Ski in the Pyrenees, Alps and Eastern Europe- France, Spain, Austria, Italy or Switzerland, Poland, Norway and Mongolia

Ski Touring and Off-Piste Skiing Courses, Day Tours and Hut to Hut Tours

New hut to hut ski tours this season to the Wildstrubel and Dent Blanche in Switzerland, a week of peak bagging in the Pyrenee, ski touring from a boat base in Norway and an expedition to Mongolia

Pyrenean Mountain Tours has been organising ski tours for over nine years. We offer everything from Off-Piste skiing instruction with BASI ski instructors and a 'first timers' Introduction to Alpine Ski Touring Course through to a series of hut to hut ski tours along the Pyrenees and the Alps in five different countries.

For each of the ski tours that we offer there is a corresponding 'details dossier' on this web site. These outline the itinerary for each trip, describe the terrain and difficulty of the skiing and climbing, list the equipment you need and help you organise your international travel. There is a 'help and advice' button on each page that helps you send an email to one of our staff who can answer any questions you have about the trip you are interested in.

To choose your tour, start by looking at the programme below and click on any of the links to read the details. If you can 't find what you are looking for email Simon. We can always customise a trip for you if you have something particular in mind.

2008 Ski Touring Programme

December - January
29 /12/07 - Introduction to Alpine Ski Touring
29/12/07 - Telemark Tuition Week


February
02/02/08 - Introduction to Alpine Ski Touring
09 /02/08- Canigou Catalan Pyrenees - new
09/02/08 - Telemark Tuition Week
16/02/08 - Pyrenean Peaks (day tours from Luz)- new
23/02/08 - Tatra Mountains Poland
23/02/08 - Telemark Mountain Ski Course- new
23/02/08 - Pyrenees Off Piste Ski Safari

March
01/03/08 - Pyrenees Off Piste Ski Safari
01/03/08 - Introduction to Alpine Ski Touring
08/03/08 - Spanish Haute Route
08/03/08 - Norway by Boat 1- FULL
08/03/08 - Off Piste Safari - Gressoney / Alagna
15/03/08 - Luz St Sauveur to Mont Perdu
15/03/08 - Norway by Boat 2 - FULL
22/03/08 - The Pyrenees National Park
29/03/08 - Haute Route Preparation Course
29/03/08 - The Grand Paradiso

April
05/04/08 - The Haute Route
05/04/08 - Wildstrubel - new
12/04/08 - Silvretta Alps
12/04/08- Tour de la Dent Blanche - new
12/04/08 - The Vanoise Alps
19/04/08 - Oestal Circuit
19/04/08 - Dammastock - new
26/04/08- Todi Alps
26/04/08 - Bernina Alps

May
03/05/08 - Bernese Oberland
10/05/08 - Mongolia Altai Mountains - new

Why Book your Ski Tour with Pyrenean Mountain Tours ?
More and more people return to a Pyrenean Mountain Tours ski touring trip each year. More than 60% of our customers are 'returners'. Here are five good reasons why:

1). Loyalty Scheme
If you have skied with us on two or more tours you will receive a £40 per trip discount on all subsequent ski tours. Some of our long standing customers have completed more than 12 ski tours, saving £400 overall.

2). Encouraging You to Join In
This year we are trailing a new discount scheme for people trying ski touring for the first time. If you book and Introduction to Ski Touring course and a ski tour in the same year we will reduce your overall bill by £100.

We have also reduced the overall costs of our ski touring courses this year and included a standard cheaper equipment hire package.

3). The Diary Discount
We know that lots of you keep diaries of your ski tours and we want to publish some of them ! Our aim is to have a link on each of our ski touring itinerary pages to a previous years diary of the trip. If we publish yours we'll pay you £15 (in the form of a discount on a PMT trip of course) for your trouble.

4). BMC Membership and Reciprocal Rites
Many of you have asked us if you can use your BMC, or other Alpine Club, membership to get discounts in the huts on tours. This is a bit complicated as we pre-book all of our huts in advance for a fixed fee. However, this year we will give you a rebate on your hut to hut tour once we have all the bills from guardians.

