About the course
A competent and safe mountaineer has many qualities; They are knowledgeable, skilled, brave and courageous and can turn their toolbox of skills to any task.
This course takes people with some mountaineering experience but wishes to crank it up a bit to tackle more technical and challenging mountains.
The course runs over 5 days and is based, in Valdres, Hemsedal and the Jotunheim.
You need to be fairly fit for this course to get the most out it, but we try our best to have lighter days between the full mountaineering days.
We keep our groups small with the focus on good communication and learning environment.
Course objectives:
The course is mainly focused on general mountaineering skills and includes:
- Glacier travel
- Using a rope in ascent and descent
- Making belays on rock, snow and ice
- Scrambling / easy climbing
- Abseiling
- Buddy rescue – glacier and rock
- Ascending / descending snow slopes / ice with and without crampons and axes
- Risk assessment and tour planning
At the end of this course, you will have a ‘toolbox’ of skills that can be deployed to take you up your dream mountain, in a safe and competent manner.
We try to cover two days on the snow/glacier, two days full mountaineering days and two days on scrambling/ climbing and rescue. Each day we sit down together and discuss the day’s activities, found out what worked and what didn’t and then plan for the next days. After all, it’s your course.
Combine it with other courses
This is a self-sufficient course. However, it can be combined as part of our alpine mentoring program.
Difficulty
Endurance
Some previous mountaineering and fitness are required. Please take contact with us to check if this course is for you.
Upon registration we will send you a complete equipment list.
Boots: You will need your own mountaineering boots that can take crampons. If in doubt send us a picture of your boots so we can give the thumbs up. Boots_summer
In the rucksack: As a general guide the following is recommended In the rucksack
Mountaineering equipment (All this can be borrowed from us): Equipment to courses
Accommodation
The Mountain Cottage is include in the price.
Flights, train and getting there
From the Oslo Gardermoen Airport, you can take the “flytoget” which is an express train to Oslo central station. From there it is a short walk to the bus station. You can take the Valdres Express bus From Oslo central to Fagernes Skysstasjon which is about 20min from my house. The bus is comfortable, has free wifi and takes about 3 hours. I like taking the bus to Oslo as I can look out the window and see all the waterfalls and dream about ice climbing 🙂
Nearly all participants on previous courses have travelled by the above method, and they have described it as straightforward and easy.
Equipment hire
If you need to rent equipment, that is no problem, just let us known in advance. You will receive a list of required items upon booking.
