 Good evening everyone. I'm hoping everyone can hear me okay. Welcome to tonight's event. Gavin and Blair, can you hear me okay? Yes, I can hear you. Excellent. Yes, I can hear you. Great. Blair, you kept popping up there on camera while you were... My phone kept falling over, so it's quite hard to do here. I got the reception, but I haven't managed to balance my phone okay. Okay, brilliant. Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us this evening. We, well, delighted to invite you all to this event tonight, exploring the Scottish back country. The two guests tonight have over 20 years of off-piece skiing experience, so I think we're in for a real treat. So please feel free to use the chats and the Q&A to ask as many questions. If you're watching on Facebook, then post your comments below, and we'll see if we can get as many questions to them as possible. I'll be looking at questions, so if you see me look around, that's because I'm trying to deal with all the questions as well. So the guys, Gavin and Blair are from British back country. British back country offers skill courses, journey in days, gully skiing, coaching, and never strips. In this case, what don't you offer really on snow, isn't it really? That would be easier. The guys run courses in France and Scotland, but I think... Not France, not anymore. Not anymore in France, okay. So in Scotland, well, that's good because I was going to say Scotland is where your home is and where your hearts are really. And tonight's talk is all about exploring Scotland. Definitely more convenient. Yes, so over the next 40 minutes, we want to explore what makes Scotland so special and why back country skiing is becoming so popular, as well as get the guys' takes on what's needed, how you get into it, and lots more. So there's going to be a variety of people watching this evening. We appreciate that, and hopefully we can cover off lots of stuff for everyone. So great. Guys, why don't you kick things off by just giving us a bit of an intro to each of you? That's all right. Start with you, Gavin. That's cool. Yeah. So I learned to ski when I was about five, five, six years old, got taken up to Green Shee by my parents. And because I live in Edinburgh, I got the local dry ski slope Hillend and went up there with my school, did some lessons, got into race training. I did a lot of skiing from there through race training, going to freestyle. I really enjoyed that side of things. And then I went to university, still competing in the racing and the freestyle side of things. And then I got a bit of disillusioned with skiing. I actually stopped for about a year or two just because I wasn't so interested. And then one of my friends took me ski touring at Cairngorm, the slope I went to a lot of the time in Scotland. And we must have travelled less than a minute to get to the ski area. And I was just blown away by how the mountain looked. And I knew straight away, I was like, this, this is for me. And that's been almost 10 years ago from being first taken out for a ski tour. And to be honest, I've never looked back. It's really inspiring me from the skiing. Got away and done a season after then. And now I'm working with Blair doing all the ski touring. So yes, I've done quite a lot of types of skiing and ski touring recently has been the thing that's inspiring me. Right. Thanks, Gavin. And you, Blair? Yeah. Well, Gavin and I's background is pretty similar because we started racing at the dry ski slope and I had a caravan up at Glenmore campsite. So I spent weekends up in Cairngorm. But I guess, well, Gavin was working as a maths teacher. I spent 10 years out in Val d'Azur running a ski school, a new generation ski school. And I think elsewhere again, we're linked up with them as well. And yeah, I mean, I'd already done a bit of ski touring in Scotland early in my early twenties, just in Cairngorm and actually Pentland Hills as well. But it wasn't something I was doing a lot of until I went through the ski instructor, the Bayesian Awards. And obviously it's part of the Bayesian Award to get to the level you need to be for France. So I got a lot of knowledge from that. And then because of the place I was working, I mean, Haskely's got some amazing access points for ski touring. And most of the big tours there are non-glacated. So working as a ski instructor, that's perfect. You can run ski touring courses with clients. And I got into sort of steeper skiing and more adventurous skiing. Started climbing skiing some of the bigger mountains in the area. And then sort of personal circumstances changed. It was time to move back to Scotland with the family. I just, I wanted to find a way of keeping it going in Scotland. And at the time, yeah, like I said, at the time, I was more interested in steeper, more challenging terrain. So I started up the British Backcountry Group and just tried to find out the people that wanted to do similar things through social media, initially, I was going out of my own a lot. And then, yeah, I started to find lots of people that like to ski weird obscure gullies in the highlands, I think, recruited Gav fairly early on as well. And then, yeah, I was just impressed by just how much was out there, but also how much my skillset was lacking, because I'd obviously done, you know, I'd done a few big peaks, but a lot of it was ski touring and in good snow. Whereas in Scotland, you need more of a holistic mountain area skillset. So, you know, kind of move more to ski mountain areas as well as ski touring. So, yeah, that just kind of brings me up to where I am now. And the courses were out of request from the British Backcountry Group. People were saying, well, you know, you've been doing this sort of thing in the Alps. Could you take me out in Scotland? So it kind of grew from there. And Gav is working for Glenmore Lodge, you know, and we knew each other from before, so it kind of made sense to link up. Excellent. So my kind of my first question really was for anyone who is looking at sort of backcountry skiing and thinking of getting into it, sounds like you've just really answered that in terms of joining your Facebook group and team up with like-minded people, really. But it's kind of how most people you see sort of has done it. It's just kind of come through friends and then for you guys, is that the key? Yeah. Well, I think I think certainly if you if you haven't really got an easy way in like there's not a group of friends that you know already doing it, then you're going to have to look at clubs. You're going to have to look at courses. I mean, you really to look at your starting point and think, well, where am I coming from? If we certainly are very good at upscaling alpine skiers, you know, looking at the areas where alpine skier needs to, you know, sort of navigation, mountaineering skills sort of things you wouldn't get just being a piece skier. But then you've also got people coming from a hill walking background who are looking at this terrific way to move about in the mountains and then have to actually find a way of getting the skills of skiing back down, which is the harder way of doing it. But there's plenty of opportunity in the UK to learn those skills. Brilliant. So can you maybe sum up why everyone should try backcountry skiing, maybe in three words, four words? Put you on the spot a little bit there. Or go. Gavin can do that one. Gavin can answer that one. Brief new worlds. What was that, Gavin? Sorry. Brief new worlds. Brilliant. Love it. Yeah, that's great. And so just in terms of you taught there about giving people the skills to sort of go from from piece to off piece. Can you talk about the kind of skills that are needed to sort of transition from piece skiing to off piece? What do you think, Gavin? Yeah, so certainly like coming from an alpine skiing