Actualities by IS:
Last three days of the Course we spent outdoor. As the weather was excellent, we were really enjoying each moment.
The Outdoor programme was fully managed by the UIAGM guides – Karel Kříž, Vojtěch Dvořák and Petr Giacintov. Except for their highly professional approach they impressed us by their jokes and unceasable sense of humour.
On Monday we started with a practice of glacier travel and walking on ice with crampons and breaking of the falls with/without ice axe.
In the afternoon we reached the mountain ridges on our touring skis and we trained improvised crevasse rescue techniques including simple pulley systems.
On Tuesday we reached the „highs“ of Krkonoše Mountains again and we trained the belaying techniques with the improvised ski-, shovel- and ice axe- anchor. Further we tried abseiling with and without skis and using prusiks to get on the rope over the obstacles. We also discussed safety planning of free ride and touring ski activities.
In the evening Honza Tráva, a Czech Himalayan climber, shared with us his mountaineering experiences, as well as several case reports of different medical conditions he had to deal with during his expeditions.
The programme on Wednesday morning terminated our week and it was mostly dedicated to the survival techniques in hostile weather. We had to build a huge bivouac and in the meantime we trained the rope and prusik techniques again.