page_title: High mountain tour
section_title: Special requirements
hierarchical_section_title: High mountain tour / Special requirements
caption_attribution_description: English: Saussure on Mont Blanc (1787) by Marquard Wocher 1790 Deutsch: Saussure am Mont Blanc (1787) von Marquard Wocher 1790 Français&#160;: Voyage de Saussure à la cime du Mont Blanc au mois d’août 1787&#160;», IIe Planche, (2e version corrigée), Planche dessinée par Marquard Wocher et gravée et publiée par Chretien de Mechel en 1790.
context_page_description: A high mountain tour is a mountain tour that takes place in the zone that is covered by ice all year round, the nival zone. High mountain tours require special preparation and equipment.
context_section_description: In glaciated terrain the risk of crevasses means that even technically easy walks require the use of rope, crampons and ice axes as well as knowledge of safety and rescue techniques. Techniques and equipment, the use of which can become especially important in high mountain tours, include crevasse rescue, the T anchor, the ice screw and snow protection. Walking with a rope requires a roped team to be formed and makes trekking alone dangerous. In addition, a certain level of fitness and height acclimatization is often unavoidable. Especially for mountain tours in high mountains such as the Himalayas, the Karakorum or the Andes, which reach elevations of over 6,000 metres above sea level, one or two weeks should be allowed for acclimatization. Low temperatures may also be an important factor.
  By contrast, classic high mountain tours require not just sure-footedness and a head for heights but the ability to handle greater technical difficulty in rock and ice climbing as well as mixed climbing in combined rock and ice terrain.
  The dangers and problems presented by high mountain touring, as in sports climbing, are caused less by actual the actual technical difficulty of climbing than by the (often rapidly changing) external conditions. The description of the requirements of a tour with the aid of climbing grade scales is therefore problematic. As a result, such scales attempt to take into account to a greater extent as the severity of a route or its fitness requirements. An example of an established rating system for Alpinism is the SAC Mountain and High Mountain Tour Scale.
  Map reading and the ability to read the weather may also be important in high mountain touring. When snow falls a knowledge of avalanche behaviour is necessary, even in the summer months. High Alpine terrain is currently subject to a particularly high degree of change in terms of glacier retreat and climate change, which can both increase or decrease the difficulty and dangers of high mountain touring.
caption: The start of the high mountain tour at the end of the 18th century: contemporary portrait of Horace-Bénédict de Saussure on Mont Blanc in 1787
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:05:24 21:52:01", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6615", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "992", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "788"}