Forums Splitboard Talk Forum Crevasses Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total) Author Posts May 5, 2006 at 8:24 pm #567817 powtoy 6 Posts Hi, I’ve been reading this forum for awhile and wanted to pose a question. What’s the preferred way of getting up and over a bridge that spans a crevasse? Here’s the scenario. You’re riding through crevasses and seracs and it’s primarily downhill but with short uphill sections. You’re skiing with several partners. The group has rescue gear, rope. Everyone is skiing with harnesses but unroped. You come to a short uphill bridge which the skiers navigate by carefully sidestepping across. Ideally, you could just board across but you don’t have the momentum and the consequences are stiff. At a resort, you might hop your way uphill but this could destroy the bridge. Or you might take a foot out and shuffle uphill but that’s awkward too. Or you could switch and skin the short distance but this takes time when repeated. So what do you do out in the field? Thanks for replying, great site BCRider. May 6, 2006 at 4:05 am #588701 IceBat 23 Posts @powtoy wrote: You’re riding through crevasses and seracs and it’s primarily downhill but with short uphill sections. Everyone is skiing with harnesses but unroped. You might be unroped, but I’m not. 🙂 May 6, 2006 at 5:39 am #588702 iw 23 Posts I would stop, rope up and take board of. May 6, 2006 at 5:06 pm #588703 fustercluck 668 Posts Rope up with board on and have your skier buddies pull you over. May 7, 2006 at 12:37 am #588704 huevon 124 Posts That’s pretty sketchy territory, you should at least be able to recognize on your way up that this will be a problem, and plan way in advance. I would do everything I could to plan my line of descent so that I never had to consider taking off my board, but in order of preference: 1) ride a line that lets you ride or jump over the crevasse 2) split mode with skins on (roped if it’s really sketchy) 3) rope up and walk over (if you are not alone, and your partners don’t just ditch you) Again to reiterate, you should be asking yourself on the way up if you will be comfortable riding down later when things get soft and sketchy. If there’s going to be a problem section, you’re best off finding out immediately whether your partners are willing to consider roping up for it, so that you can make your decision before it’s too late to reconsider. I would personally flat-out avoid routes that require funny business in heavily-crevassed territory, unless you have a sensible plan for how you’re going to deal with it. May 8, 2006 at 8:34 pm #588705 jimw 1421 Posts Seems like this is not ideal splitboarding terrain. I would think this would be one area where a way to lock the heels in ski mode would be really handy. You could actually ski though the up/down sections (not just “fake split skin/ski” them), then go to board mode once you get to the all downhill/less crevassed terrain. May 8, 2006 at 9:56 pm #588706 powtoy 6 Posts Great feedback, that’s helpful. I’ve only encountered a handful of splitters here in the PNW so it’s interesting to hear different approaches and level of risk. Jimw, you’re right … definitely not ideal splitboarding terrain. Even though I’m a skier, I can’t ski the split w/o skins for the life of me. Even with heels locked down, I’d kill myself in advanced terrain. Do you do this regularly? huevon, for some of our tours, be right or wrong, we go up one side and down another. so planning is based on a 20m topo which can still hide a 20m cliff band. that said, i totally agree with your preference. May 8, 2006 at 10:31 pm #588707 jimw 1421 Posts @powtoy wrote: Jimw, you’re right … definitely not ideal splitboarding terrain. Even though I’m a skier, I can’t ski the split w/o skins for the life of me. Even with heels locked down, I’d kill myself in advanced terrain. Do you do this regularly? I suck at “skiing” the split, even though I used to ski a lot before taking up boarding. I remember after I bought my first split, I took it to the resort to try it out. One of the first things I did was go up on the bunny lift with it in ski mode. I figured I could try skiing it tele style. I had just tried tele skiing and was able to make tele turns, so I figured, how hard could it be? Yeah right. 🙂 I’m sure it was fun to watch. There are some people on this board who “ski for real” in split mode, but I figure that they are either a) superhuman, or b) skiing in softer conditions. Soft boots and strap bindings probably don’t help, but I’ve always thought that being able to lock the heel down would make it at least manageable. Still trying to figure out a mod to make that happen. I’d love to at least try it out. Are you saying you figured out a way to do it? May 8, 2006 at 10:51 pm #588708 powtoy 6 Posts @jimw wrote: Are you saying you figured out a way to do it? Uh definitely not. My mods involve grinding pieces off to shave weight as opposed to creatively building something useful like what you propose. re: tele, I tried exactly the same thing and find that in icy, hard conditions, I’m basically pointing the tips down and praying. Thus, the concept that I’d split the board without skins, especially with crevasses around, is unimaginable to me. May 9, 2006 at 3:04 am #588709 huevon 124 Posts I’ve skied my splitboard for a long time, eventually hard enough to break the slider track at the pivot hole. That sh*t is HARD, but doable (unless it’s powder). It could certainly get you up over a few crevasses, especially with the aid of skins. sort-of relevant link: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/568990/an/0/page/0#568990 May 10, 2006 at 3:55 am #588710 Jon Dahl 384 Posts After looking at that thread, the subject seems almost close to home…..haven’t fallen into one yet, and that’s one heck of a way to do it! Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total) You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
