What is Ski Mountaineering. The debate is on at one of the Snow Blogs and instead of posting there I bring my bullshit here where no one cares.
Putting “Ski” in front of Mountaineering doesn’t change what mountaineering is. Mountaineering means an attempt to stand on the summit of a mountain. There has been much controversy over “summit claims” since forever, and this helps define the activity. If mountaineering wasn’t about summiting there would be no controversy.
And this is the great thing about Mountaineering; the purity of the pursuit. In Mountaineering there is just one simple Objective: Summiting (maybe two if you include returing in one piece). It is very easy to determine what is a success and why we have others ways to name different activities.
Anyway, if you are going for a summit then you are mountaineering. If you are using skis to attempt a summit then you could say you are ski mountaineering. And here is how you know you are Mountaineering. If you are going for a summit but don’t make it, then you were not successful. No matter how hard it was or how much fun you had or how epic the descent, it was still a failure. The funny thing is that you could make the top and die on the descent and it would still be a successful summit bid. If you don’t make it you were still Mountaineering, but it was just not a success.
There are all kind of other words we use that are often subject of debate. Take Alpine Climbing or Alpinism. To me, this is reserved for the hardest of Mountaineering objectives done in a particular style. We have phrases like Rock Climbing, Ice Climbing and Mixed Climbing to name the activity of making hard ascents that don’t go to the top. We have Backcountry Skiing and Randonnée to name self propelled ski activity that doesn’t go to the top. Mountaineering needs to be reserved for the activity of actually climbing Mountains to their Top. Enough said.
New Topic:
Transceivers. Talk of the new Diract Transceiver by Ortovox made me think of my first Transceiver. It was also an Ortovox, called the F2 because it was the first “Dual Frequency” Transceiver on the market. It used an earphone with audible beeps to guide you to the Victim and I understand that this new one also has Audible Output.
Hope this works, but the one thing I saw in the article (and I admit to not reading in detail) that is most telling is this quote: “logic is that backcountry skiers potentially make riskier decisions thinking all the safety gear will protect them.”
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To this I would add: Just thinking of this gear as “Safety Equipment” is wrong. At best this stuff is “Protective Gear” that may change the outcome of an incident or accident (it does nothing to make you “Safe”) and I have always considered a Beacon to be be a Body Retrieval Device: either dead or alive.
New Topic: Glacier Travel
Technology to the rescue again at the big Snow Blog. Talk of Progrees-Capture and a new toy, but no real talk about what it is actually like to pull someone from a crevasse.
So, the shit talk continues: first thing to know is that the number of people on the rope makes a huge difference. Two on a rope on a glacier is bad. One person trying to rescue another is going to be difficult if not impossible. Three is the minimum for safe glacier travel as two people are available to rescue the third. But before a rescue is needed, proper rope management may have saved the day. Keep the rope taught and when someone finds a hole their fall will be arrested before they disappear into the abyss.
If someone actually falls into the crevasse, it is far better for them to climb out on their own while those above anchor the line. Look up crevasse accidents and find the ones where a large group of people on the surface haul someone though the lip of the crevasse and kill them. It has happened.
Anyway, don’t rely on technology to save your ass, have a plan that you know will work.