Tips & Technique
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Navigation – Intro
“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 […]
What Makes You a Good Partner – Part III
Continued from yesterday… Be Flexible Plans change and stuff happens. If you are goal oriented, you know you will not succeed unless you persevere, but at the same time, group desires and competence should be taken into account. Changing plans to accommodate conditions or abilities can be frustrating, but instead of forcing the issue when […]
What Makes You a Good Partner – Part II
(Continued from yesterday…) Be Yourself Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses that he or she brings to a team. Breaking your share of the trail is nice, but no more important than knowing first aid and avalanche safety, or keeping the trailbreaker from bonking with a well-timed cookie. It is not always possible to be […]
What Makes You a Good Partner – Part I
Being a good ski mountaineering partner is like any other successful partnership – you have to want it to work and make the effort. There are no set rules and it will be different each time you go out with a new partner or group. The ideal is to complement each other’s strengths, weaknesses and […]
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