background then you're very used to just being in the resource, guided about the hill and you may even just be following the piece markers. If you've got a good awareness of using a piece map and stuff, that's that's a that's a good starting point anyway. And if you've grown up through school, dunes or Duke, then one thing, then you may be familiar using sort of OS maps and things, but certainly coming from the piece background, just things like making sure you look at the weather, having some hill fitness that's from sort of doing hill walking and then looking about how you can take that into a winter environment navigation and looking at avalanche awareness as well. Great, thanks, Kevin. And then sort of as part of that, really, one of the questions because we asked for questions before this evening as well and some people sent some in also, you know, feel free to send me questions right now. But one question was how how concerned do you get about people going off piece to or maybe not not that experience who don't have the skills? Is it as a bit of not necessarily part of your groups, but kind of generally, is it something you from your Glenmore Lodge days and is it something that you really strive to kind of, you know, want to correct with people, get them trained and then they can go off wherever they want? Yeah, I think I think in Scotland, I mean, I don't say it doesn't concern me, but it doesn't concern me nearly as much as I did in the Alps and, you know, the sort of skiing that happens in the Alps tent, like there's a lot of people doing ski touring from, from the road and from remote places as well. However, majority of it is coming from a lift system. And the problem with a lift system is you can hop off a lift system, get off piece very, very quickly and easily and get yourself into some pretty serious terrain without too much time to consider what's up ahead. Whereas the sort of skiing that's happening in Scotland and you do get that stuff as well. You know, you can access the off piece from the lift system. Of course you can, but a lot of ski touring, the majority of ski touring in Scotland will be starting from a carpark or a road and you're approaching a mountain very slowly. You're quite possibly approaching the slope you're going to ski very slowly. There's a lot of time to think and consider and prepare. And in fact, you're, you're very unlikely just to head out into the hills in Scotland without having done a lot of preparation beforehand. Scottish Abilene's information and service say that 80 percent of the planning and preparation should be happening before you even get to the, to the place you're going. And I actually think that we've got quite a good culture in Scotland, probably because of the amount of people who hill walk and take part in activities on the mountain. People who do have the knowledge that are coming into ski touring, whereas a lot of people do in the Alps as well, but there are also a large number of people who are just coming from peace skiing and they're seeing this amazing stuff off the side. It's very tempting just to traverse across and ski something that is over 30 degrees and could be avalanche prone or perhaps they don't quite read the weather that's coming in that day and they go somewhere off the back of something and the weather closes in and they can't find a way out. All of these things happen in Scotland, but I do think in general people are more, more prepared for that sort of eventuality. Great. Thanks, Matt. And so the sort of top tips for anyone thinking of heading to Scotland is sort of get, get acquainted with your environment before you go and understand a bit more about the terrain, things like that. Is that what you say? Maybe go on a course, things like that? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Gavi, I mean, what do you think you've got? The reason we've set up a lot of those skills courses is just for that reason, it's because we sort of looked at where people are asking for more input and we're trying to fill the full holes, I guess. Yeah, certainly for alpine skiers, going into ski touring is pretty daunting. So I think the biggest thing, you know, for when they come on a course like this, one, they can just borrow a bit of the kit to get them ski touring, but the main thing is confidence so that they can go out and know that they're going to have a sort of secure day and take some enjoyment away from it. And then they can look to go, right, I really enjoyed that. I'm going to go by myself, ski touring set up and a launch kit and everything, and then really, really throw themselves into. Thank you guys. So kind of want to move on to the sort of where you can go skiing to kind of discuss maybe the how and the why, but where you can go skiing in Scotland and maybe give us a bit of an insight into some of the areas that you can gather. I know you've just you've written an article recently for one of our magazines exploring the back country. So maybe you could kind of give people a few pointers on some of the areas to head to if they're planning on heading up to Scotland this winter. So yeah, the article I wrote for the magazine was six of my favourite dissents in Scotland. And it wasn't geared at people sort of being a disruption or experience. It was just a whole mix of everything. And so places that are good in Scotland on the whole we're talking in the Highlands. And we're really looking at places that you can access easy from the road. So there's quite a lot of hills around about Drumocter, which is sort of an hour south of Aviamore, two hours north of the kind of Edinburgh, Glasgow area. And there's a range of rolling hills there that you can access quite easily. And then we're looking around about the Cairngorm Mountains themselves, whether you're accessing from the Aviamore side from Cairngorm ski area or over on the Glenchise-Bremark area. And then travelling through to west you've also got the ski resorts around about the Nevis range. So you're looking at things like Anagmore, Anagbeg, Bennevis, but pretty steep terrain around there, same with around about the Glencoe area. And then in between the two you're looking at sort of Craig-Meggy mountains around the Monolith. And if you really want to kind of push yourself, I suppose you'd be looking further north, maybe. Bennevis up by Edinburgh Ness is one of the local hills around there. And then if you can find the snow and make it work, if you can maybe get some skiing on Skye or Torridon, then that's the dream ticket. I was over in Skye from a high moon and there was snow down to the sea level when I was away there in February. And we went on hill walking, but I really like to have my skis with me for the same when it was there. Yeah, that would be great. You moved the Cairngorms cap. Yeah. The Cairngorms cap, yeah, I said, yeah. Oh, did you, sorry, I'm not. I think it depends on time of year as well, doesn't it? Like, you know, there's no rule to it, but in general, we tend to start in the Cairngorms and Dramokhtar. And partly because the snow collects. Well, yeah, we've got high, high starting points, but the snow gets, you know, the wind is constantly moving the snow and it tends to start to collect and, you know, for normal season, you could have a lot of south-westerly wind. And so the east side of Cairngorm, for example, will get a lot of snow. Plus you've got the snow fences of the ski centre, which you can follow up, you know, as long as you are careful with that and you're not in the way of anybody else, but you could, you know, that the snow collects there. So that's your access point. And then you can descend off the back of Cairngorm. So and also those hills, you know, there's a lot of rock there, but it's not to the same degree as in the west. So you're skiing over areas where there's