Preamble to the Dump
I’ve noticed more, what I would call, human-powered ski trips in the last while with both Wildsnow and Straightchuter doing trips without helicopters this year. PerpetualSki is also constantly doing cool trips without a snow machine. Good for them.
I’m into small, cheap thrills and like to hear about low-key adventures in the mountains. I’ve been thinking about winter ski mountaineering trips and the different kinds that can be put together and the type of stuff I have been working on for the past 30 years and what sort of ski trip this stuff is suitable for. Here are some broad categories of trips to get started:
- The helicopter into a hut for a week trip (heavy camping).
- The helicopter into a remote area trip (heavy camping).
- A traverse. Multi-day backpacking in winter on skis crossing high mountain terrain (light camping).
- Going for summits. This could mean camping heavy in parking lots to overnights in huts (lighter camping) or multi-day trips in high mountain terrain (light camping).
I’ve got my systems for the heavy camping (sleeping in the van at Rogers Pass qualifies for this), but it’s the stuff for light winter camping that I’ll disclose in the dump.
Disclosure Dump
It’s time to disclose some more ideas and because I’m cheap and low-tech I thought I would do some drawings and descriptions to lay it out and to claim authorship and ownership of the concepts.
Use: All of the following ideas are to be used during multi-day ski mountaineering trips where a team of three will be travelling and camping on glaciers. (Other uses are assumed and while I will not expand this discussion into these other uses I don’t relinquish any rights to these concepts when they are used for any other purpose.)
What is key to the overall approach is not the individual components, but rather how those components are integrated into a system. Because the team is doing something that requires more than a day to accomplish they will have to camp. Camping means melting snow, cooking, eating and sleeping and the first layer of the overall system is the qarabu Winter Shelter (or the VRS System). The shelter system has been previously disclosed and I refer the reader (ha!) to that section. What is new to be disclosed in the backpack system being developed to carry the winter shelter and all the other necessary equipment needed to ski mountaineer over multiple days.
Click on the photo to have it resized to fit your screen.
Figure 1 Below: qarabu Winter Shelter.
winter shelter system
Therefore in this disclosure I will describe:
- A backpack system designed to carry the winter shelter that also incorporates the Mountain Tool Holster (previously disclosed). The system includes an extension (Overnighter) and a Sled.
- Specialized Pants that incorporate the Criss-Crotch Fly (previously disclosed) and are designed to work with the backpack.
- A specialized Vest that is designed to work with the backpack.
Figure 2 Below: Pants, Vest, Backpack, Overnighter, Sled, Winter Shelter (packed).
The Backpack
The backpack is designed to work as a 50 litre daypack (big enough for some inverse segregation) and can be expanded with the 50 litre Overnighter to carry the load required for winter camping and transporting the winter shelter (when split 3 ways). A Sled* is designed to fit over everything for hauling and the Mountain Tool Holster and Ski Carry systems are integral to the design. I am experimenting with an unusual manufacturing method for making backpacks, however, the experimental feature is that the backpack has no padding. I’ve asked myself this questions for years:
Why do we pad the backpack when it’s the body that needs protection?
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In this backpack concept the padding is placed in the specially designed qarabu Pants and Vest so that the pack can be stripped to the essentials. I’ve gone through the exercise of counting all the layers between my skin and the outside world when ski mountaineering and the number or them is ridiculous. Between the under layers (underwear with elastic waist band, long johns with elastic waist band), the pants, belt, harness and padded backpack waist strap there are too many. However, the padding is really no where near the body, it’s in the pack that sits on top of all the layers and it shifts with the pack and not with the body. This causes conflicts.
I’m going to put the padding inside the Pants and with the integrated runner-strength belt the Pants can be cinched onto the body placing the padding where it will be most beneficial. There might also be opportunity to reduce the padding to a minimum if it can be strategically located. The system will come with simple leg loops to form a sit harness when used with the belt.
Figure 3 Below: Experimental Massing and Construction Model
Backpack
Figure 4 Below: This is NOT the backpack concept. This is to illustrate the Mountain Tool Holster Concept.
Mountain Tool Holster with an Ice Axe
I’ve been looking at all the vacuum formed packaging we have these days and how fucking tough this shit is. It’s also cheap, plentiful, recyclable and I have access to a vacuum former, so it’s an easy experiment to try and make the main compartment out of two pieces of vacuum formed PETG. All components would be attached to the two halves and then they would be welder/bonded together.
Figure 5 Below: A Vacuum Formed Container Showing Abuse
PETG Vacuum Formed Container
Figure 6 Below: The Vacuum Form In Progress.
Backpack Vacuum Form
The Pants
The Pants are strategically padded to protect the hips and lower back from the backpack and to pad the suspended body as when repelling (almost said abseiling) using the runner-strength belt and leg loops as a sit harness. The Pants are designed to integrate with with the backpack waist belt and Mountain Tool Holster system.
The Pants incorporate the Criss-Croth Fly concept and have specially designed pockets to carry electronics and essentials. The Pants have a reinforced and articulated knee and the lower leg portion can be zipped off, just below the knee sub-assemby. There could be several lower leg/gaiter options (as well as lengths), but for ski mountaineering the lower leg will be integrated with the ski boot through a snow gaiter/power strap concept.
Figure 4 Below: Sketch model showing the Criss-Crotch concept. Also shows the power strap / gaiter concept.
CrissCrotch©
The Vest
The Vest is padded to protect the upper body from the backpack. It is a pull over designed to fit inside the pants, cut to allow fly access and comes with a simple hood. There are two special pockets on the lower chest (below the sternum strap) to carry a transceiver and camera (or other options).
To be Continued (I really mean it tis time).
I continue to update, but jeeze what a shitshow. Glad I’m only doing this to disclose.
* For safety on glaciers and just plain control I go for one sled between minimum of two people, so one sled would go with a team of three and it would be in the middle of the rope on a glacier.
