New Skiing Course

Sierra Nevada opened its first ski-touring course of the season consisting of a 6-km circuit.

The circuit runs along the far side of the El Áquila ski-slope from the Los Peñones parking area to the top station of the Laguna ski lift.

This area has been used up to now by cross-country skiers but from now on it will be signposted and worked over by the ski-station machinery and incorporated into the ski-station’s slopes and routes. The station’s control centre will give daily reports on its state; i.e., open, closed or partially closed, according to weather conditions.

Ski touring is a form of backcountry skiing where both uphill and downhill travel are possible without needing to remove skis. Typically, touring is done off-piste and outside of ski resorts, and may extend over a period of more than one day. Both ascent and descent is done without mechanical aid.

This ski-course was brought into being in response to a growing demand by ski-touring enthusiasts. The ski-course was designed with the help of the Federación Andaluza de Montañismo (FAM).

“It’s not easy to combine downhill skiing and snowboarding with cross-country or ski-tourism where there is as much uphill skiing as downhill – there’s always a risk of collisions,” explained a spokesperson for the ski station. For that reason, it will be strictly forbidden for skiers to ski down the ascent route.

However, in the case of a collision it will be the ascending skier who will be held responsible. Ski-tourism participants must take special care to avoid ski-slope machines using winches, whose cables can be laid out over a kilometre – it could be fatal to run into one of these pieces of machinery or their strung-out cables.

One final point, in the case of an accident the ski-station personnel will try to provide aid, but as this sport is not covered by the insurance included in a normal ski-station ski pass (forfait), the victim would have to pay for his or her own rescue.

You can find out more by following this link.

(News: Sierra Nevada, Granada, Andalucia)

Tags: andalucia, granada, news, Sierra Nevada, ski station, ski-tourism, special course

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2018 at 1:28 am and is filed under Granada Inland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.