like heather under the ground and softer ground and it certainly takes a little bit less snow to collect. But I think another area, did you mention Ben Lawers? No, I just realised I missed out the Ben Lawers area. So, yeah, I mean, for me, again, there's not an exact science to this, but for me, I expect to be starting in Cairngorm, Dremochter, and then I would hope to be sort of February, March moving into like Ben Lawers. And then because of the sort of products that we deliver at the end of the season, we move into the steeper skiing. So that's more in the west around Glencoe, Ben Nevis, and then we go back to the Cairngorms and we do some of the gullies there as well. So, yeah, that's sort of normal season. And then, you know, you've got the steep gully lines on Ben Nevis, which are actually good all the way through until July, sometimes, sometimes, hopefully. So there is some late season skiing as well. Where's this shot taken? Is that one of those? I can't see the slides actually. Again, you know, oh, sorry. That's all right. Describe it to me. Has it got a lock? It's bound to have a lock. Yeah, it looks like it's you in a blue jacket and the red pants climbing up. So I don't have any people who can remember it. No, okay. Don't worry. Hang on, hang on. Okay, I understand. Yeah, the gentleman climbing up the gully. Yes. Yeah, that's Stubcurry and Anlokhan in Glencoe. That is terrific, yeah. So that's, if you ever drive up through Glencoe, there's the car park, everyone parks that and they get out of the car and take a picture of the three sisters and they get back in the car and drive again. Do you know that one? Anyway, it's that one. So you look up into the behind the three sisters, there's a strip of snow, it's broad gully and it's just invites you in from Glencoe. It's such a classic. And it faces, it must face East or North East, I think it must, because it collects a lot of snow as well from the prevailing wind coming off the Atlantic. So pretty safe bet that you'll get to ski that at some point in the year. Pretty serious terrain though. You know, shouldn't be underestimated. Brilliant. You know your stuff. That was good, because you can't see the picture. I'm impressed. Hope it's the right picture. Otherwise that didn't make any sense at all. No, it is that picture. So just, one of the beauties of skiing in Scotland, I always think is that you can get quite remote quite quickly. So of those areas, I bet you don't tend to see many other people or it depends on the time of year, I guess, but is there many remote sort of locations that in Scotland, is that the beauty of Scotland to go and escape from it all in those places? Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's some pretty big spaces, you know, between the roads. So, I mean, it depends your definition of remote, you know, it doesn't really matter. You get the feeling of being remote. You know, when you're somewhere and you look down below you and there's no infrastructure, for me that's remote, you know. But remote, remote, you're remote as soon as you go off the back of a mountain. You know, and that's the, I'm noticing these wee comments popping up somebody was saying something about exit plans, you know. And that's absolutely right. As soon as you go off the back of a mountain, then you've got a really serious to think about if something goes wrong, how are you gonna get yourself back down again, back up and down, you know. Whereas you're the front side of the mountain. I mean, that's quite a sensible thing to start with if you're getting into ski touring. You know, you stay, you go to Jermostor and you ski Gilcarn and you're just a, you know, you're above the, you're above where your car's parked. You know, so you could stay just above your car park. So at the end of the day, you could walk out if there was an equipment problem or, you know, your navigation is going to be easier as well as long as the cloud doesn't come in. But yeah, that, as soon as you go off the back of that same mountain down to Loch Erich, you know, Ben Alder in the background, that is remote because if a binding malfunctions or you get yourself a bit lost, you can get yourself on a right pickle. So there's a feeling of remoteness. And then there's this more seriousness when you get somewhere that, you know, you really have to get out yourself and it'd be very, very difficult for somebody to come and help you. Great. Thanks, thanks, but Gav's busy working away on all the answers to the questions here. That's brilliant. Thanks for your help, Gav. I'm struggling to get to them. But I just, in fact, we'll go to a few questions from people because they're sort of stacking up and even though you're... Gav's going to do all the work tonight because they're not coming on my phone. I know, it's great. Well, one question from Inga was, what's the one piece of kit you wouldn't be without? And Gav's answered that with extra cake and good planning and an exit plan if things go wrong, which is great. One of the questions, this one is from... Sorry, very one sec. This is from Alan. He says, I'm a bit of an old timer. To me, back country is a relatively new phrase. What is the difference between that and ski mountaineering? I thought he was going to say ski touring or off-peak skiing. I'd say there is a difference in ski mountaineering, but actually, Gav, I'm talking too much. What do you think? Yeah, basically the phrase just covers everything. I suppose if you're talking about back country in terms of how it's used now, I suppose that's kind of like a multi-sport discipline getting out there and the kind of wilderness and getting away from all, I suppose, is how people use it. But in terms of skiing back country and ski touring, ski mountaineering, I suppose, as Blair mentioned in France, you can go and ski off-peast and off-the-list system. You can certainly do that in Chamonix and access into back country without using ski touring equipment. But they're certainly all related and a lot of the skill sets blend across the different areas. I would say that as soon as you use the word mountaineering, then I would expect you to be using some equipment, mountaineering equipment, or ice axe and cramplings. There might be the need to use a rope, that sort of thing. There would be a little bit of climbing or scrambling, whereas a ski touring, to me, would be keeping the skis on the feet for almost all of the day. I mean, back country is an American term. I prefer it to off-peast. But yeah, it's much the same as what we've been talking about before. It's just a rebranding of something that was already out there to make it a bit more understandable. And of course, you've got the other term, side country, which would be your accessing terrain just off-the-lift system. But it's semantics, it's not so important. But I guess it can be confusing because there are some terms floating around. And the good thing about back country is it's more... It covers snowboarding as well, splitboarding. Whereas it's very easy to talk about ski touring all the time and that disenfranchises a lot of people who go out and split boards, yeah? And snowblades and mono boards and telemark skis. Great, thanks. That's really helpful, I think, clearing that up. So John asked, for someone that likes to tour alone, what advice would you give, apart from the obvious, like telling someone where you're going? What key bits of kit should you take that people never think of? Yeah, what have you just bought? Well, we've just bought, just ordered a couple of the Garmin in-reach devices. They allow you to track people when they're off in areas where there's no phone coverage. So because of our day jobs, we'll be sometimes, one of us will be working in the mountains and one of us will be back in the sort of central belt area. So having one of