UKC

My brother and I are wanting to get into ski touring - principally to access good snow and interesting skiing. We've both done a lot of off-piste skiing before and can ski well. Has anyone got any advice or experience of decent guides/tours etc that would include teaching on the general skills as well as some hard skiing? We should be able to do some mucking around in Scotland earlier on in the year if the snow ends up being decent so should hopefully have picked up the basics of moving uphill. Any advice appreciated!

In reply to Alex1:

Get some touring kit and have a go - its not hard

If you can't find someone to go with you who has toured before, just read books and web

I assume with your off piste experience your ok with avalanche assessment?

In reply to Alex1:

You can often get more out of your time and learn quickly and efficiently having some trips with guides.

Depends on how your mountaineering skills are and time and money etc

The guys at Alpine guides are spot on if you decide to go guided

Cheers

In reply to Alex1: Hi Alex
have a look at the Eagle ski club website.
http://www.eagleskiclub.org.uk/
There are a lot of training weeks as well as a grants programme to support young ski tourers. The programme gets booked out quickly and many of the 2014 weeks are already full. The club also has regular Scottish week end meets.

like all sports a few pointers from a professional go a long way, so unless you have someone very experienced who will spend time with you then do a course-ski touring/ski mountaineering is very different to alpine skiing, big choice of kit, weight to carry but you needs the skills navigation etc. carrying kit & even good skiers put them on touring skis, heavy rucksack on varied snow can find they dont ski so well so its worth looking at right kit or hire/try first. Good kick turn technique (i'm still working on mine) saves a lot of effort & gives security/confidence where you don't want to go for a slide..just a few ideas

In reply to Alex1: Not that I'm massivley biased or anything, but this looks like a great option!
http://www.tdcski.com/val_disere/off_piste_valdisere/off_piste_adventure_we...
Just request touring skills with the office (rather than lift accessable skills based course).

Give me a shout if you have any questions or need any tips... I'm happy to help by email

In reply to rogersavery:

Another vote for this with all the usual caveats.