Thread: Route selection

Originally Posted by homemadesalsa

Knowing how to read a map is a fairly useful skill set for avoiding this sort of thing.

yes, but so is opening yer eyes and looking around. a lot. a whole lot. i was VERY young my 1st winter out west and a bud of mine and i were up at a trailhead and he pulls out a map and guidebook. i look at him and asked him what the fuck do we need those for? we can see everything right from here. isn't very difficult if you learn to or have an eye for terrain features/angles and such.

and why anyone would hop on a skinner that's already there is beyond me. choose yer own adventure for christs sake. plenty o room to roam and avoid other humans in most places in the mtns.

rog

To paraphrase Forest Gump, "Slackcountry is as slackcountry does." It's where dumb things get done.

As an additional observation, every time I visit maritime zones I can't help but notice that people choose poor routes more often than here in sketchy continental snowpack land. And they're usually just lazy choices.

I was thinking I am glad I don't live in Canada. Had to walk all over the place to get to the top in those exercises.

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

there's a rather large number of people who tour without a map thesedays and based on memory the common Whistler Backcountry touring map isn't particularly great at showcasing what Lee showed in his picture.

The backcountry map doesn't show safe up tracks. Knowing John I bet he figured that it wasn't one of those things that needed to be explained when he did the map.

Originally Posted by icelanticskier

we can see everything right from here. isn't very difficult if you learn to or have an eye for terrain features/angles and such.

and why anyone would hop on a skinner that's already there is beyond me. choose yer own adventure for christs sake. plenty o room to roam and avoid other humans in most places in the mtns.

rog

That's what was mindblowing. You can see the ski tracks going downhill. You can see that the middle slope gets skied. What on earth makes you think - cool I'll skin straight up it

Originally Posted by goldenboy

As an additional observation, every time I visit maritime zones I can't help but notice that people choose poor routes more often than here in sketchy continental snowpack land. And they're usually just lazy choices.

and the sad thing is that when there's continental type pwkls in normally safe maritime or quasi - maritime snowpacks then people die because they make bad choices (what else can you say about that Nelson heliski avalanche?)

Originally Posted by powder11

Skiing musical bumps on a weekend is like going to the mall. Don't do it.

You're right. But crazy thing is there used to be a time when it was just flute oboe was a weekend touron show. The contagion now spreads further and further. I know this is just spraying into the wind (I put the route exercise up on wayne flann blog fwiw) but sometimes you see stuff that's so careless that you just gotta say something despite better judgment - know what i mean?

Originally Posted by LeeLau

The backcountry map doesn't show safe up tracks. Knowing John I bet he figured that it wasn't one of those things that needed to be explained when he did the map.

Yes, I remember the rudimentary routes, which are neither here nor there to me. Even the "wonderful" Swiss/Austrian topo map routes require half a brain to use safely. I didn't think at, looking it up, 1:25,000 and 20m countours if it showed the slope profile well enough to make route decisions vis a vis the approach view.

Originally Posted by LeeLau

and the sad thing is that when there's continental type pwkls in normally safe maritime or quasi - maritime snowpacks then people die because they make bad choices (what else can you say about that Nelson heliski avalanche?)

is this the current theory?

~~~

for me, maps help (and can be a good starting point). the sheep (or maybe it's cow) thing of following an established (or previously established route seems pretty psychologically difficult for some to get past.

also, tremper's, book discusses "habitation", which he illustrates with people habitually crossing an obvious avalanche path near Anchorage because the path follows the route of a summer trail.

Originally Posted by LeeLau

That's what was mindblowing. You can see the ski tracks going downhill. You can see that the middle slope gets skied. What on earth makes you think - cool I'll skin straight up it

One thing to consider is that there's actually quite a bit of uphill traffic coming off singing pass these days. I've seen it skiing low elevation trees off Whistler on storm days. There could be folks who are heading out much farther than Cowboy ridge and they're not even thinking about descending it or aware that people do. I know I've skinned practically straight up parts of oboe and cowboy ridge (not in the zone pictured) on my way to fissile without a thought that someone might be skiing it. I've even complained about ski tracks coming down rather flat terrrain that I'm skinning up (who the fuck comes out here to ski this shit?).

I dont mind following someone else's trail if it goes where I'm going.