these devices allow us to track what's going on and allow some sort of basic satellite communication with each other and also you can press a button and it'll take an alert straight to the mountain rescue surface. Brilliant little device. We're not planning on using it, but it's just another thing that gives you another chance of something that go wrong. What about things like avalanche packs and things like that? Do you always carry those with you? And obviously, transceivers is a must, but avalanche packs? I think with all this equipment, you know, it comes back to the planning stage of the day. You need to think about what equipment do you need for the environment you're going into? And there might be a day in Scotland where, or there might be lots of days in Scotland where you decide that an avalanche pack is necessary. It depends on the terrain you're planning on skiing. I don't use one because I did use one in the past and certainly used one in Val d'Azerintine. I was skiing some very big open slopes and I was skiing them at what I deemed to be a safe time. However, I was working in that environment a lot, so it made sense to have one. At the start of the terrain I'm working in now, there's a generalisation, but there's not always a great deal of snow depth. It's not impossible that there could be an avalanche. What I'd be more worried about in an avalanche is Scotland is trauma because the snow can still move, but it's not as deep as in the Alps. You know, I'm going to get dragged over rocks and all sorts of horrible things. So an airbag's not really going to be the solution in that situation. We certainly always carry a transceiver shoveling probe. And I mean, there's all the equipment we have in our bags, but for me, the number one thing is my map and compass. What else, Gav, what do you think would you put in as your safety equipment as a must? A mobile phone. Yep. Nobody on Facebook knows what you're doing. Is that right? Yeah, that's true. A head torch if you're going at early season for sure. Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, it's so easy to just, you know, the sun's coming down at, what, four o'clock, even earlier sometimes. Yeah, I've bleeped for Gavin, Ciaran, gone carpark a few times. Excellent. There was just one question, I think, Gav, you responded to, but what was the name of the device? It was the Garmin Reach, is that right? In reach. Garmin Reach. I think my Scottish accent is a natural crossfit, really. Garmin in reach is the best. There's other brands as well. It's not the only one. It's just the one we've decided to use this season. Great. Devices like the Spot device and stuff as well that you can ever look at. We've kind of jumped ahead to Gav, but that's fine. I mean, I had a few other questions just about sort of Scotland, particularly, and a few people asking, what's the most satisfying route? Oh, sorry, what's the most route that you regularly go to? So you sort of wake up in the morning and you think you've got a group of guys and girls that you've taken out. Where would you sort of default go? Is there a place that you sort of rely on to deliver the goods, Gav? Yeah, so again, it depends on the time of the season. If it's early season in Scotland, we need to get high. And the most likely place, normally, the start of the year that's going to be favourable will be the Cairngorm Mountains for us. And just so we can get up to like about a thousand metres to make sure that we get the snow. As the season develops, the snow comes down to a lower level. We'd be looking at the hills round about Tremokter from there. Gail Carran is one that we enjoy working on with people that are new to ski touring. If, because the majority of our clients are coming from the central belt, if I can, I'll always use Ben Lors. I just think that the terrain around there is amazing. You've got absolutely every different aspect. It doesn't matter where the snow's been coming in from. You'll find somewhere there with good snow. You've got different gradients as well. It's not, I mean, there are some steeper lines than Meal Nantarmakan. And I guess there is some steeper lines on Ben Lors itself, but they're not the sort of thing people would do. But you've got steeper lines, you've got mellow lines, you've got everything in between. So it's just such a good area. But the big downside of Ben Lors is it is a high road. It's got an access point. Sorry, it's got a road that goes up to a reservoir. So it's the maintenance road for people going up and for them going up to maintain the reservoir in the winter. So it is cleared, but it's not always cleared first thing in the morning. So you need to know exactly what the conditions are like on the road before you attempt that one. Because obviously you're going there when there's low snow and low snow means the road might be white. So people get themselves in a right pickle on that road. But yeah, so the perfect day for me is Ben Lors road is perfect. You can get all the way up to the reservoir, but there's snow right to the car park level, which must be, what is it, 600 meters or something in the car park? Must be about that. Can't remember. Maybe I'll add to my car stuck in at least one occasion there. Yeah, but then from there, you've got, you can go to Meal Nantarmakan, you could go to Meal Corny, you've got Ben Glass, Ben Lors behind. It's just so much stuff there. So I really enjoy working there. But then like I've said, that's not always in condition. So Cairn Gorman's and Oktar are pretty safe, but for me, like some of the most exciting skiing I've done has been on Ben Nevis. I just, Ben Nevis is just incredible. And it's comparable to some of the galley skiing, some of the couloir skiing you go get in the Alps. But on the North Face, the side that a lot of people don't see because they've got the summer walking path. Yeah, so it's on the North Face, you've got all these gullies, you know, Corny and the East, you've just got gullies all around you. And then you've got the classic Tower Galley and Subservitory Galley, which goes all the way down to the valley floor. And then in the valley floor itself, you've got the CIC hat, which unfortunately is closed at the moment, but it's just an incredible place to spend a couple of days. Again, that feeling of remoteness, but with all the facilities there and just this amphitheater of skiing above you. So that, I mean, that's quite special. Spent time there. Yeah, sounds amazing. And is there many places in Scotland that you haven't skied? I mean, what's on your sort of bucket list still to do if there is anywhere? Oh, there's tons, absolutely tons. I mean, you know, our friends who we ski with have done far more than us. You know, they don't do it as a job like we do. And that's probably why they've done more than us, you know, because we're obviously taking people to those snowshoer places where we know folk are going to have a good day. I would love to go and run courses up in the Northwest. Some of the places that Gav spoke about. But that's a long way from Edinburgh. And you've got to drive past all the low hanging fruit. You know, you've got to drive past the caring gorms. You've got to drive through Glencoe, or depending on which side you go up from, past Ben Law. It's always amazing places you'd have to go past and drive another few hours, maybe three, four hours more to get to these other locations, which, you know, I have kind of left them intentionally as well. Like I want there to be some mystery to skiing in Scotland. You know, so I'm not rushing to go and get all these lines that I've seen my friends ski because for me, once I've done those, I'd be like, hmm, you know, what's next? So at the moment, I've still got that to look forward to. Good. I got to ask Gavin, but he's just he's just eaten a biscuit. I