What is mountaineering skiing?
The mountaineering skiing is also referred to as alpine ski-touring, randonee skiing or alpine-mountaineering. This outdoor activity consists of the use of skis for ascending and descending mountains.
The UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme), the II World Ski Mountaineering Championships organizing committee, will exclusively use from now on the denomination mountaineering skiing since we consider it the best way to name this modality.
A completely outdoor activity
The outdoor sports category implies the direct contact with nature since there is no need for a motor vehicle. The mountain biking, trekking, climbing, etc, are the most practiced modalities in summer. In winter, however, the outdoor sport par excellence is the mountaineering skiing. This enthusiasm for the outdoor sports stands as a return to the authentic sport values since it implies a deep knowledge and a direct contact with nature.
The mountaineering skiing shows the other side of the alpine ski resorts because it allows you to get away from the crowded pistes and resorts. The ski mountaineering equipment has been specially designed to reach forbidden spots -for ordinary skiers- whether it might be a peak, which requires deep mountaineering knowledge to reach the summit, or whether it might be an easy access valley that has never been discovered by ordinary skiers.
Moreover, this modality requires to its practitioners a deep level of mountain knowledge acquired by experience. The goal of this learning is to practice mountaineering skiing in total security in order to descent a continuous ski route back down to the base. The nearly 300 participants in the Championships that will be held in Val d'Aran (Spain) from the 2nd till the 6th of March 2004 will precisely demonstrate this knowledge.
The mountaineering skiing, an endurance sport
Mountaineering skiing is basically an aerobic sport which highly contributes to the improvement of physical endurance of its practitioners. We should bear in mind that, at a competitive level, the rhythm reached in the ascent can be really fast during hours. This modality uses similar techniques to cycling: exciting breaks-away and vivid fields.
A mountain sport
Whether at a tourist level or at a competition level, the mountaineering skiing is a modality closely bound to high mountain terrain. It is obvious that in this kind of terrain the risk is always present. That is why all the mountaineers fitted with skis prepare consciously their gear: warm clothes, ice-axe, crampons and, most important, the ARVA (Avalanche Rescue Transceivers). The main thing is always your security!
Growing number of followers
Long before being considered a competition sport, the mountaineering skiing is an activity which consists of sliding down the mountain that nowadays counts with more than a million of practitioners between the Alps and the Pyrenees. As regard to the competition races, there are around 10.000 skiers that race.
In the last winter seasons, we have appreciated an increase in the number of mountaineering skiers who search either the stillness of lonely spots or excelling oneself in the practice of this modality. This increase is also corroborated by the trade marks thanks to the rise in their equipment sales as well as by the growing number of participants in the competitions.
Mountaineering skiing is a lifelong sport that nowadays seems to awake and wants to be globally recognized in the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.