Winter Walking Week (5 day)

Overview

This winter walking course involves 5 days of skills coaching and hill guiding in the Cairngorms – the largest national park in Scotland. If you want to go all-in on mountain hiking in winter conditions, then this is for you.

Summer hikers wanting to progress to the winter environment are understandably concerned about routefinding in snowy mountain terrain and avoiding avalanches. This course helps by building winter walking experience and judgement in one of the most spectacular and wild areas of Scotland.

We aim to cover these essential winter walking topics during this course:

• Coaching on ice axe and crampon techniques
• Winter navigation skills (inc zero vis techniques and GPS)
• Routeplanning, mountain weather and avalanche awareness
• Survival skills and shelter building
• Techniques for steep terrain

Having introduced winter skills basics on days 1 and 2, we then develop them further on days 3-5. The Northern Cairngorms offers a wide variety of winter walking routes, including several of the highest mountains in Scotland. Flexible learning oppotunities are a big advantage of this course.

We will always make time to plan the days activity together. Importantly, this involves you in checking forecasts and the decision-making process. We will also examine how the snowpack is developing through the week and tackle as wide a variety of terrain as possible (including summits). As you can see, this 5 day Cairngorms winter skills course will leave you tired but thoroughly prepared!