think that I am on the moon's pies. Say a question to you, Gary, what have you got? Any places on your bucket list left to ski? For sure. I want to go go up skiing in Torridon. Let's say that's the dream. I mean, yeah. And Chelluck as well. The gullies on and Chelluck. That would be something special. Fantastic. And. What's been your best and worst experiences on a set of skis up in Scotland? Have you got any? I mean, the weather is always a bit. I've got a funny story. So it was my first day working at Glenmore Lodge. I was out with Andy T. With a group and we were taking them out ski touring just on the Cairngorm up something called Lurtras Ghillie relatively mellow ascent and descent. And on the approach up where we tend to follow a streamline on the way up because that's where it collects the snow. And as I was heading up chatting with Andy, just I briefed the group about making sure that they didn't fall into the stream and just keep slightly to the side. And just after I said this, I broke through the snow myself and both feet straight into the into the river. It managed to put my elbows out and roll my set back onto the snow. But then Andy now tells us most of the new instructors. Yeah, that's quite an easy one to do. It's stuck in the stream. What about you, Blaire? You got? You start with a bad day as well. Like again, thinking about Cairngorm, you know, you can it's quite easy to get to be a bit over optimistic with the weather there. And I've had a few where I've gone up there when it's been a south easterly wind and the thing of a south easterly wind and a southernly wind as well. Sometimes this is it can accelerate over the plateau and it can be a lot stronger than you think it's going to be. So I've been out with a group before and it's just, you know, I've misstudied it. It's been felt like about 20 miles an hour more than it should have because it has to sort of it just get squashed. It comes over and accelerates down into the quarry and just get blasted with it. And, you know, 20 miles an hour is a huge difference, you know, when you're out just in ski touring equipment. So I've had to sort of retreat back to the cafe and say, like, guys, this is another day. So nothing as dramatic as falling into the river. But those are the days you learn from, you know, you've been because you spend a lot of time beforehand looking at these forecasts and thinking, you know, is this acceptable? Is this their, you know, am I going out in the right wind speed? And then, yeah, those south easterly winds can can really catch you out. So I have to remind myself every single winter about that and just say, look, you know, there you have to draw the line a little bit lower. You know, it looks like a good number, but it's not a good number because of the direction it's coming in from. But the best. Have you still got the slides up there, actually? Yeah, I've got the one of the guy in green skiing down. OK, so that's what that would be the best. I'm repeating myself again, but this is Ben Lors once again. So this was a day which I've talked about this quite a bit in the past. But but basically it was one of these days where it's the perfect storm in that. It's not a storm. It's not a storm. It's the perfect forecast. It's blue skies, there's snow in Glasgow and Edinburgh. So everybody's thinking, what do I do in this situation? OK, I go skiing. Well, I run the skis. So, you know, the roads to the ski centre are just rammed full of cars. You know, nobody can get anywhere. But Ben Lors is before all the traffic, you know. So I'd arranged to meet my my clients there. I'd gone up the night before, actually, to check the road. It was snowing pretty heavily and the road is blocked. No way I could get up there. But the snow was so low that I thought, oh, why did it just start at the Loch level? So I went to a car park near Lors Village where the Ben Lors tell us a bit further along. And I just parked there and I said, meet me here. And we started ski touring on the farm tracks, you know, right next to Loch Tay and we skimmed up from the very bottom up to the top of Ben Glass. It's got to be not far off a thousand vertical meters from Loch level up to the summit. Skied and powder, which is that picture. You know, it looks like it should be the Alps, but that is a Scottish picture, believe it or not. And I know there'll be people saying, oh, but that's only about that's only about boot deep. Well, boot deep is pretty good for Scotland. And I'll take boot deep. So we had boot deep snow all the way down Ben Glass and we climbed up Ben Lors all the way down. And we just kept going. You know, I physically couldn't ski anymore when I got to the bottom. It was just so tiring, you know, because it was like turn after turn after turn, but it was just incredible snow. So once I worked, I was with Arbroath ski club, actually. I was guiding our Arbroath ski club. So once we got them down off the way and they were absolutely buzzing. First day ski touring and they just had this perfect day. I called my friend and I said, look, you know, you got to come here. If you're going to go anywhere today, just come here. So he drove up and met me at four o'clock and we did the whole thing again at night with head torches. And I just have this memory of skiing Ben Lors. And all I saw was just the sort of head torch going out in front and just these plumes of spray coming up, you know, and because it was it was quite a dark night, you couldn't really see where this was ending. And it just felt like the never ending run all the way back down to the car. So yeah, I mean, it does it's surreal when that happens because you just you sort of think, you know, this is what I want. This is what I've planned for and everything. But then you don't expect it to to come as good as that in Scotland. You kind of expect a bit of pain and suffering sometimes with the weather. But yeah, when you look out like that, it's just it's so good. That sounds amazing. Thanks for sharing that. I'm going to get to a few questions now where to start. So. Let's say this one from John John. Hi, I'm I'm now coming up to 80. I've tried to get on courses in France and Italy, accepted on the course, but told the course is full. Can I still get to do it? And I wonder if he's talking. I'm not sure what which one he's talking about, which course. And yeah, it's one. Sorry. We're not running any courses in France at all. So I'm not sure what. No, OK. Well, if John wants to give us a little bit more of a question about age, I mean, that, you know, I don't know. The thing with Scotland that you'd gave us talking about the physical side of it, I would say if you're if you can climb a Monroe in the summer, you know, and that's well within your ability. So it depends on the Monroe, of course, because someone will start lower than others. But if say you can do a thousand vertical meters of hill walking in the summer and that's within your ability, carrying a pack. And then, yeah, a ski touring day, an introductory ski touring day would be would be something physically you could do the one. The other thing that gets people is the changeable conditions. And that's not just Scotland, you know, like the Alps. When you go skiing in the Alps, you don't always get perfect snow. You know, you've got probably more chance of it. But, you know, in Scotland, you're going to be skiing every single different snow type in a day. So the ability to be able to ski ice and then soft wind blown snow and then maybe some sticky snow and to be able to adjust. That's the thing that that that folk need to need to get a get a hang of really. But all these things are, you know, depending on people starting point, if they're a good red run skier or we can we can usually get people through all that terrain and show them how to do it safely in an