Foreword    by Alan Blackshaw

This book tells the story of a traverse of the Alps on ski from near Innsbruck in Austria to Nice in France, by a group of friends doing a fortnight each year for five years.

It brings out very well the great joy of ski-touring over high mountain passes or peaks, often on glaciers; and the contrast of descending to quiet villages, or ski resorts, every few days.

Each daily description combines photographs, maps and varied descriptive writing in a refreshing and innovative way.

There are also valuable sections on key skills such as mountain navigation or avalanche search and rescue.

The initiative for the journey came from the late Fred Harper, a fine mountain guide whose mountain skills and philosophy, and capacity for friendship, shine through the text.

Peter Seamen is to be congratulated on producing, with his friends, a most interesting and informative account of a significant ski-journey, while also explaining many of the attractions and skills of the splendid sport of ski-mountaineering more generally.

I hope that his book will encourage others to seek for themselves the challenge and enjoyment of travelling in the Alps and other high snowy mountains on ski.  

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