From Suunto's Kim Havell: Top Ten Tips for Beginning Ski Mountaineers

After a 13-day cruise to Antarctica to ski virgin powder with 22 of the world’s best guides, super skier Kim Havell has some advice to share.

Kim has skied on all seven continents, with first descents on four, and adventured in more than 50 countries. During her travels, she has climbed and skied big peaks in the Himalaya & the Karakorum as well as the highest mountains across the US, with first descents both at home and abroad including in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Kim's tips, based on advice from ten of the world's greatest backcountry guides appears in Outside Magazine.

Noah Howell climbs steep snow on a windy day Photo: Jim Harris

The recommendations of famous guides like Doug Stoup, Kris Erickson, and others, really lays out the prime skills the novice backcountry skier needs to master for safety and to get the full experience.

It's great stuff from training to increase your mountaineering endurance, to avalanche safety knowledge, all the way to where to stash your mountain axe.

Chris Davenport belays Seth Wescott on a steep pitch Photo: Jim Harris

Stoup and Havell See the Sights in Spitsbergen

Spitsbergen is the name of a breathtaking Norwegian island along the Arctic Ocean. Boasting fjords, mountains and glaciers, Spitsbergen is home to reindeer, polar bears and a host of marine mammals.

Just ask polar explorer and expedition leader Doug Stoup. Expedition leader and founder of Ice Axe Expeditions, Stoup takes Suunto products along for all of his journeys, which include dozens of trips to both the North and South poles.

Most recently, Stoup and his team explored the wild and snowy sights of Spitsbergen. Coincidentally, Suunto athlete Kim Havell was also on this epic trip--see her smiling face hiking to a top of a ridge at about 36 seconds into the video.
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