Due to the first tense and then changeable avalanche situation, which was anything but easy to assess, our Mountain Mastery teams - powered by Mammut & Gore-Tex - had three weeks to walk and describe their tours for Level 3 "go out and ride" and to practice maneuver critique. And once again, the level was a notch higher than on the previous levels. Perhaps spurred on by the thought that their own tours would be critically analyzed by all Mountain Mastery participants, the teams once again gave their best and surpassed themselves. We on the Mountain Mastery Committee were really impressed by the heights to which the level was raised and the high quality of the tour reports delivered by the teams.
And that's not all: the discussions that broke out around the contributions were well-founded and revealed a great deal of in-depth knowledge among the teams. However, fairness was maintained and one had the impression that all participants thoroughly enjoyed this joint discussion. No strengths went unpraised and no weak points went unmentioned.
Nevertheless, we, the Mountain Mastery Committee of PowderGuide together with the Mammut Alpine School and Head-Guide Reiner Taglinger, set out to track down all the potential for improvement in the contributions and provide you with detailed feedback and analysis. You can find the discussion contributions in the respective topics of the participating teams in the Mountain Mastery Forum. Unfortunately, we have to postpone the announcement of the winners until tomorrow. The performance density of the contributions over the entire Mountain Mastery 2012 was so high that we want to carry out the analysis carefully and make the decision by mutual agreement. Reiner will then also give his personal summary of the Mountain Mastery -powered by Mammut, Gore-Tex and PowderGuide.
The finale
We would like to inform you in advance that after long planning and discussion we unfortunately had to decide to hold the final event of the Mountain Mastery 2012 on an alternative date. The extension of Level 3 due to the precarious situation has simply meant that the event at the end of next week is not logistically feasible. The final of the Mountain Mastery 2012 will therefore be held from March 21 to 23. If both winning teams expressly request it, it is possible to postpone it by one day to March 22-24.
If a winning team is unable to take part in the final, it will have to swap its place in the ranking with the next-placed team. We believe that this procedure is only fair to all teams, because the performance density was so high that everyone deserved to take part in the final event.
