These key weeks of season have back to back Alpine Introduction Courses, which are designed to be a great apprenticeship for those first visiting the Alps. They include instruction covering navigation, glacier travel, security on steep ground, use of crampons and axes, crevasse rescue, and also a 4000m Alpine summit (normally Gran Paradiso 4061m in northern Italy). Here is this weeks group on the summit of the Croix de Fer in Switzerland, far above the Rhone valley and Martigny. This means that this week they will summit peaks in France, Italy and Switzerland! Full details about these courses can be found at; http://www.icicle-mountaineering.ltd.uk/alpine%2Bintroduction%2Bcourse.htm