"Check your line" - climb up safely, ski down great" is the motto this time in Level 2 of Mountain Mastery 2012 - presented by Mammut, Gore-Tex and PowderGuide.com. Your task is to plan a ski tour or freeride tour in detail in the current conditions. The closing date for entries is February 6, 2012. If you still need tips on which factors are important for tour planning and line selection, or want to brush up on your knowledge of risk reduction, terrain assessment and important details of route planning, you will find all the important points and helpful tips in our manuals "Check your line" and "Basics map reading".
Participation mode and submission deadlines
Your task this time is to plan a freeride tour of your choice for the period between January 30 and February 6. The tour must include an ascent. Whether you do a pure tour away from the ski resorts, take a bus, train or friends to a pass, or use lift assistance, is entirely up to you and your preferences. However, it should be clear that trudging around the lift house and then crossing into the slope does not count as an ascent. It is probably clear to everyone that at least a portion of downhill enjoyment should be aimed for when the name PowderGuide is mentioned. But, as we all know, enjoyment is in the eye of the beholder.
Contributions can be sent by email to knut(at)powderguide.com and redaktion(at)powderguide.com up to and including February 6.
The contributions must be sent in standard text format and the corresponding images (additionally) attached separately.
The contributions will then be viewed and evaluated in collaboration with Reiner Taglinger from the Mammut Alpine School and published together with the feedback in the Mountain Mastery Forum in the respective team thread by February 9. Reiner Taglinger and the PowderGuide team will then take part in the discussion as usual and answer questions about the contributions or related topics.
This is how we envision the contributions
In order to achieve the fairest and most uniform evaluation mode possible, we ask you this time to write your contribution in the structure listed below. You can start from given but realistic conditions. This means that you do not necessarily have to plan into the future, but can also choose a day from the competition period. The entry must then be submitted on this day. This means that you can either plan for the current day or a day in the future with the conditions prevailing at that time. However, these must be documented.
The purpose of this is to ensure that, on the one hand, participants who are planning trips in regions where the avalanche report is only published in the morning are not at a disadvantage compared to those who can view the LLB the evening before. On the other hand, the focus of the task is on planning a tour in certain conditions. You already had to prove how well you are able to assess the conditions in Level 1.
An optimal contribution is structured as follows:
1. prerequisites:
How is
- weather (document using links, pictures, etc.)
- weather history (what was the weather like the days before?)
- Snow conditions
- Avalanche situation (avalanche report)
- Group
2. Tour planning
- Planning of the tour on a topographical map at a scale of 1:25'000
- Description of the tour in words (incl. reference to sources)
- Description of the tour in words (incl. reference to sources) source)
- Meters of ascent and descent & -distances
- Time required & start time
- steepness and feasibility of the terrain (in terms of risk and human factors)
- danger points
- check and decision points (what to look out for there; what are the criteria for go or stop; alternatives/ways out etc.).
- Required equipment
3. Conclusion & assessment of the feasibility of the tour on this day
Notes: Please make sure that links still show the same thing the next day.
Evaluation mode
We are aware that a completely objective evaluation of the entries is not possible. The jury consists of the Mammut Alpine School and PowderGuide.
We do our best to interpret the entries benevolently and make constructive, appreciative suggestions for improvement.
It is not the team with the greatest tour or the most blatant descent that receives the most points, but rather, in the spirit of mountain mastery, the factors of people, conditions and terrain must be brought into harmony.
The goal is not the one perfect solution or perfect choice, because these rarely exist in the mountains. What is judged is the solution, i.e. the extent to which the teams have dealt with the favorable conditions and risk factors and how intensively safety aspects have been taken into account. Detailed and targeted planning is the be-all and end-all.
We wish all participating teams lots of fun and success in planning their lines!
The Mountain Mastery Crew To the Mountain Mastery Forum
