[pct-l] Snow Issues: Poles, axes, grips, snowshoes, navigation...

[Ned Tibbits]

On Poles, Ice Axes, and Self-Arrest Pole Grips:
    Hiking or trekking poles serve many good purposes and are a purely personal choice. Once on soft snow, the summer stick becomes almost useless without a basket. If both hands are busy with walking sticks on a snowy climb, should you slip and fall, your ability to arrest is pretty poor compared to the use of an axe or self-arrest grip on the uphill pole. The ice axe in the uphill hand is the definitive safety answer for pre-fall anchor and post-fall arrest, should the anchor preventing you from sliding not hold when you fall. Note: the use of a regular walking pole as a plunged uphill anchor on a steep traverse when loaded by a fall often results in a bent or broken pole, the former possibly stopping your slide and the latter leaving you careening out-of-control down the hill with half a pole in your hand. We do not recommend the use of aluminum poles as either anchors or arrest aids. Self-arrest grips (Black Diamond's "whippet" or Leki's "claw) are a good compromise. Carry one with a grip and one without in the snow, if you like two. Use the self-arrest pole in the uphill hand on traverses with the other extended on the downhill. Know how to self-arrest with either hand.

As for snowshoes...
    Snowshoes keep you afloat on soft snow. Those with metal claws under foot can assist with those icy, straight up climbs in the morning. As the day warms up, the hard, even icy, snowpack turns into what some affectionately refer to as "sierra soup." When it does so, you have to make a choice, plow or post-hole your way through it getting wet, cold, and exhausted in the doing, stop for the day, or use snowshoes and keep on going. For the thru hiker, they're primarily good as a traction aid during the morning's ice and to keep going in the afternoon soup. There are other choices: don't carry snowshoes (weight outweighs the benefits?) at all and start hiking earlier in the morning (when the snow is hard) until "soup-time" or just post-hole on and hope you don't hurt your legs or back in the process.

How to navigate over snow and not lose the trail:
    (next edition)

Mtnned
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