Page 14 - 2017 AMA Summer

Army competitors for the 2016 Patrouille des Glaciers during training in France
Ski Mountaineering
Premeditated suffering can be addictive! Ski mountaineering has become one of the fastest growing
winter sports across Europe and in North America. Ski Mountaineering? Rando- racing? SkiMo? What is this sport really called?
Let’s just call it ski mountaineering... As a competition it perfectly suits the Military Ethos in the same way that biathlon or alpine ski racing does. It straddles the boundaries between Adventurous Training and Sport, and I hope to demonstrate that it is something that we ought to embrace in the AMA as it offers a challenging outlet to men and women who have been introduced to ski mountaineering in the Armed Forces.
Competitive ski mountaineering is a timed racing event that follows an established trail through challenging winter high-alpine terrain while passing through a series of checkpoints. Racers ascend and descend under their own steam using alpine backcountry skiing equipment and techniques that are specially adapted for
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racing. The competitor requires the stamina and aerobic endurance of a Nordic skier and the prowess of an alpine skier in descent. Frequently the skills of a mountaineer are required too as competitions take place in glaciated and avalanche-prone terrain, and crampons and ice axe may have to be utilised on mountain ridges during an event – conditions depending. It is useful to describe two types of events: one could be said to take place in a “controlled” setting, the other in an “uncontrolled” setting. In the controlled setting, the terrain is sub-glacial, the route is marked in ascent and descent by wands and a track is cut. Exposed ridgelines are equipped with fixed lines. Typically the maximum altitude reached is in the region of 3000 meters. In the uncon- trolled setting the competition takes place in glaciated terrain at very high altitude (up to 4000 meters) and long portions of the course may not be way-marked, neither will a track be cut beforehand by the marshals. In both types of event, the avalanche risk is assessed, controlled and mitigated by international mountain guides (UIAGM / IFMGA), and this may on occasion result in a race being cancelled,
or the course significantly altered to avoid avalanche hazard. Events are open to individuals and to teams – typically of two or three competitors and in this way they are similar to the Patrol Race that many of us are familiar with in the Nordic world. All good stuff!
International competition is sanctioned by the International Ski Mountaineering Federation, while other bodies sanction national com- petitions, for example the United States Ski Mountaineering Association (USSMA) or the Fédération Française de la Montagne et de l’Escalade (FFME) in France. In the UK it is a growing discipline and is governed by the British Mountaineering Council (BMC), which highlights the fact that this is competitive mountaineering, rather than traditional winter sport. There are multiple events staged across the Alps during the winter, and it is planned by the Union Inter- nationale des Associations d’Alpinisme (UIAA), to include ski mountaineering as an eventwithinthe2018OlympicGames.The inaugural ski mountaineering World Cham- pionships were held in the winter of 2002 in the Serre Chevalier valley, which will be