Picos Berge

Trips: Snow

All our SNOW trips

This is our programme dedicated to the white matter and the flow that comes along with riding it!

In our courses you can venture into the unexplored slopes off-piste. You will learn everything you need for independent skitouring and backcountry skiing: from equipment handling to breaking trail, from rope technique on a glacier to avalanche awareness.

We address the topic of avalanches comprehensively in our avalanche seminars. You will train the avalanche search and rescue under supervision of a mountain guide and snow professional.

It's all about the down! ... is the motto of our off-piste program, where we use lifts to do as many vertical meters as possible. Our special category is Lift, Hike and Ride. Here we combine lifting and skitouring with skins to increase our chances of the first line!

Our skitouring and hut-to-hut trips will take you to the best spots in the alps with rugged mountain scenery and untracked slopes.

Flexibility: joint risk of bad (weather) conditions.

Flexibility is our working method - not a slick marketing slogan. We budget 1-2 extra days in the planning of many of our trips to factor in adverse weather conditions. The days can for example be used to move the trip a day or two as to use the best weather window for the summit bid.

Of course you only pay the actual guiding days. We'd rather achieve your goal than insist on doing a poor alternative.

Bivies, acyclic and unknown paths: off the beaten track.

The Alps are the Playground of Europe and Europe is densely populated. Some areas are frequented to a degree that is almost grotesque. Traffic jams, risky overtaking maneuvers and utter chaos on lifts and huts are common sight. Clearly the experience must be suffering.

Clever planning can avoid this and the mountains can be experienced in a pristine way — even on big and renowned peaks. We have a long record of guiding some of the most prestigious summits using bivies and less known routes, or simply climbing acyclic. It has always paid off! Does this sound appealing to you? Let's discuss your next true adventure in the mountains!

Top - mountain kit included.

Quite frankly our cooperating partners want to sell the gear they are providing us with. It is therefore clearly in our interest if you test gear on our trips. So why should we charge you for this?

Lend out gear is generally free of charge on all our trips. If you have your own equipment, but want to save weight on a challenging ski traverse, we will bring lightweight crampons for you. You are keen to test a wide freeride ski or the latest ice tools? No problem! Of course, we do not have multiple sizes or models in stock, but we are trying to help you with gear as much as we can.

Individual coachings - our specialty.

The technical basics of alpinism such as knots, crevasse rescue, setting up a belay etc. are rather easy to learn. What takes a lot more time to acquire are experience, judgement, situational decision making as well as all the tricks of the professionals that make life in the mountains easier.
A lot of alpinists were lucky to learn from more experienced mates. Our coachings give you that unique opportunity. We act as supervisors and consultants while you are climbing on the sharp end of the rope. We try to provide you with as much expert knowledge as we can. There is no business secret, we are happy to share our decision making and perhaps even learn something ourselves.

Advanced topics include complex rope techniques (e.g. the infamous short rope), tactics, speed improvement or analytical snowpack analysis. Our coachings are well suited for experienced teams.

Climate protection: less babble.

Environmental protection must not be misused for mere image cultivation. Businesses who earn their money with air travel should not pat themselves on the back because they use recycled paper and green electricity. This is not credible. We clearly acknowledge the undeniable environmental damage our activities cause, and we try to at least partly offset them by the following actions, without too many words:

We encourage you to travel by train. If possible we give you a lift from the train station. We help to reduce your luggage by providing you all the technical gear required for your trip. Given a sufficient number of participants, we cover up to 50% of your train ticket.

We compensate our own as well as the CO2 emissions of our clients travelling by car without any additional cost in a transparent and comprehensive way. Of course, you are also invited to contribute. Get in touch if there are any questions!

Why we do not show available places online.

Because you still wouldn't know if a trip is confirmed. Bookings can be cancelled after all. Besides, well, the displayed number of available places can be fake — we all know that from the flight search engines.

Don't panic if the minimum number of participants is not yet reached! We often try to directly address long term clients, bring together bookings for different dates or find alternatives. Maybe we are really keen on doing the trip ourselves and offer you a special deal. Anyway we are keeping you updated. You might tell us your deadline by which you have to know if the trip takes place or not.