Henry Schniewind To Present Avalanche Talk At The Kendal Mountain Festival

Leading expert on avalanche and snow safety, Henry Schniewind, is presenting a HAT (Henry’s Avalanche Talk) Essentials talk at the Kendal Mountain Festival later this month.

One of the key areas of the talk is understanding that when managed correctly, off-piste skiing or snowboarding doesn't have to be any more dangerous than driving a car on the roads. 

The ‘Essentials’ talk, alongside being an educational tool for any skiers and snowboarders considering heading off-piste this winter, is full of exciting images and videos showing some great riding, along with footage of real avalanches in backcountry areas.  

The Essentials talk goes into the fundamental aspects of how to make decisions and reduce risks in the backcountry – Where you go and when, how you go down or up and how well prepared you are for a crisis. These skills are crucial to risk management and helping to make off-piste skiing as safe as driving to the resort itself, if applied. If not applied, off-piste skiing and touring has been shown to be very dangerous. So one of the questions Henry answers is, “Why don’t people apply what they have learned in training?”

Henry’s Avalanche Talk (HAT) provides training and essential information for skiers who want to go off-piste, but are held back by fear of the unknown and leaving things to fate. HAT is known for helping ordinary skiers have an extraordinary experience off-piste and ski touring 

Henry’s Avalanche Talk has been helping to educate off-piste skiers and snowboarders for over 30 years and has grown into a team of off-piste professionals, often referred to as HAT. Talks and courses have been delivered to tens of thousands of people, presented at international snow science conferences and published many papers and articles, often in the British press

The talk takes place on Sunday November 17 - 10.45am at the Basecamp KMF venue and is part of the ORTOVOX Off-Piste Awareness UK Tour. Following the talk, ORTOVOX, along with HAT, will be running an avalanche transceiver training session (Sunday, 11.30am) with tickets available at a cost of £5.98 each – with proceeds going to the Kendal Mountain Rescue Team.

During the talk, Henry will explain why safety depends less on an advanced understanding of snow science and digging snow pits, and more on observation, checklists, teamwork and managing human factors. He will help answer the critical question ‘Is it safe out there’?

Henry said: “The opportunity to combine talks at the Kendal Mountain festival with our lead partner ORTOVOX helps to make the experience for the winter sports enthusiast that much more fulfilling. I’ll be delivering a risk management formula and checklist framework that will help skiers and snowboarders see how riding off-piste can be no more dangerous than the activities you engage in everyday life, such as driving a vehicle on the roads. It forms part of our safety is freedom vision that helps people enjoy off-piste skiing and touring. The Essentials talk here helps to complete the picture of events that we run throughout the autumn in the UK including talks and transceiver training sessions. My mantra of Ride Hard, Ride Safe really embodies the nature of this whole event and I want to install the belief in riders that they can have fun, push the limits and stay safe out there at the same time.”

Christian Schneidermeier, Managing Director of ORTOVOX, said: “Having Henry talk at this event really adds additional value to this fantastic line up of world class athletes and experts in their field as well as helping to represent the ORTOVOX brand to a discerning audience who really know their stuff, but are keen to learn even more”. 

Participants to the festival can attend the talk free of charge.

Tickets cost £5.98 per person for the transceiver training and can be purchased here

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ortovox-avalanche-transceiver-training-session-sunday-tickets-79567926811

www.kendalmountainfestival.com, www.ortovox.com/uk

Every November, the KMF bring thousands of outdoor enthusiasts from across the globe together to share and celebrate the best stories from the world of adventure. Stories of human endurance, breath-taking environments and soul-stirring journeys from over 150 speakers.