Mountain Medicine on Skis 2024

Course outline & essential info

This demanding, fun and technical Chamonix based course combines mountain medicine training with professional ski tuition and guiding in one brilliant package. Includes 6 days of skiing (on / off piste and including an intro to ski touring) and 10 hours medical tuition (on/off slope), 7 nights accommodation  and complimentary use of avalanche safety kit (transceiver, shovel and probe). We aim to develop your skiing competence so that, initially, you might have the skills to join a ski touring party off piste, ski all terrain and be more able to provide emergency medical care in the mountains. No climbing or mountaineering experience required, however, you must ski to the minimum standard outlined below (and see our new videos that will be posted soon) and be ski fit. 10 skiers per course with 3 staff. At least 12 CPD hours. Click on the small images to enlarge and scroll through them. Only one course is scheduled in 2024 – 20-27 January held at the luxurious Chalet Cristalliers (pictures below).

2024 headlines

  • Chalet accommodation is Saturday to Saturday
  • 6 days ski guiding/instruction including an intro to ski touring – the first ski day is Sunday
  • 7 nights twin room en suite chalet acccommodation at Chalet Cristalliers with a hot tub
  • Complimentary “avo” kit loan – transceiver, shovel & probe
  • In-resort transportation
  • Participants mostly self-cater and share the cost of groceries

Delegate feedback

The best course I have ever been on.
It was intense but I was expecting it.
Feel my skiing has really improved.
….excellent course
Medical lectures extremely well delivered and evidence based.
I loved this course.

Who should attend?

This course is for mountain mad medics (and the keenest layperson) wanting to push their skiing standard, try ski touring and prepare for a mountain oriented expedition medic role. We welcome doctors and OHPs of all grades and ages who meet the skiing standard and the dynamic, fluid nature of this course. 10 participants maximum per course (with 3 staff).

Timings – arrival / departure

Chalet check in is from 4pm Saturday. Chalet check in from 4pm but there is a luggage storage option if you arrive earlier. Chalet check out is 10am on the last day (Saturday).  The 6 ski days are Sunday to Friday.

Ski programme – Sunday to Friday

Day 1 – Ski warm up, mountain safety training/avalanche awareness & transceiver use

Day 2 – Developing piste ski skills; posture check, learning to flow, edge, ski with less effort, more grace, efficiency, and control of speed and the line taken

Day 3 – More exploring off piste; debunking myths, new techniques and tricks, choosing a safe line back-country

Day 4 – Alpine skiing then usually we collect rental touring skis late afternoon and teach how to put skins on, kick turn, and have a short practise ski on the beginner slopes in town to be sure everyone’s touring kit fits comfortably.

Days 5 & 6 – We’ll go ski touring*, off piste or glacier skiing depending on conditions and group ability, more student input to trip planning and execution, teaching and coaching en route

*Ski touring describes using special bindings and skins stuck on the base of the skis to enable one to climb – slide uphill essentially. This enables us to reach areas inaccessible by ski lifts so by definition we’re going off piste or back-country where the snow is not groomed or avalanche controlled. We might not turn you into a complete back-country ski ninja in six days but we’ll certainly advance your skills.

Medical training – overview

The medical training is focussed on managing trauma in the wild and environmental medicine – high, hot, cold and freezing which are of particular relevance to the mountain traveller. The course handbook provided (200+ pages) covers the full range of wilderness medicine topics and is an excellent aide memoire for further study and reference (as is the pre-course reading bundle – under DOWNLOADS).

Medical Director Dr Duncan Gray’s après ski tutorials and outdoor teaching is infused with cases and examples from his vast, real-world austere medical experience from which he “cherry picks” to focus on the most interesting, pragmatic and useful information, emphasising what can be done by an expedition medic that is practical and achievable.

Après ski medical tutorial programme

Arrive Saturday – formal welcome if everyone arrives by 6pm otherwise there’s a Sunday morning briefing before skiing and the formal welcome Sunday evening.

Day 1 (Sunday) first ski day – Formal welcome and medical tutorials – Medical management of the avalanche victim – ICAR algorithm. Avalanche safety.

Day 2 Managing the trauma patient in a cold, hostile environment including “Duncan’s donut” approach to outdoor incident management and why just doing your ABCs in isolation could make it all go wrong, followed by Duncan’s infotainment illustrated career presentation – Lessons learned from 40 years of wilderness medicine.

Day 3 Frostbite – exploring why “delay equals digits, faffing is fingers and time is toes”. Human dynamics in the outdoors – ski touring heuristics & case exercise.

Day 4 Hypothermia – exploring the maxim “cotton kills in the hills”.

Day 5 Altitude medicine – 3 syndromes, medicines and group management strategies.  Case: Everest illustrated presentation.

Day 6 (final ski day) Debrief of the week, feedback, certificates and formal course close. No evening tutorial.

Day 7 – depart (chalet check out by 10am)

Mountainside medical practical sessions

Trauma management & triage in the avalanche setting.

Cold mitigation strategies and equipment.

Femoral and pelvic fracture management, splint improvisation, moving, lifting and carrying a seriously injured casualty improvising with the kit one would carry in the mountains.

Dislocated shoulder relocation techniques.

Use of Penthrox.

Building snow shelters.

Useful, but basic, ropecraft.

Scenarios combining the mountaincraft and medical skills covered to care for a casualty in a cold, hostile environment.

The course handbook covers many other topics and we are happy to add informal tutorials over coffee on the slopes as interest and time permits. With a small course group, the instructors are available throughout to discuss anything of interest on the chairlift, slopes, “classroom” or after hours in the pub.

