Alpine Skills Course

by Allan Petrie

17 individuals for the Alpine Akademie basic alpine skills course met on the sunny terrace of the Hotel Steinbock waiting for our instructors for what was to be an interesting and enjoyable week.

Our trip to the Braunschweiger Hütte was made a lot easier by the use of the cable car which meant that the 3 and a half hour uphill walk was achieved with minimal loads. After a typical 3-course dinner, an introduction to the course was undertaken by our instructors for the week - Hannes, Robert and Bernard. We had a mix of individuals from the UK, Romania, Australia and Argentina! We were then split into smaller groups and repaired to the bar to discuss plans for the following week. Our group consisted of sisters Anna & Kate, Lorna, Pete, Alastair, myself and our guide Hannes.

Abseil Practice

Monday saw a morning of practising movement on glaciers with crampons on the flat, with Hannes ensuring that everyone was comfortable running and jumping over small crevasses. We then progressed onto slightly steeper ice, where we got the opportunity to practice front-pointing and using the ice axe for additional security and for cutting steps. This was followed by an introduction into the use of ice screws, something that I had never experienced. The most interesting part was the making of Abalakov anchors with the ice screws. These were pretty easy to construct and had amazing strength, but I suppose this depends on the quality of the ice.

After lunch, we had the opportunity to practice setting up crevasse rescues with prusiks, etc., in the safe environment of the area around the hut. Although not physically tiring, as everything was practiced on the horizontal, all of us were mentally tired at the end of it as trying to work out the spaghetti of rope, prusiks, connecting which prusik to which part of the rope was demanding for all of us. At least there was no danger of anyone falling further into a crevasse: that was yet to come on Thursday.

Heading up glacier towards Linker Fernerkogul

Tuesday brought good conditions and the decision was taken by Robert and Hannes to lead their respective groups up the Linker Fernerkogel after a brief discussion on where crevasses are likely to form on the snow slopes. The ascent involved a short, steep ice slope followed by a slow ascent of slightly soft snow. It was not technical and, although there were a few minor crevasses , none of these were any concern for party members. The summit was gained in less than 3 hours and the most difficult part was trying to move around on the summit rocks in crampons! The rest of the day was spent near the hut practising belays, knots and anchors.

Wednesday morning started with our two groups hanging off the side of the fire escape on the Braunschwieger Hut practising our prusiking. This was followed by a walk on to a steeper snow slope where we practised ice axe breaking in a variety of different orientations with Hannes acting as 'keeper' at the base of the slope to prevent those sliding going too far into the rocks. Although hesitant at first, everyone managed to build up speed and it did look as though there was a competition going on to see who could take out Hannes on the way down.

From here we moved onto a shorter but slightly steeper slope where we practiced crevasse rescue in snow using an ice-axe as the anchor. Again, like the Abalakov anchor, the strength of the T-anchor was impressive. Even though the slope of the snow was not even approaching vertical, the effort required to hoist the rescuee was pretty significant. Due to the poor forecast for the afternoon, we finished the day with abseil and anchor practice near the Klettergarten.

Crevasse Rescue
Photos by Allan Petrie

Thursday was the day where I learned that I never want to be in a crevasse and never want to be in a situation where I am involved in a real-life crevasse res cue. Hannes and Robert led our groups up to the Rettenbachjoch and, once we had all put our harnesses, helmets and crampons and roped up, we proceeded on to the Rettenbach Gletscher. We realised that it was now getting serious as our guides went quiet, concentrated hard and made sure that there was a tight rope between us. A suitable crevasse was found, back-up anchors were placed and suitable volunteers were found (myself and Al) to go into the crevasse to be rescued. I will take the feeling of hanging in a crevasse to my grave. Even writing this, I can still feel the cold of the ice, the void beneath and the sound of water trickling somewhere below in the darkness. After everyone had been in the crevasse and, thankfully rescued, it was a much more sober and quieter group that headed off the glacier to the comfort of solid rock.

With a poor weather forecast again, the final day was spent with a morning of abseiling and rock climbing, which was interesting as I was not used to rock climbing in B2 boots which made feeling for placements more like a fumble in the dark. The short period after lunch was used to practice additional rope work using the shelter of the hut from the drizzle.

The course was over far too soon but it was an excellent introduction to the skills required for safe alpine travels and peaks.

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