emergency were the things that I was still missing and that I was hoping to gain from the training session.
So I headed off to Sölden highly motivated, where on Saturday evening we first got to know each other and had a short introduction to the topic. It quickly became clear that we would be a totally mixed group, some participants already with considerable knowledge and experience, but also total newcomers to the field, but all with relatively similar expectations of the camp: the group's main priority was to practise using the emergency equipment, to simulate an emergency and, of course, not to miss out on the fun and the powder lines!