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How to Build Wands

How to Build Wands

| October 22, 2014 | 4 Comments

I know – the moment you’ve all been waiting for.  Both of you. As detailed in my previous post, I’ve built a lot of bad mountaineering wands before arriving at this solution.  I like this design as they stay put in deep snow for weeks on end, withstand wind, are easy to place, easy to […]

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Ski Mountaineering Wand Making – Greatest Fails

Ski Mountaineering Wand Making – Greatest Fails

| October 21, 2014 | 1 Comment

According to Malcom Gladwell’s theory that a person can only achieve true mastery of an activity by doing it for ten thousand hours, I’m almost a wand building prodigy. This is nothing to be proud of (except if you are my mom) and came about accidentally when I was building wands to mark ski mountaineering […]

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Wands for Ski Mountaineering – Part One

Wands for Ski Mountaineering – Part One

| October 15, 2014 | 1 Comment

Wands are an obscure and trivial part of ski mountaineering, which makes them a perfect topic for straightchuter.com.  I’ve carried thousands of wands, placed hundreds and actually used them for emergency navigation about five times, which made it all worthwhile.  It’s hard to describe how calming and reassuring finding a wand can be when you […]

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How To Know Where To Go

How To Know Where To Go

| January 7, 2010 | 9 Comments

A huge part of backcountry skiing is knowing where to go on any given day to find the best skiing.  It might be corn, powder, chutes, long tours or quick hits, but once you have been doing it for a while, you can almost always find The Goods (well, except for last week – sorry […]

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A plan of action – Part II

A plan of action – Part II

| July 10, 2008 | 0 Comments

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 […]

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Planning a Trip or Day Tour – Part I

Planning a Trip or Day Tour – Part I

| July 9, 2008 | 1 Comment

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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Navigation – Intro

Navigation – Intro

| July 8, 2008 | 0 Comments

“Never take no cutofs and hurry along as fast as you can.” Virginia Reed, thirteen-year-old survivor of the cannibalistic Donner/Reed party. 1847 Getting lost in the mountains is a time honored tradition. Teton climbing guidebook author, Leigh Ortenburger, once said “I’m not publishing any more new routes where people just got lost!”  As long as there’s […]

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