Ski standard required

As a minimum, delegates need to be “good” intermediate level skiers, meaning;
• On groomed red runs, you consistently ski parallel turns and can control your speed and line down the mountain. If you easily fall over on red runs you don’t meet the standard.
• You can probably ski some black runs with a “I can get down anything” attitude but with less control and style.
• You are ski fit and able to ski a full day in any weather, love skiing and are very motivated to improve.

It’s vitally important that you do not over-egg your ability. Speak to WMT if you’re not sure you meet the minimum standard.

Sorry – telemark skiers or boarders cannot be accommodated.

Other experience, fitness & health warning

We have graded the physical demands of this course as HARD because skiing 6 full days, including some ski touring (ascending) requires reasonable fitness. You don’t need any climbing or mountaineering experience.

Only ski fit, team players that meet the minimum ski standard are invited on the most physically demanding course WMT offers.

This is not a ski racing, extreme skiing or steep skiing course and all ages are welcome. If  you don’t meet the skiing standard or are not ski fit and able to keep up, you will have to ski independently. It is not possible to dip in and out of each training day to join in when you feel like it. This is just not logistically practical or in the spirit of the course.

If you are an expert skier, you may be frustrated with the pace as we teach/coach those of a lower standard, but, that said, it’s always possible to improve your skiing. This is not a holiday with late starts, lots of coffee stops and faffing. This is an intense and fun group experience with a lot of ski time though we – and you! – always need to remain flexible due to weather, avalanche risks and other factors beyond WMT’s control.

Accreditation

We estimate that this programme is valid for at least 12 CPD hours.

What’s included in the fee

What’s included in the fee?

  • All instruction/tuition/lectures – 6 days of skiing with medical training input on 5 of those days
  • 7 nights twin room chalet accommodation (single gender where possible if the numbers balance but cannot be guaranteed)
  • loan of transceiver, shovel & probe for the week
  • WMT Medic Course Notes (A5 200+ page book)
  • In-resort transportation to/from the slopes for 6 days

What’s not included?

  • Ski equipment – some days you’ll require touring skis and boots which you can rent.
  • Ski passes. Advice will be issued.
  • Meals, drinks, flights, insurance, airport transfers
  • Anything not expressly mentioned is not included which may include supplementary costs if, by participant consensus, we ski tour further afield and stay in a mountain refuge (shared additional costs might include tunnel fees, fuel, accommodation and meals/drinks).

Teaching Team 2024

French ski instructor and international mountain guide Luc Bellon and WMT’s ski addict Barry Roberts will deliver this  course with Medical Director Dr Duncan Gray.  Their bios are below:

Luc Bellon IFMGA Mountain Guide
Luc is an internationally qualified high mountain guide and ski instructor with an extensive background in mountain rescue as a former mountain policeman with the PGHM. He has worked extensively with WMT and contributes to all the winter and summer medic courses.

Barry Roberts BSc BEd, WMT Commercial Director
Baz has maintained a long-standing interest in adventure and wilderness medicine since ski patrolling, climbing and leading canoe expeditions in Canada starting at age 15. As the founder of WMT he has developed, managed and instructed on WMT courses since 1990. He was a Director of Raleigh International and has 40+ diverse international expeditions under his belt, mostly as the leader, and mainly to the high mountains in East Africa and Asia. He is an advanced diver, paraglider pilot, lapsed skydiver, a qualified Day Skipper, BASI ski instructor and ski mountaineer having ski toured in Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Morocco, Greenland, Norway and other conventional places! He is the co-author of Staying Alive Off-piste, a contributing author to the OUP expedition medicine handbook (3 chapters) and author of many adventure magazine features. From ’04 to ’08 he was an ambassador for The North Face. Ski expedition highlights include 4 Greenland ski touring trip including guiding the first winter ascent of the highest mountain in the Arctic (3700+m Gunnsbjornsfjeld in Greenland) from which he paraglided off.

Dr Duncan Gray MBChB DA FRCS FRCEM Medical Director

After 18 years as an A&E consultant in Glasgow, Duncan moved to the Highlands to pursue his love of outdoor sports, travel and wilderness medicine.  His expedition experience is vast and includes the Chinese Himalayas, a ski crossing of South Georgia and climbing Denali in Alaska.  In Antarctica he worked for Adventure Network International, visiting the South Pole four times, and provided medical cover for the first marathon to the South Pole. He has worked widely in Australia including hospital based helicopter rescue and the RFDS. In Canada he worked in the medical centre in Whistler and was a part time ski patroller for three seasons. He has also worked and travelled in Pakistan, Nepal, India and Saudi Arabia and in Vietnam worked for an emergency repatriation company. His aviation medical experience also includes nine months with HEMS in London. He was in the British Army Airborne Forces and served in the second Gulf war.

He holds the summer and winter Mountain Leader awards and the Advanced Sea Kayak leader qualification. Read more about Duncan on this page and in this WMT Newsletter.

Other information

Terms & conditions – Please be sure you appreciate WMT’s terms and conditions related to deposit payments, cancellations and Covid BEFORE you book. Payment schedule – Balance payments are due 60 days before a course.  You must have adequate travel insurance to attend and you should take this out as soon as you book to protect yourself if YOU have to cancel. See the PDF note under DOWNLOADS below for travel and insurance advice. Eagle Ski Club Development Awards: aspiring ski tourers  who are under 35 from the UK can apply for financial support to attend a course such as Mountain Medicine on Skis. Details here.

Alternative Chamonix winter course

For a course with more medical breadth (and plenty of free time to ski) see WMT’s bigger Chamonix Expedition Medicine course.