NB>
You must bring the card along with you on the tour and give a photocopy of it to the tour leader to qualify. A BMC card can't be used unless you also hold the Reciprocal Rites card. We are only able to trial this schemes in Alps, not on our Pyrenees tours.

5). Quality
Perhaps the best reason of all is because we offer a unique high quality service with a lot of support and fun. Lots of you write to us to tell us so:

"The PMT “model” works really well – the whole package: being met at the airport, nights in hotels at both ends, using French Guides and having an English-speaking “fixer” (you!) really rolls up in to a great and fundamentally really friendly experience."

Ed Johnson, the Eagle Ski Club

Ski Tour Standards - the D.A.F Scale
Some clients have asked us to be more specific about the particular requirements of a given ski tour. We have come up with the D.A.F scale in response. Each of the tours on offer next year have been given a grading using this system. A tour grade will be expressed like this: D2:A3:F2.

The following descriptions give the key to the codes:

D = Descent

D1 - simple skiing on wide slopes with little danger of exposure due to cliff faces, seracs or glaciers. Expect slopes similar to a red piste in gradient terms.

D2 - expect some slopes with object dangers like cliff faces, narrow passages between crevasses or ice falls and the occasional gully or couloir. Slopes may be slightly steeper than in our D1 grade but generally do not exceed 30 degrees

D3 - expect steeper slopes, narrower gulleys, and skiing in more confined spaces. You must be able to ski completely in control in all snow conditions on slopes up to 35 degrees.

A = Ascent

A1 - climbs on these ski tours average between 800 and 1000 metres a day at a moderate pace on gentle terrain. Expect to spend fours hours climbing. A1 tours do not generally require the use of an ice axe but you may need boot crampons on one or two passes.

A2 - longer climbs up to 1200 metres a day but with optional peak ascents requiring some mountaineering skills. You will use crampons and may need an ice axe (see individual tour requirements). Expect to cover the 1200 metres in 3.5 hours - so these tours do move at a faster pace than our A1 groups.

A3 - these tours are tougher and require climbs of 1400 metres and occasional longer days up to 1800 metres a day. You need to be completely competent with uphill kick turns (able to perform them in steep tricky situations) and you need an ice axe and crampons. A3 tours are only suitable for people who have completed at least three ski tours before.

F = Fitness

F1 - these tours require basic hill and ski fitness as they are only at moderate altitude and you are climbing and skiing at a moderate rate. We expect you to be able to climb and ski at a steady pace with two or three breaks during the climb.

F2 - as these groups move at a faster pace, and many of these tours are at a higher altitude, you need to be fitter. You should be a regular hill walker or cycle a fair amount and you should be ski fit too - so ideally you will have been skiing on piste (or on an off -piste week) before joining these groups.

F3 - these groups cover ground at a fast pace without stopping very often. You need to be able to climb with a good rhythm at this pace for up to five hours. These tours are only suitable for people who have many years ski touring experience and are well prepared physically.

A note: please bear in mind that although we have given each tour a D.A.F grade the actual grade of a route may well feel different if the conditions are hard - i.e if there is a lot of breakable crust, or stormy weather for example.

Group Sizes
Each of our tour descriptions tell you how many people will be in your group. Sometimes we have two groups following the same route. In these cases it is rare for the two groups to follow the same route exactly as on most of our tours there are a variety of itineraries. Most ski tours have six people per group but a few have just five and one or two have seven.

Customised Ski Touring Trips
Pyrenean Mountain Tours has been organising ski touring holidays for nine years and during that time we have offered more than 40 different itineraries and courses. If you want to do something that is not currently in our brochure email us anyway, we can always put together a tailor made trip for you - anywhere in the world !

How to Book your Holiday
There are three ways to book a holiday with us. The quickest is to use our online booking form here - (n.b credit card payments carry a 1.5% card fee) Just fill in your details, click send and we’ll confirm your holiday within 24 hours. Or you can fill in the booking form at the back of one of our brochures, complete your details and fax it through to our UK Office. Or print the online booking form out and fax or send it to us by post (see address at bottom of this page). Failing that call Wendy or Sandra in our UK office on 00 44 (0) 1635 297209.

To reserve you need to pay a £90 per person deposit and we send you a Booking Confirmation by return. This acts as a receipt for your deposit and an invoice for the balance of your holiday.