 Poster: A snowHead
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Date: Saturday 12th December 2015
Location: Melchsee-Frutt, Central Switzerland
Objective: Avalanche awareness course for ski touring
Yesteday scski and I headed up to the small resort of Melchsee-Frutt for a 1-day avalanche awareness course. Melchsee-Frutt is a small village at 1920mm, accessible by gondola from Stöckalp at 1080m. The pisted skiing area is small - there are 32km runs and the majority of skiing is between 1900 and 2250m, though there is a home run to Stöckalp. The area has great views – from the village you can look across to Mount Titlis (Engelberg) and it’s possible to skin up and over into the Engelberg ski area. We skinned up to Abgschütz (not lift accessible) from where we also had views over to the Jungfrau and the north west face of the Eiger. Only a limited amount of the skiable terrain is pisted so it’s most suitable for beginners or ski tourers. It’s also well set up for cross-country skiing, snow shoeing and winter hiking.
The course was organised through scski’s work ski club but run by guides from Bergpunkt http://www.bergpunkt.ch/
The emphasis was really on teaching you how to make go/no-go decisions for planning and completing your own ski tours. They also run longer courses (2-3 days) where there is more time to practice and for each participant to take responsibility for planning their own sections and making decisions on the ground. I think a longer course is worthwhile and we plan to do a longer one at some point during the season.
The website is all in German, but our (Swiss)German really isn’t up to much so we had requested an English guide at time of booking. We got Dominic Meyer, who was completely fluent in English and a great guide and teacher too. I’ve never been on an avalanche safety course that was so much focused on teaching you to do it on your own before, so if this is your goal I highly recommend the company.
We took the gondola up from Stöckalp to Melchsee-Frutt then headed straight off on our tour from there. Once we were round the corner and away from the pisted area we stopped in the sun to do practice searching, probing and digging blimmin great big holes. Here’s scski about to start probing:
Our touring goal for the day is indicated by the red arrow. Abgschütz 2263m.
Here’s the group on the way up:
Looking back towards Melchsee-Frutt village below and Mount Titlis in Engelberg:
At our high point for the day, and looking over towards Jungfrau and the Eiger:
Another group coming up as we are about to start our descent. We had a great descent in powder, with plenty of opportunities for fresh tracks (though there were some rocks about).
All in all, a great day out.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thanks for posting.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Gämsbock, lovely photos!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@Gämsbock, great report , was looking for something like this , 3 day course sounds good
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The view is absolutely stunnishing!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Wow! Great report and photos. What fun to be living in Switzerland!
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@Hurtle, thanks! Yes, we are really enjoying it 
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