07/07/2021
Just think about it. We all have different skill sets.
Some time ago I got a message in social media from a person who had been running several marathons and ultratrails. He was asking for the track of a route he saw I did, but could not find it anywhere. The route indeed was a ski crossing linking several steep skiing lines with alpine climbs in Mont Blanc range I had done that spring. He wanted to run it on august as training for a ultra since he would be in the region and it looked super nice.
Even if this might sound extreme, it’s too common to see athletes without a mountaineering experience to plan or jump into mountaineering activities without any knowledge of the risks and dangers they might be facing. And often it happens nothing, but without noticing they’re close to big consequences. A change of weather, getting to a place that requires technical capacities that we don’t have or missing resources in form of gear or knowledge to scape or to progress is frequent when we do adventures in mountains. To familiarize oneself with the lecture of the grading systems ( what does it means PD, D… WI4, V+…) to understand if we have the capacities to try or not a route and to get the experience to read the weather forecasts and the weather signs as well as the use of gear and different solutions to solve problems IS mandatory to avoid problems. And for that it doesn’t matter how strong or fast we are, but as all the technical activities, we need to learn it, in a alpine club, with mountain guides or mentors. I think trail running is missing a important point on proclaiming every other race the “hardest race” because they are long, because they’re hot or because marketing but it isn’t any difficulty grading so runners can have an idea of they technical level on trails ( some conversations today lead to misunderstandings when 2 different athletes are talking about a “technical” run one might be thinking of something like utmb and the other of something like Kima…) and that before entering the mountaineering world and understanding it’s proper scale of difficulties and exposures.
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