Banff Mountain Guides

A couple spots left on a trip into a great ski destination!

Fairy Meadow Powder Camp - Alpine Club of Canada Mar 15 – 22, 2025

Looking forward to skiing in Japan this winter! Contact Sawback Alpine Adventures for any last minute spots that might open up.

JaPOW Ski the Land of the Rising Sun, now booking 2025 and 2026Japan has formed a legendary reputation for deep powder skiing in January and February. The saying "Don't Leave Powder to Find Powder" is common in western Canada - why leave Canada when we have the best skiing in the world? Wel

Near misses and close-calls are the huge iceberg below the surface where all the future errors are occurring, but unfortunately we know little about them, because most of us are unwilling to discuss or report them.

Maud Vanpoulle, an alpinist and sports-scientist focused on accidentology, has been the lead researcher in a project that collects such reports through the camptocamp.org SERAC database. It is anonymous, and available in multiple languages.

Maud has just published the most recent analysis - link below. The focus this time is on ski-mountaineering, but the lessons very much apply to alpinism.

In the findings she describes some of the most common human factors at the heart of risk. These include: searching for "reassuring factors" instead of keeping an open mind; falling prey of “summit fever”, of the “sunk cost fallacy” and “consistency bias”, finding it easier to keep going rather than questioning ourselves; thinking that haste and speed ensure our safety, when in fact they can often be counter-productive; and when in groups ignoring our intuitions, falling for consensus bias, and social acceptance.

Accidents tend to happen as a result of a funnel dynamic, a cascade of small non-events that push us into a corner where a "spark" triggers disaster.

In the end of the analysis Maud includes a list of valuable suggestions, including: keeping an eye on unfavorable factors; playing devil's advocate; identifying our biases, and trying to question them; in groups puting emphasis on open, honest communication; being prepared to be unprepared; and lastly choosing objectives with many options.

Consider sharing your close-calls and near-misses on the camptocamp.org database, and online using the hashtag.

Link to the full analysis https://www.petzl.com/fondation/SERAC-analysis-skitouring_EN.pdf?v=1 (pdf download).

Stunning photo of Cerro Piergiorgio, Pollone and Fitzroy by Blake DeBock www.blakedebock.com

Several spots have become available on a ski trip to Battle Abbey, March 17-24, 2018. If interested please contact me for more details. Conrad

We come through the Duodenum.

Cochise Stronghold

Some fun routes on Ha Ling, Yamnuska, Nanny Goat and Mt Kidd over the past few days with a long time guest. Great September climbing conditions after the snow melted on our first day.

[MCR] Cirque Peak, Rockies, April 30,2015 Skied a scenic tour from Num-Ti-Jah Lodge over Helen Ridge, up Cirque Peak, and down the Cirque Glacier today. Not much of a freeze overnight so the snow below treeline was isothermal with just a thin crust. We were breaking through the surface crust in places and the best travel was on old up track

A quick tour to look around this morning.

A beautiful spring ski day on Mt Whymper with friends today.

Just back from a great week of ski touring and ski mountaineering at the Burnie Glacier Chalet working alongside Christoph Dietzfelbinger. This place is made for skiing!!!

Burnie Glacier Chalet, February 2015 A great skiing touring and ski mountaineering week at the Burnie Glacier Chalet working alongside Christoph Dietzfelbinger (owner and guide). This is a phenomenal place to ski!