Mountain Medicine on Skis 2026

Who should attend?

This course is for ski mad medics and non-medics keen to advance their medical skills out of hospital, improve their skiing, learn avalanche safety skills, enjoy an intro to ski touring and attain medical CPD. Participants typically attend with a mix of aspirations including to be a mountain expedition medic and for an immersive, active educational and fun experience. We welcome anybody of any age who meets the skiing standard and understands the dynamic, fluid nature of this course.

Dates, timings & accommodation details

We’re offering 2 courses in 2026: 24-31 January and 28 February to 7 March. Same programme and accommodation each week. Over 25 years of skiing in Chamonix we believe the skiing can be equally good late January and early March. Of course it can be colder in January but that is easily managed. There can be fewer skiers on the slopes in late January which is a benefit. Flights can be cheaper in January but depends when you book. We suggest you choose a week that best suits your schedule and not worry about other factors.

Apartment check in is from 4pm Saturday and check out is 10am on the last day (Saturday).  The 6 ski days are Sunday to Friday inclusive.

In 2026 we have one contemporary large penthouse apartment for course delegates. This is your basecamp for self-catering, evening lectures and chilling. Most rooms are twin bedded and there’s one bunk room for 2 people plus the option of a double bedded room for couples. Single room occupancy may be available (a supplement applies). It has 2.5 luxury bathrooms. The apartment is NEW and ideally located in central Chamonix – a 1 minute walk from our ski hire partners, 5 minutes walk from the central bus station (so cheap coach airport transfers are an option), 30 seconds from the best bar in town (and 15% off)!, 3 minutes to the nearest grocery store and high street restaurants, burgers/pizzas, bars and shops. The course staff and vehicles live opposite so with everybody co-located, minimal time is spent on logistics to optimise your ski time and down time.

Ski programme – Sunday to Friday

We have 2 course vehicles so we can visit any of the Chamonix ski stations or ski further afield if weather or conditions dictate, especially to ski tour at the end of the week.

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 – Continued ski coaching on / off piste, advanced techniques, developing avalanche awareness back-country

Day 4 – Continued ski coaching. If we’re ski touring day 5 we usually 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 wilderness and environmental medicine – high, hot, cold and freezing which are of particular relevance to the mountain traveller. The WMT Medic course handbook provided (200+ pages) covers the full range of wilderness medicine topics and is an excellent aide memoire for further study and reference.

The après ski tutorials and outdoor teaching is infused with cases and examples from real-world faculty austere medical experience to focus on the most 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 early evening welcome so plan your travel accordingly so you can collect hire skis too.

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

Day 2 Managing the trauma patient in a cold, hostile environment including “donut” approach to outdoor incident management and why just doing your ABCs in isolation isn’t enough. Faculty special career lectures some nights.

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 (apartment check out by 10am Saturday)

Outdoor medical training & mountain craft sessions

We are very experienced at using slope time wisely to take rest breaks from skiing to interject practical medical training. Here’s an outline of the main topics we’ll cover.

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.

Expressions of interest – pre-registration questionnaire

In 2026, we are inviting expressions of interest via a pre-registration Google form questionnaire so it is NOT possible to book the ski courses online. Please email WMT to request a link to the Google form that will take less than 5 minutes to complete. There’s no commitment to confirm or pay if you complete the form! (We want to make sure that everyone who joins is at the right ski level which benefits everyone on the course.) Click HERE to use the Contact WMT page to email us.

Entry level minimum ski standard

Do you meet the ski standard? As a minimum, delegates need to be “good” intermediate level skiers, meaning;

Not sure you meet the standard? Please complete the pre-registration questionnaire and we will happily have a chat with you.

Sorry – snow boarders cannot be accommodated.

Fitness to participate

We grade the physical demands of this course as HARD because skiing 6 full days, including some ski touring (ascending) requires good 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.

But note that this is not a ski racing, extreme skiing or steep skiing course and all ages are welcome. If you slip through our questionairre vetting and you don’t meet the skiing standard 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 and coach the others in the group. 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 everyone needs to always remain flexible due to weather, avalanche risks and other factors beyond WMT’s control.

Study leave & accreditation

Many past delegates attend using study leave so prospective participants should discuss this programme with their educational supervisor. We estimate that this programme is valid for at least 12 CPD hours.

Fee & deposit option

The course fee in 2026 is £1299. The deposit is £399 (and the balance is due 60 days before a course). Here’s what’s included in the fee

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

  Keen? Click HERE to use the Contact WMT page to email us.

What’s not included?

• Ski equipment – some days you’ll require touring skis and boots which you can rent
• Ski passes
• Meals, drinks, flights, insurance, airport transfers
• Anything not expressly mentioned is not included which may include supplementary costs if we ski tour further afield and stay in a mountain refuge (only done with group consensus and additional costs shared by participants might include Mont Blanc tunnel fees, fuel, accommodation and staff subsistence). Often, the added cost of a refuge night is offset by a cheaper ski pass or sometimes a ski pass is not even required for 1 or 2 days.

Availability – places available on each course

Updated 12 Septempber:

Teaching Teams 2026

Delivering both courses will be Luc Bellon, a dual qualified IFMGA international mountain guide and international ski instructor, with WMT’s Barry Roberts. They have worked together for many years in Chamonix and Norway delivering guided skiing experiences. Barry has led many ski based expeditions to Greenland and skied in many remote places such as Pakistan and Tibet. The medical instructor in January is Dr Alex Reid (anaesthetic trainee) who is WMT’s most qualified and talented UK mountain instructor who holds all the UK’s highest instructor climbing and ski touring awards. Dr Anna Wallace, emergency medicine trainee, will be the medical instructor in March. She holds the Diploma in Mountain Medicine (attained in Nepal) and has contributed to many WMT courses in recent years, including being the medical instructor and expedition doctor for WMT’s Morocco expedition.

Other information – payment schedule, insurance, financial aid

Downloads – detailed pre-course dossier

Delegates receive a detailed dossier when they book a course place that provides guidance on flights, airport transfers, ski hire, ski passes, insurance and much more – basically covering ALL the additional administration needed to prepare for the course and save money by following our top tips gleaned from 25 years of living and working in Chamonix.