Archive for July, 2008
Avalanche Avoidance – Salvation Through Education
It would be ideal of avalanche education was like driver’s education, where you studied and learned about the activity before physically doing it. But alas it is not, and some skiers go their entire lives without taking a class. Bad idea! A lack of avalanche education should not be considered a backcountry badge of honor. […]
Avalanche Avoidance – Part III
Snow is stable roughly 95% of the time, but the remaining 5% is often the most desirable time to go skiing, like right after a big phat powder dump on a bluebird day. Avalanche safety takes years of practice and as much as anything else, it is about developing avalanche eyes for what will slide, […]
Sunday Photo – Orient Express, Denali
This is one of those cases where the actual skiing was crap, but the location was so amazing it didn’t matter. Doug Byerly skiing the Orient Express on Denali (Mt. McKinley) around 10:30 at night. 1995 Having never skied above 11,000′, Mark Holbrook and I decided it would be a good idea to try skiing […]
Avalanche Avoidance – Part II
Avalanche safety is a blend of art and science. The artful part has to do with route finding and safe travel protocol, while the science aspect is concerned with testing the snowpack and tracking the weather. Both elements are important and ski mountaineers mix and match them according to their own personal interests. Professional Avalanche […]
Avalanche Avoidance – Part I
You know what an avalanche is, huh? It’s what’ll kill ya. Gabe – Alta Ski Patrol The avalanche path and the skier can never truly be friends. In the backcountry, the skier wants what the avalanche path has (steep & deep) but the avalanche could care less about the skier and always has the upper […]
Equipment Design
“Weight, strength, cost. Pick any two.” Joe Skrivan, Black Diamond Design Manager on designing outdoor products. Equipment design is a series of trade-offs between function, weight, strength and cost. Hitting any two of those is easy, any three is difficult and getting all four is what constitutes a “classic design.” A super-strong, lightweight set of […]
New Forum (ohhh laaa la…)
StaightChuter.com now has a sleek, sexy new phpBB forum! It still needs some tweaking, but the basic structure is there and it appears to work. If you get a chance, please stop by and check it out. It supports avatars, photos, etc.. The forum can be accessed by clicking on the “FORUMS” tab on the […]
A plan of action – Part II
To layout a tour, begin with the basics–where you are starting from and where you want to go. Next, mark out any passes that lay between these two points. The first steps to laying out a day tour begin with a trailhead, an objective and any low or safe spots in between. Next, identify (and […]
Planning a Trip or Day Tour – Part I
Most day trips in North America are simple enough to forego detailed trip planning. If it doesn’t work out, well, you can always just follow your skin track back to the trailhead. Guidebooks and local knowledge are the best navigation tools out there, as someone has already made all of the mistakes for you. If there […]
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