CSGI Ski Touring Guide Module

A CSGA Ski Touring Guide is someone that has the guiding skills to take skiers safely into the backcountry mainly on foot, with a focus on uphill guiding. A certified CSGA Ski Touring Guide can take clients on long multi day tours and guide clients up easy snow climbs to summits and mountain peaks. With the goal of skiing off the top, or just summiting easy snow climbs. Basically, a CSGA STG Guide needs the skills to set highly efficient up tracks for long days of ski touring, have good rope skills, is able to travel roped up in glaciated terrain and can travel on simple exposed terrain or ridge lines. Exposed terrain that is technically easy to move through but consequential, requiring a rope to eliminate hazard. A certified CSGA STG is not expected to be a rock climber or ice climber. If the terrain gets to a point where ice, snow or rock protection is required, it is NOT ski guiding. Long vertical pitches of climbing with consequence is not ski guiding. This is alpine climbing or mountaineering. To successfully complete the CSGI STG certification all of the following skills need to be demonstrated and examined.

• Setting precise efficient up tracks ski touring
• Excellent navigation skills
• Tech rope skills: (6mm small diameter, rad edelrid or similar) Lowering, raise, raise to a lower, lower to raise, glacier travel on tech ropes, roped and unroped crevasse rescue, block and tackle, rope handling
• Short pitching/belays
• Short roping

The goal is to have this integrated in such a way that only minimal additional training courses and exams are necessary. For full integration CGSI instructors/examiners should complete the full CSGA STG. We have al- ready started implementing the skills into the course process of the CSGI Levels I, II, III and Summer Glacier Course.

For existing certified CSGA II or III guides to become a certified Ski Touring/Ski Mountaineering Guide the fol- lowing will need to be completed.

• Complete a CSGI Summer Glacier Skills Camp that teaches:
  1. Belaying one or more people on low angle short pitches of snow
  2. Ice and short easy rock pitches (Maybe short 3rd class scrambling on rock).
  3. Can lead or has seen a demonstration of how to lead short pitches of ice, snow and
  4. Has the skill and technical rope knowledge to protect clients from a slip on a rope with short roping
  5. Knows how to set up different configurations of lowering one or more

• Complete a 5-day winter training module that reinforces the skills taught on the CSGI Summer Glacier Skills Camp. This winter module will also include demonstration of navigation, route finding, short rop- ing, short pitching, glacial transitions from glacier mode to steep short pitches and precise efficient ski touring up tracks. On the course candidates are expected to show up with a 5-day itinerary that would include summiting of a few peaks that can be skied off and reached mostly on
• Attend the 5-day CSGI STG exam that covers all the skills mentioned