One tip to meeting Maggots for ski touring

[rideit]

Y'all should see what goes down daily on Teton pass.The route choices people make are Unfreakin' believable.

[leroy jenkins]

Y'all should see what goes down daily on Teton pass.The route choices people make are Unfreakin' believable.

Bridger bowl preseason is the same way. Some of those people seem to forget that it is preseason, and the resort is not patrolled. Even during the normal season, it wouldn't hurt to treat the ridge like backcountry.

[Tippster]

Maybe you guys should come up with a written exam. Me - I'll just be honest and hope TH or SFB take me along anyway.

[Danno]

Very important one here. You don't need that baggie and if you keep it in the baggie you are going to waste valuable time when it counts.

I disagree on the importance of this one. The baggie makes it easier for me to lash the probe to my pack. Otherwise it'd be in my pack. How much time are we talking here? 2 seconds? No problem with you wanting to toss your baggie, but I sure hope you don't start a thread about me as a poor bc partner because my probe was in the baggie!

On the scale of what is important, this one does not qualify as "very". IMHO of course.

[PNWbrit]

I disagree on the importance of this one. The baggie makes it easier for me to lash the probe to my pack. Otherwise it'd be in my pack. How much time are we talking here? 2 seconds? No problem with you wanting to toss your baggie, but I sure hope you don't start a thread about me as a poor bc partner because my probe was in the baggie!

On the scale of what is important, this one does not qualify as "very". IMHO of course.

I practice several times a season removing my probe from it's protective condom. Got my time down from inconsequential to barely discernable.

[Buster Highmen]

So Trackhead is an emergency proctologist?

[Buster Highmen]

I disagree on the importance of this one. The baggie makes it easier for me to lash the probe to my pack. Otherwise it'd be in my pack. How much time are we talking here? 2 seconds? No problem with you wanting to toss your baggie, but I sure hope you don't start a thread about me as a poor bc partner because my probe was in the baggie!

On the scale of what is important, this one does not qualify as "very". IMHO of course.

I never toss my baggie. Lunch sometimes, but never the baggie.

[ptavv]

I keep my probe inside my pack without the nylon baggie around it.

The two seconds it takes me to get the probe out, and put the shovel blade on the handle aren't going to be the difference between life and death.

[lemon boy]

I disagree on the importance of this one. The baggie makes it easier for me to lash the probe to my pack.

you're one of those with all kinds of junk lashed onto the outside of their pack huh?


don't be "that guy"

[InspectorGadget]

Me - I'll just be honest and hope TH or SFB take me along anyway.

Me too.

Knowing they were relocating it, I just called The Canyons to confirm where their beacon practice range is this year. It's now up the mountain near Red Pine lodge. In hopes that I can use my AT gear for some AT skiing, I'm taking my avy tools out for some practice.

[Colorado]

Yes beacon, shovel and probe are important. But you also want to be sure you have your Glock at the ready.

[iceman]

Solitude's got one too, they'd just got it going last weekend, I think it's just above (i.e. just past as you drive up the Canyon) the Eagle quad.

[lemon boy]

Solitude's got a glock too? That's awesome.

[PNWbrit]

you're one of those with all kinds of junk lashed onto the outside of their pack huh?


don't be "that guy"

Stuff strapped onto pack

+



+ colection of expensive but never used 'biners

= member of The Mountaineers

[Trackhead]

Good points well made by trackhead and telepariah. Will add one more thing:

- Being on time for early morning meetings - that's at least one basic courtesy.

Yup, if it's a dawn patrol, you have a 10 minute maximum waiting time. After that, you better be hiking fast to catch up, cause I'm not waiting.

Same time rule for bluebird pow days.

If it's a casual start, on a less than perfect day, I'll give you 15 minutes, maybe.

[lemon boy]

Stuff strapped onto pack

+



+ colection of expensive but never used 'biners

= member of The Mountaineers

so sick brah! years and years ago before I climbed and thusly before I gave that shit up I used to always roll with a biner on my pack but it's only function was to hang a candle lanter up in tents. Now I still roll with a biner on my pack but just cause it looks core. You'd be surprised how many people will just totally let you tour with them if you're sporting a single biner on your pack, it's like a BC uber-dude badge or something.

edit- th, I hope you don't mind a little levity in your serious and well intentioned thread.

[Roo]

Minimum requirements:

know how to assemble shovel and beacon in less than 10 seconds

I've reduced my Ortovox M1 to its component parts but have now spent two hours trying to assemble it. I've lost a spring down the floorboards and have managed to get solder on the cat's head.

I take it I'm out?

[Buzzworthy]

True.

I was speaking only to the workload, or aerobic experience. I don't like skiing with people who crank iPods either. They can't hear the snow whoomping or hear their partners. And routefinding is obviously a concern as well.

I thought it would be great to listen to some jammin tunes on the skin up, but I am completely wrong. I can't hear the other(s) nearly as well, can't hear whomping or anything like that and it makes me a bit off balance too.