introductory course. Correct. Andrea asked two of us are in Glencoe for the last two weeks in March. Would you suggest any reasonably straightforward options that we can investigate? We're fully kitted with that two weeks touring experience. So obviously based on themselves in Glencoe, where would you suggest they could head to if they don't want to just stick in? Get give our friend Rob Kingsland a shout. And like the thing we over in the West Coast is a lot of the trains really steep and there are quite a few terrain traps over there. So in terms of going ski touring, it's possible, but it can certainly be pretty treacherous over there. And the Nevis range ski area should be opening around about March time. And from there, you can if it's up and running, you can jump out and ski over in the backcouries. And then you can get kind of lifts served off peace skiing in Scotland. And that can just be phenomenal. Similarly with Glencoe, you can if there's enough snow, you can ski down to the bottom of the ski area. And the issue with ski touring in that area, normally, though, is the snow doesn't come down low enough. So you'd have to prepare for a couple of hours hike. And again, the mountains are pretty steep. So you're going to be having probably to be using sort of ax crampons and a pretty good navigation and avalanche awareness skills. You can just sort of head around to first sit and there's a it's probably about an hour and a bit strife along from Spinbridge. And you can go ski touring there if there's the snow. Again, the issues are making sure the snow is low enough and they're not covering the roads. Is it is near impossible for us to say, like, you know, to give advice on somewhere in March because it's got so much to do for the wind has been putting the snow. So, you know, realistically, if you're if you're thinking about coming at a certain time of year, you need to be really set on going anywhere. Really, I wouldn't I wouldn't stick to even west or east. I would be thinking, OK, well, I'm going to wait until a week before and then I'm going to decide where I'm going to go based on the forecast, based on previous forecasts. When I say forecast, I mean the Scottish avalanche information service forecast, the mountain weather information service forecast and then updates by net office and speaking to people and looking at what's happening on social media as well, trying to get an idea of what aspects have snow. And then, of course, you've got the safety element as well. You know, if you're going to decide to come to a new area that you've not visited before ski touring, then you're going to have to make sure your navigation is very good and your avalanche avoidance is very good. So there's ways of managing those risks. You know, you can stay on sub 30 degrees slopes and to begin with, you can stay on the front side of the mountain. And then once you feel comfortable with the area, you can start to venture a bit further afield. But if somebody if somebody was going to ask me about ski touring rather than the gully skiing or sort of the more steep or challenging skiing, I would probably steer them more to Cairngorms and Jermakster. Because like Gav says, just the shape of the mountains in the west make it a bit more difficult. Or Ben Lawers again. Are we allowed to say Glen Roy? People keep that secret, don't they? Don't go to Glen Roy. OK, thanks Gav. I want a couple of questions about kit. And then we'll take some more questions from people who sort of written in. But do you have do you have different setups for different conditions and different terrain or sort of go to favorite, I guess, used all the time? Well, it used to be a big thing deciding for certainly Blair and myself, what kit we're going to pack in? Like, are we going to take crampons with us today? Are we going to take racks? What kit are we going to take? And the best thing that we did was purchase some nice lightweight kits so that it's in the bag and it's always there. And we don't need to worry about it. So we've got like the Petzl Leopard Crampons, a really lightweight aluminium axe with just a steel tip. It's not going to be good for ice climbing at all, but it's great for ski mountaineering. And then just like a tiny little shelter bag just so that all the stuff can be in the pack. So at the start of the season, the ski bag's packed and that's it. And it doesn't really change day on day. It'll just be putting in different sandwiches as we carry on. If it's about skis, both of us are an 85mm wide ski and a 177. And I'm 5'10". That must be about a little bit, what, 5'9"? Or something, I don't know what you... Anyway, yeah. So the 85mm wide ski, I kind of feels like it does absolutely everything. I actually used to use a 78 and that was adequate in Scotland as well. But I mean, I'm only 65 kilos. So in the Alps, I would use a 95mm wide ski. I wouldn't ever go wider than that. I've skied like a 106 and stuff. But even all the seasons I did out in the Alps, it was so rare that I needed more than a 95mm. I just find like the wider skis are quite clumsy. When you ski steep, you don't feel like... You kind of roll onto the edge and it feels vague. And also for skinnying itself, a narrower ski skins so much better than a wide ski. So yeah, I just... I love the 85mm. The one thing we're going to narrow is that it depends on your boot. You know, if your boot is wider than the ski, the boot's going to stick out. When you go on an angle, the boot's going to hit the snow and the ski is going to lose grip. So, you know, when you go really skinny, it doesn't really work very well. But, you know, I find the 85mm, I don't have that issue on the steeper stuff. Skins really well, really light. And yeah, it's got nice shape to it as well. So we're both on backland 85s. Atomic backland 85s. All right. Thanks, Max. And do you think... Because we talked about at the beginning that backcountry skiing and ski touring is becoming really popular, do you think it's kit that's helping with that popularity, you know, and if so, which kind of developments that sort of caught your eye that are kind of instantly making it more comfortable or easier for people to ski backcountry? I think it's mainly to do weight of the equipment. You know, yeah, you could have light kit before, but it was a bit of a compromise. You know, it didn't ski very well or it wasn't pretty fragile, you know, kind of ski mountaineering stuff, like racing stuff, you know. But now we're getting down to those sort of weights, but in a ski, like I said, like an 85mm wide ski, which is a ski you can ski most things, and pin bindings that feel secure. And then a boot that's as stiff as an alpine boot, but you know, it's like a 1kg boot or a 1.3kg boot, you know. So that makes it, you know, much less physical. Because what people were doing before to get good performance is they were going out with alpine boots, frame bindings, wide skis that are quite heavy. And that's brutal, you know, that really hurts the body and you can't go very far. So yeah, if you're going to spend the day actually skinning, most of the day skinning, then you don't want to compromise too much on the weight side of things. But I think also the information as well, you know, it's easier to get the information. We've got better weather forecasting. And you know, the pictures that people are sharing are inspiring folk to go out. So I think that's got a lot to do with it. Gav, have I missed anything? Yeah, no, I would agree. So having a lighter weight kit on your feet is really important to keep your fitness level up. Because if you're dragging the load of weight up in your foot the whole time, you've got to lift your foot and off the ground. So this is just like extra exercise you're doing. Really good fitness for you for sure. But it'll just make you