Up is the new down when it comes to ski touring

We head to the mountains of Switzerland to try out ski-touring, which is a form of cross-country skiing that happens at the end of the ski season in April and May.

Simon Henwood at the end of the climb to the summit of the Obertaljoch in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, taking part in the Susten Derby. The annual ski-touring race is open to all ability levels. PhShow more

As spring starts to paint the lower slopes of the Alps green rather than white, and people begin to think of the golf course and the beach rather than winter sports, there's one breed of skier who's coming into their own – ski ­tourers.

This traditional form of skiing, which involves climbing up the mountains under your own steam and exploring the backcountry far away from the ski lifts and mountain restaurants, is generally at its best towards the end of the ski season when the snow is often deepest and the days are warmer and longer, giving more time for big journeys out into the “real” mountains.

And despite the hard graft involved, it’s also one of the biggest growing branches of skiing these days, thanks to huge improvements in skis, boots and safety equipment (such as avalanche airbag backpacks and easy-to-use avalanche transceivers), which make the sport easier, more accessible and less hazardous.

As the respected international mountain guide Nigel Shepherd says: “Today, largely driven by mass participation in mountain sports, manufacturers have money to invest in reliable technologies that make life in the mountains in winter simpler and a good deal safer.

“As well as being safer, this allows more folk to experience the wild-sloped snow,” adds Shepherd. That said, he’s also quick to point out that while better equipment can help you enjoy the mountains in relative safety, “knowledge is still the greatest advantage you can have in these wild places”.

So as a relative newcomer to ski touring, what better way for me to experience it safely than in the company of scores of more-experienced practitioners?

So it is that I find myself at the Hotel Steingletscher, way up in the mountains above the town of Meiringen in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, signing in for a ski-touring race along with my pal Simon Henwood; we’ve entered the Susten Derby, an annual mass-participation event ­attended by hordes of scarily lean, eager-eyed and beardy ski tourers.

The Susten Derby is a bit like a cycle sportive – all levels of ability take part, with some racing for the fastest time and others – such as Simon and I – just there for the experience.

The whole thing is super-friendly and very laid-back, and as the only non-Swiss entrants, we seem to instil a combination of bemusement and concern in our fellow competitors. I assume the bemusement is at our general incompetence; as is the concern. Would we get up and down in one piece? Good question.

To be fair, I’ve done a bit of gentle ski touring in the past, so I know the basics – you have lightweight skis with bindings that can be released at the rear and “bendy” ski boots to allow you to walk uphill, along with “skins” that are attached to the bottom of your skis and have a nap to prevent them sliding backwards on the snow as you ascend. This is known as “skinning up”, so when telling strangers this is your new hobby, you may have some explaining to do.

When you get to the top of your climb – in this case a three-hour, 1,100-metre slog to the summit of the Obertaljoch – you remove the skins and shove them in your backpack, lock down the rear of your bindings, click your boots into “ski” mode so they no longer bend and hurtle back downhill.

For Simon, however, this is his first experience of ski touring. He’s an extremely competent downhill skier, so I know he’d have no problem with the off-piste descent back to the start point, but how would he get on with the climbing?

This becomes apparent within 200 metres of us leaving the starting line. “My boots keep coming out of the bindings,” he tells me.

“That’s because you haven’t got them in properly.”

“Well it’s not my fault, I’ve never done this before.”

After a couple of minutes of faffing around, we get the problem sorted and set off in earnest on our long climb. The event starts not long after dawn, so the mountains are still in shadow – cold at first, but you soon warm up when you’re climbing, and gradually we begin to remove hats and outer layers, which gives us a good excuse to stop for a breather.

The most demanding part of ski touring is the climbing, which can be likened to a long climb on a bicycle; you get into low gear, go at your own pace and take an easy angle up the slope – you’ll see that a ski tourer’s tracks in the snow resemble hairpin bends on mountain roads, with a gently angled route that makes the climb longer but less demanding in terms of gradient.

Being out in the wilds requires you to be far more self-sufficient than when skiing in a resort. You need to carry spare clothing, safety equipment, food etc, but properly equipped, it’s possible to stay out in the mountains for days at a time, spending nights in mountain refuges or even under canvas. The classic multi-day ski tour is the seven-day Haute Route between Chamonix in France and Zermatt in Switzerland.

As Simon and I ascend, other competitors slide gracefully past us (the event has a staggered start, since it’s based on your time rather than direct competition with fellow skiers), until eventually we’re pretty much bringing up the rear, and feeling it, too.

Which is when it occurs to me to simply take a breather and enjoy the view. Especially once we’ve climbed up into the warmth of the sun and the mountain panoramas are becoming ever more expansive. After all, this isn’t technically a race, and even if it was, the only position we’re racing for is not being last.

Suddenly, after more than an hour of grunting and sweating, we start to get the point of the whole enterprise: go at your own pace and enjoy the scenery.

Spring sunshine glistens off the snow, huge grey crags loom above us on either side, while ahead lies a long and gently angled snowfield, at the top of which is the pointy summit of Obertaljoch, towards which various black dots were slowly making their way – our fellow ­competitors.

“We’d best get going; we don’t want to be too embarrassingly last,” advises Simon.

As our altitude increases, so does the frequency of our stops because of lack of oxygen, but the paybacks are ever more spectacular, as most of the Bernese Oberland opens up beneath us, the blue-green serrated lines of huge peaks and ridges fading into the distance, glaciers creaking their way between the higher ­mountains.

By now the faster competitors are swooshing back downhill on their skis, usually with a garbled cry of encouragement as they shoot past, and before long, and almost by surprise, the summit “gate” – two small flags – arrives.

We’re greeted with pats on the back and cries of “well done” from the marshals. There’s quite a crowd milling around on the summit, since it transpires that the actual timing of the event is for the downhill section (in the confusion of signing on and getting our race bibs, it didn’t occur to us to ask about such peripheral matters as how the Susten Derby is actually timed).

This means we can relax while we wolf down Mars bars and gaze out across a goodly swath of Switzerland. When we do eventually get ourselves into downhill mode, Simon is keen to get back to the start/finish as quickly as possible, as “these boots are killing my feet” (he’s borrowed his; fortunately I have my own).

I let Simon zoom off, and take my time, partly because the snow on the upper slopes is quite crusty and difficult to negotiate; partly to enjoy the experience of skiing down 1,100 metres of wide, empty slopes, the likes of which you rarely find in ski resorts.

It also gives me time to mull over why ski touring is suddenly becoming so popular given the effort involved. It’s partly that it answers the wish of increasing numbers of skiers to get into the “real” mountains, rather than the sanitised and patrolled pistes of ski resorts; and then there’s the satisfaction to be gained from getting there using your own skill and muscle power. Not to mention the views.

Plus there’s one other big advantage over “regular” skiing – you burn so many calories in a day out that you can eat and drink as much as you want at the end of it.

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