We met up in the small Austrian village of Vent for the start of a Ski Club of Great Britain week we started by skinning into the Martin Busch hut which is about 3 hours after settling in we practiced avalanche transceiver work so everyone was up to speed ready for the week ahead. The forecast was mixed so we decided to take each day as it came. On Monday we climbed the Hochlabkogel which would be a perfect ski peak if we could have seen it on Tuesday we climbed almost to the top of the Kreuz Spitz but were beaten back by strong winds. The weather on Wednesday was truly appalling but we managed to fight our way to the Similuan hut things were much better the next day for a traverse of the Hochlab Joch and a fantastic ski descent in powder snow to the Hoch Joch Hospiz. We finished the week traversing the Mittel Gulsar Spitz and descending to Vent via the Vernacht hut in extremely flat light.
The team assembled in Obergurghl on Saturday we were joined by Stuart Mc Aleese who is almost finished his guides training. We started the week in a very similar fashion to last skinning into the Martin Busch hut from Vent then refreshing everyones memory about avalanche safety. After some fresh snow on Sunday night the weather wasnt too bad allowing us to climb the Similaun we skied to 150m short of the summit then finished on crampons before descending to the Similaun hut in very poor light. Tuesday dawned cold and clear allowing us to traverse the Hochlab Joch to the Hoch Joch Hospiz. Like last week we had great powder on the descent. Wednesday was a big day we skinned up the worlds longest glacier (thats what it felt like) to climb the Weiskogel one of the great ski touring peaks of Austria the summit was reached after 7hrs of effort which only took 50mins to retrace in descent. Thursday the weather was a bit mixed but ok so climbed the Mittel Guldsar Spitz and descended to the Vernacht hut for the night. The weather was pretty bad on Friday so we went for a short skin then headed for the valley.