tired at the end of the day and you may be not going to enjoy that descent. But as Blair mentioned, there is still a bit of a compromise between the weight of the kit and the performance. For sure, if you go for a really lightweight boot, you are going to lose a little bit of performance. In terms of what you're able to ski, well, you'll have to maybe rain it in a little bit and similarly with skis and bindings. If you're going with something a bit more lightweight, you probably won't be able to ski as good as a piece of performance ski. But you should be putting that in to your analysis. And nobody's watching anyway, so it doesn't matter. Facebook is watching. So thanks, Gav. I'll take a few questions now. I mean, I realize that we're sort of... Times marginalized. That's all right. So Eddie asks, can you talk a little about how you judge your conditions remotely? What temperature keeps the snow in good condition? What is a good or viable accumulation, for instance, at Dramokta? The main thing is you want to see what the snow conditions are like. So when we're up there regularly, it's quite good because even when we're not skiing a particular hill, we can look at another hill that we're driving past or skiing past and get a bit of an idea for the conditions. And if you can see any up-to-date photos or from the webcams, if there's snow on the road at Dramokta, because that's the A9, so you can see that in Traffic Scotland webcams, it gives you an idea where the snow's down to. But for the hills in Dramokta, they're mainly heather-based, so you can get away with skiing and not too much snow, to be honest. And you can remember that it's not like, you know, it's not like when you look at a ski resort and it says like the number of meters of snow in the snow, you know, or how many centimetres of snow it's going to have in a resort. It's so localised because the winds are strong, you know, and they're either packing the snow into the lee slopes or they're cross loading all these little galleys and streams and stuff. So, you know, from a distance, something might look quite bare, but then if you know where all these little streamlines are, you can quite often follow them all the way down a hill and have a really terrific fun ski just staying on these streamlines, unless you gab and you fall in. But most of the time, you know, there's enough snow to fill them in enough that you can make short turns. And that's some of my favourite skiing in Scotland, actually, is where the conditions are a bit lean, but there's been snow blowing in earlier in the season and it's still there. And you just kind of weave your way through from the top of them and roll right down to Loch or back down to your route that you came up. So, yeah, sometimes it could be the Stephen. Great. Thanks, guys. This person doesn't give their name, but they say, I have free ride boots. If I was going to do a tour, say from Cairngorm car park to Ben McDewy, would you recommend a specific touring boot or would free ride boots suffice? Good luck, guys. I think, like, having done that two or a couple of times, the big thing that's really tricky, that is the navigation up on the Cairngorm plateau, is tough, but certainly, if you're looking to tour out there, you'd manage that in any boot that you had, even an alpine boot. It wouldn't be particularly comfortable, but you would be fine. I suppose what's maybe missing from the question is which way you're going to come back and descend. If you're coming back down, say, through kind of Lurchers gully, a bit more of the mellow side of things, or if you're touring across Cairngorm summit afterwards and coming back down through the area, then that's quite mellow, but then there's a lot of steep terrain you could choose to do as well. If you're then going to go ski down to Locann, or if you're going to go and ski down into the Larygrew, that may change your decision if you want a little bit more performance. And again, if you're coming back into the car park, if you're going to go down through the gullies and say, point, connect it. What we do, there's another picture, I think, at the end of just the three skiers, three people approaching the camera. Donna, it's up at the mountain. All right, okay, good. So if you look at there, there are actually clients that were with me the last day I was out before lockdown in March. And we were on Ben Lloyd's again, actually, Neil Mantarmican. And they're all in alpine boots. Because what we do with our introduction courses in our journey days is we have, we use frame bindings. We have Fritji frame bindings in all our skis. We've got 14 sets of atomic demo skis, and we mounted them up with frame bindings deliberately. Now I prefer pin bindings. However, frame binding gives us the opportunity of just letting people turn up with their own boots on, which is really good. Because the last thing I want to be on the hill was somebody who's wearing a set of boots for the first time, and it's just getting all sorts of grief from them. So people come in their alpine boots, and yeah, the way like, maybe could be even up to half a kilo more, you know, than a touring boot. And they don't have the rear, they don't have the walk mode that a touring boot has. A walk mode will let the back boot open. So you can have a longer stride and a bit more comfort. But what we do is we just get our clients to open their clips and just leave the Velcro strapped on up a little bit at the top, and that gives them enough range that they can move in. And then you have a day wearing your own boots. We just make sure that we're not pushing the vertical too much, so it's not too exhausting. And the skis and the bindings we're using are pretty light. So I certainly wouldn't rush out and go and buy specific equipment if you've got a way of using what you've got already. And what you could do is you could buy a frame binding and put that on a set of skis you've got. You know, you'll have to get them professionally mounted, like, you know, Alice Brigham would remove the alpine. I don't know, possibly we'd be able to remove the alpine bindings, fill the holes in safely, and redrill for a set of touring bindings. And you just need a set of skins. So possibly if you've got equipment, all you need to get is a touring binding and a skin. And of course, all your safety and navigation equipment, you know, which is something you should really be budged in for before you think about the skis and everything. So yeah, you don't need to go out and buy all the new kits straight away. Great advice, thanks. There was a question about skins. Have you just answered that, Gavin? Yeah, I was going to give it to that one, Doug, because that's all right. He was asking about if there's a preference for using the sort of traditional skins that have a glue, or I think he mentioned the vacuum skins. I wasn't sure if he was maybe mentioning these glueless-type skins. From being, I've used the glue skins, mainly I've used the glueless skins as well. And I tend to find the glueless skins work well the first time you put them on, but as the day goes on, occasionally I've had some issues with some clients. But I prefer the glue skins. What about you, Blair? Yeah, I used to really like the glueless skins. But as they aged, they seem to age a bit quicker. You know, I don't know. People maybe have more experience with them than I do. I use them for a few seasons. And they were fine until they got wet. So you just really got to keep them dry. I quite like them because you can just get them on and off really quickly. So, you know, when I'm travelling on my own in Scotland, I want my transition to be as quick as possible, because if you're out in bad weather, you don't want to be taking your skis off and all the rest of it for the transition. So what I would do is I would reach