Snow travel and glacier rescure with SMI, 9-10 Jan 2010
Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:21 am
After two years of winter mountaineering, I decided to take a formal course in snow travel and glacier rescue from Sierra Mountaineering International in Bishop, CA. I wanted a comprehensive review of techniques from a professional mountain guide, to ensure I was doing things the safest, most correct way.
Until now, I had learned my winter mountaineering skills, such as they were, from friends on this board and from reading Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills. It was valuable to take a more formal approach to training, and have someone assess my performance.
The first day was a very basic snow travel course, covering travel over snow and ice on a rope team, with crampons, how to use and ice axe, etc. What were most valuable to me, however, were the self-arrest drills, on which we spent most of the day. I never managed to master one of the self-arrest methods, and will need to work on it some more in the future.
Day two was about glacier rescue, principally setting up reliable anchors and putting together a C pulley and a Z pulley glacier rescue. Norma R from this board joined me for that one. Here we are with our bomber snow anchor:
Without constant training, practice and reinforcement, this course will have been a waste of time. I will make an effort to take the time to regularly practice the techniques I learned on Baldy and elsewhere.
Moar pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simonov/se ... 89/detail/
Until now, I had learned my winter mountaineering skills, such as they were, from friends on this board and from reading Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills. It was valuable to take a more formal approach to training, and have someone assess my performance.
The first day was a very basic snow travel course, covering travel over snow and ice on a rope team, with crampons, how to use and ice axe, etc. What were most valuable to me, however, were the self-arrest drills, on which we spent most of the day. I never managed to master one of the self-arrest methods, and will need to work on it some more in the future.
Day two was about glacier rescue, principally setting up reliable anchors and putting together a C pulley and a Z pulley glacier rescue. Norma R from this board joined me for that one. Here we are with our bomber snow anchor:
Without constant training, practice and reinforcement, this course will have been a waste of time. I will make an effort to take the time to regularly practice the techniques I learned on Baldy and elsewhere.
Moar pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simonov/se ... 89/detail/
