EX SCHUSS SLAYER – ST ANTON AM ARLBERG

Written By: FS Fryatt

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Austrian

With the traditional houses and the ever-wonderful Austrian hospitality, it truly is a beautiful area that offers everything for the Alpine adventurer. Having ran ski expeditions now for over 20 years in St Anton and in the surrounding satellite villages and ski areas of St Christoph, Stuben, Schrocken, Warth, Lech and Zurs, they provide a training area that ticks every box for all abilities. It’s extremely well-connected and has a fast lift system allowing the skiing areas to extend to approximately 650km. The beginner areas at St Anton and Zurs were particularly good with all the necessary slopes and facilities to progress at a steady pace offering the complete novice the safe environment to pursue the alpine sports, putting themselves in stretch yet feeling overjoyed at the progress they have achieved. This season has seen the addition of the 2023 allmountain training area located on the Rendhl side of St Anton which provided an amazing facility. For experienced skiers who wanted to pursue the Ski Foundation 2 qualification, this area has a fully automated avalanche training area with pre buried casualty transceivers and offered the off-mountain touring area. The area is regularly policed which not only gave an amazing training opportunity but also offered peace of mind to me as the expedition leader and to the other instructors on the exped. As the group’s abilities progressed, the Arlberg region offered endless challenging runs with many opportunities to review and adjust techniques on the move. The mountains can be unpredictable, and you can be sunbathing one second and then can’t see further than two feet in front the next. The weather during the Exped was at times incredibly pleasant however, low cloud, heavy snow and high winds were all encountered, adding to the AT experience providing additional challenges to the students and staff. It is fair to say it was Alpine weather at its best and indeed, challenged even the most experienced of skiers.

With over 40 personnel from RAF Benson on the Exped, the learning challenges encountered by the participants were all very different. However, when the dust or should I say snow settled, there were 24 Ski Foundation 1 qualifications and 14 Ski Foundation 2 qualifications achieved. Four of the Exped members have been put forward to Ski Foundation 3 and ultimately so that they achieve Ski Leader 1 to become instructors in the future. To allow Personnel Development Training and team building, each group was set several tasks during the week. One of the groups had to reach a designated point by means of navigation and leadership skills, aided by the Piste maps and local area signed information posts. This proved extremely successful and tested everyone in an unfamiliar winter environment. All personnel who took part in Ex SCHUSS SLAYER have shown determination, ambition and in some cases courage, to overcome many obstacles and personal fears to rise to the challenges that were set.

This expedition was designed to stretch the participants but also provided a rewarding experience, both in terms of the organisation and the execution. The facilities and training areas which now include the allmountain training area are worthy of note, the lower areas of St Anton, Lech and Zurs are highly recommended for future winter expeditions. For the more advanced elements of AT, this area proved to be ideally situated: allowing all the planned activities to be conducted safely. This expedition has run for many years and is seamless to those taking part, St Anton is a fabulous ski area and the power of adventurous training cannot be understated in any way as it continues to offer personal confidence and team building whilst also aiding retention in the service and giving people a life skill in a sport that may be out of reach to many.