down and I would rip my skin off without taking my ski off. And the glueless skins come off really easily. In fact, Gavin, I've got a set now, actually, the ones I use at the moment are glueless. I'm talking rubbish. I do still use them. But yeah, you just have to be really careful not to get them wet. And then you can get a few. You know, if it was more than like two, three descents, I would be considering having a different set of skins if I had the option or some way of strapping them up. You know, at the end of the day, if the glue fails, there are other options. You know, you can you can strap them to your ski with ski traps or cable ties or whatever system you've got. Brilliant. Thanks, guys. This is just a post, not a question, but more of a statement, I think from Mo Douglas, who says, the day was so amazing. I think they've been on a trip. You know them. This has gone back to the story about my best day. So Mo was one of the skiers in that picture. In the paper. Okay. So the day was so amazing. I've been booking with you guys each year. Many of us are. And she's never had the conditions since. But they say it wasn't just the weather. There were some good descriptions of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've obviously organised some a few few weekends. You guys as well. Yeah. And they've been really good, actually. Got lucky. So I'm hoping to do more of those this season. Fingers crossed. All coming, all coming good, aren't it? That's hope, say. Yeah. I see. Just in the questions, I see this one's for Blair. As someone's asking you about using normal Alpine poles or Turing poles. I think, you know, you can use either. That someone's asking you about using poles with ASAX fittings on the end. Oh, yeah. Are you going to do that? If we don't have one, he can maybe tell you about it. I'll whip it. I'll whip it. Is it a whip it or is it the other one, the Gravel one? And yeah. So basically what you've got is you've got, I mean, this is getting, this is something that if you're starting to look at steeper terrain, you'd be thinking about using possibly. And so basically it's a ski pole and it's got an ASAX tax from the top. It looks absolutely lethal. You know, and I used to ski with it and everyone would make fun of me saying, oh, you're going to hurt yourself with that. And I used to say, well, when I fall, I'm not going to go like this. You know, I'm going to drop pole. But no, the whole idea with them was that you could self-arrest with it or more realistically, because it's not as good as an ASAX for that. More realistically, when you just have a little wobble, you could use it for support. So yeah, I mean, these things, is Andrew McLean, I think it is, who's a black diamond designer in America. Yeah, he's skied all these gullies and he's got a guidebook. He was the one who invented that, I think. I might be wrong about that. And he swears by them. He skies with two of them. So and he knows better than us. It must work. So I used them for a few seasons. And the reason I stopped using them is I absolutely hated the way the swing, when I was ski touring, I had this heavy pole and I had this light pole and it just felt awful. So I've now got a Shax, which is like an ASAX that goes into your shovel. So it's like one less thing to carry. And it's nice and light and it's still a decent ASAX. So I keep that in my bag and I just have normal poles now. But yeah, it's a good thing, a good idea. It's just like everything that compromises the actual skinning part of the day. Thanks, guys. I think we've had loads of questions and I was hoping we'd get through those. But I'm sure we can, you know, folk can message us. It might take us a bit to get through them all, but I've got no problem with writing replies. I've put British Backcountry's Instagram and Facebook channels up on there. So if anyone wants to get in touch with you guys, then that's probably a good, good way to go. I mean, in terms of what you guys are up to this winter, what have you got any courses starting? Lodz. Yeah. Yeah. When I guess when the snow comes, you guys. Yeah, I mean, we actually have, we have people who, you know, at this stage in the year, we put stuff on the calendar and we say to our clients, like, we'll try, you know, if it's an opportunity, we'll get out there in December and we'll do something in November. I mean, last year in November, we'd have been amazing. Gav and I were out skiing. But we, oh, no, we did do a few days in November last year. So, you know, just in case, we plan all this stuff and if it doesn't work, we either move the booking onto another date. If the clients would like to do that, we just refund it. And that's just how it works in Scotland. You know, we have to be really flexible. And even more so this year, you know, because as well as weather and conditions, you've got travel restrictions and guidelines for COVID, you know. So it's not, for us, that side of things is not that different. We have to be flexible. And people coming out for stuff to be flexible as well. So we have got more stuff planned for December and as soon as the snow is in the Cairngorms, I expect to be up there. But, you know, we're not going to go up there unless it's good enough to run the course. So we're just monitoring things and as soon as we can get up, we will. Brilliant, yeah. I might be a very good seeker. But in the season, we've got tons of stuff planned. So go on the website, www.british-backcountry.co.uk. So british-backcountry.co.uk. And we've got all the skills courses we were talking about ski touring courses. The backcountry stuff, the way we've used that on the website, that's the more the steeper ski and the gully ski and et cetera. So hopefully something for everyone there. And if you feel like there's, you know, you want you to just come out and try it, then the ski touring courses are for you. If you feel like that you've been doing it for a while and you're wanting to become a bit more independent with navigation or rope work or mountaineering skills, then again, we've got courses specific for that as well. Brilliant. Thanks guys. Really big thank you for this evening. And thanks very much to Atomic as well who helped organize this evening. It's been really, really fascinating. And if anyone's interested in joining us for another talk, we've got a talk next Tuesday about the growth of UK free skiing, grass roots to green shoots. And that's with some members of Team GB, the head coach, Pat Sharples, and a few of his team, that's Katie Summerhays. So there, that's next Tuesday. You can sign up to that on our website. And yeah, please do visit Gavin Blair's site as well. Just give us that again. That's... Yeah, I've started. British-backcountry.co.uk Brilliant. Our friend bought British-backcountry.com without the hyphen and he won't sell it to us. So we have to use the hyphen. So British-backcountry. I don't know what he's got on the other one. So don't look. Just search on, just search British-backcountry online. I managed to put Facebook and Instagram on there, but completely forgot about your URL. So sorry about that, guys. Big, big thanks to you. And yeah, you can leave your van now, Blair. That's... It's so much quieter than being at home. I'm going to stay here. There's no animals or small children. So I'm going to spend the night here, I think. Pretend that we overran a little bit. Brilliant. Just to say, I see that there's a few questions that we've not managed to answer. So if anyone wants to just go on the website and just drop us an email, we're happy to talk to you. Great. And apologies for not getting to all those. We just kind of run out of time. So... But great, great to chat to you guys. Thanks very much. Thanks everyone for joining. And yeah, see you on the hill. Yeah, hope so. Bye for now. All right, bye.