For me, I have figured out the BC is a place for me to find some serenity. I love to skin in forested areas and be out in the woods and snow. Do I care how fast I get to the top, no. I am out to be out and enjoy myself.

Having good equipment that you hope to never have to use is great, but is almost useless to your partner(s) if you don't know how to use it.


That being said, my first time out on skis was with TH and I had an idea of how to use the stuff, but did not even have my own beacon and skins. So we went to an area with super min. danger on a min. danger day.

[Jer]

Naw, Roo, you're ok. Just make sure you get to the trailhead two hours early. (sans cat).

(And don't worry about the spring, there's always a few extra screws & stuff in any gizmo that aren't really necessary.)

Solitude's got a glock too? That's awesome.

They use it for avy control. It persuades the avy poodle to jump on the slope.

[L7]

Hence the caveat that pure experience under a mentor is also good. Sorry, trying to get work done today too. Don't have time to write a dissertation(sp)

B)

Doesn't sound like you are willing to be that mentor. Who was your mentor? Or did you just got out and spend all the money and take the courses yourself? If someone mentored you it's only fair you give something back. Of course that's dependant on the person first admitting to a lack of experience as opposed to just showing for a group and expecting hand holding.

Of course the flip side of this is if you are 'taking people out' you better have the experience. I'm basically a b/c gaper and one reason for it is the number of people around my area claiming a great deal of experience and offering to 'show people' the bc when they haven't a frickin' clue themselves.

A few years back I did a major glacier route with one friend who guided professionally and was working on winter guide's cert. I kept silent on one very bad call I was nervous about and declined on another and talked them out of a third. Each time my judgement would have been the better choice and each time the most experienced or lead guy was totally off base. My inexperience was up front. Backcountry partners were no longer something I looked for.

Someone else I knew kept offering to take people out of bounds on huge hazard days. She or someone she took got caught in 2 or 3 slides. Last I heard she had moved to whistler and reinvented herself as a bit of a backcountry guru. In the immortal words of one of my most avie expert friends, ' I wouldn't climb a flight of stairs with her'.

I've long said I know just enough about it to realize how little I know. Many people in this area know just enough to be very dangerous and consider themselves expert. I'm really not sure if I know more or less than those people. Other than the true professionals and experts I know it's hard to pick the safe ones through all the bluster.

The people on this board from this area are not the one's I'm talking about. I think most of them have the knowledge or realistic view of their knowledge to be safe and reliable partners.

[hemas]

They use it for avy control. It persuades the avy poodle to jump on the slope.

That's really harsh for the doggies... Luckily we here on the other side of the pond have started to use a more humane (Ok, animal friendly) approach... Instead of avy poodles, we use swedes... They also come in handy to fill those nasty crevasses when we still have thin snowbridges.

[Mtn Man]

Doesn't sound like you are willing to be that mentor. Who was your mentor? Or did you just got out and spend all the money and take the courses yourself? If someone mentored you it's only fair you give something back. Of course that's dependant on the person first admitting to a lack of experience as opposed to just showing for a group and expecting hand holding.

Of course the flip side of this is if you are 'taking people out' you better have the experience. I'm basically a b/c gaper and one reason for it is the number of people around my area claiming a great deal of experience and offering to 'show people' the bc when they haven't a frickin' clue themselves.

I'm basically a noob, and on the EC. Therefore, it's hard to find someone to mentor for me. Therefore I took it upon myself (and a friend who wants to get into the bc) to take the class, do some beacon drills around the mtn, practice assembling things, assessing terrain on occasion, just so when I go out west, I'm hoping someone will let me tag along. I WISH I had a mentor, it would have been cheaper than the class. I'm more of a hands on guy anyway, therefore experience is more valued in my mind.

Luckily, a few here have let me tag along, and I follow their expertise to the T. Eventually when I get more experience, I would love to mentor in the bc. But right now, I'm still in the learning stage.

B)

[Franz Klammer]

I should dig up all the stories my parents have told me of ski touring with friends over the years. I think the classic quote from a newbie was:

"I don't know how to operate the beacon. If there is an avalanche I hope I'm underneath it so you can find me and dig me out."

[Conundrum]

Honesty and humbleness (is this a word?) are the best policy.

-Be honest in yours skills and be up front with that info.

-If the result is your party saying no, be ok with that and ask them to show you the ropes on a non p day.

Oh, and bring beer that day to pay your mentors a "guide" fee when you get back to the cars.

[Danno]

you're one of those with all kinds of junk lashed onto the outside of their pack huh?


don't be "that guy"

nah, I'm really not (I swear!) except for my helmet on the skin up. In fact, Sunday was the first day I have ever lashed my shovel handle and probe to the outside. I noticed the little thingy designed for shovel handles and thought, hmmm, it'd create more space in my pack. Then I thought, hmmm, the probe could go on the other side, creating even more space! Still not sure whether I like that setup, but I'll at least allow for the fact that it is handy for some.