Training Log Archive: 007

Proper mountain ski-tour! Gantrisch, out 4 hours. Loved it so much, so great to be out in the wild, mountainous winter landscape! Definitely pushed the edges of my comfort zone at points though..
We weren't sure how far we would be able to go before it would get too hard/dangerous for me. So we started up/along until we were quite close to the pass which was the 'crux' of the route. It was so tempting to go up there but part way up the slope we decided it wan't worth the risk. It was extremely hard and icy which made traversing difficult and I didn't have crampons for my skis unfortunately.. The first bit of the decent from the pass would have been really hard and nothing to catch you from a >100m fall/slide.
But from where we turned, the ski down was SOO much fun, over some little knolls, past a snow-covered hut, through a slope of small trees and around to the base of another hill. By this point my confidence was up and we started heading up this big conical hill which I had seen in the morning and had thought 'no frigging way would I go up or down that!'
Was really enjoying the hike up, just in a t-shirt (bad idea in hindsight).. but close to the top I slipped and had a terrifying moment of losing all grip and sliding. Louis managed to grab me and stop us luckily but I lost a pole (and quite a bit of skin off my elbow) and we were all a bit shaken so decided to make our way back down from there. It's a delicate task to take off skis, remove skins, do up shoes and get skis back on all whilst on a precarious icy slope, but once I had the skis on in secure skiing mode I felt confident about the descent. Pleased I never really lost my nerve, especially about the descents which would have terrified me weeks ago, and lucky to have Jas and Louis patiently guide me safely!
Now extra motivated to practice getting my turning more secure on steep and tricky slopes, today I was bit erratic even if I never lost it! Also need ski crampons if I ever tour up in this icyness again..