[pct-l] Snow Course 4/9 Trip Report

[Tom Holz (Bigfoot)]

This weekend I was one of 6 people to hike out with Ned and his support 
crew for the Mountain Education snow course they very generously run for 
the community.  I strongly recommend this kind of experience to anyone 
considering a PCT thru-hike, especially to people like me who have had 
no real experience or training on traveling, camping, and surviving in 
snow.  There are some basic principles and skills that you can pick up 
in a relatively safe context that will greatly reduce the risk of 
serious problems in the snow.

First off, our instructors were very friendly, and they knew what they 
were doing.  I like Ned a lot, and respect his approach to hiking, even 
though I am slowly morphing into an ultralight hiker.  The only person 
more comfortable out there was Snowball, and he is a dog with a thick 
fur coat and wolf blood in his veins.  They did a great job of teaching 
and monitoring the group throughout the weekend.

Of the six of us, I think four of us are going to be on PCT thru-hikes 
this year.  I'm flying to San Diego tomorrow, so I wanted to get a quick 
writeup done before I get swept away in a maelstrom of last minute errands.

My Takeaway:  Safety comes from constant situational awareness supported 
by domain-specific knowledge of basic principles and skills related to 
traveling, camping, and surviving in Sierra snow.  The second take-away 
is that if I want to push through snow and ice when I encounter it, I 
need to make some gear changes.  Otherwise, I will have to let the snow 
conditions slow me down, even if it means extra zeros.

Those specific skills include visual route referencing, weather 
prediction, route selection, crossing snow, dealing with obstacles, 
predicting hidden obstacles, preventing falls, using self-arrest to 
recover from falls, monitoring weather, and managing yourself (e.g. for 
dehydration or dangerous cold and wet conditions).

Ok, here's how the weekend went:

We had great weather Friday for the hike up to Echo Lake and across to 
Lake Tamarak, where we setup camp in a relatively open area east of the 
outflow. (Six miles on snow-shoes is *nothing* like six miles on open 
trail, btw!).  Saturday the good weather continued, but winds picked up, 
and the warning signs of an on-coming storm were visible.  We planned & 
executed a route up to a crest near the PCT for visual-route referencing 
practice, and returned back to camp.

There was no storm yet, but the sky was menacing, and the wind had 
picked up enough to snap one of my carbon fiber poles holding up a 
badly-pitched pyramid tarp.  Two tents were relocated a few hundred 
yards for better tree cover from the wind, and the others had wind-break 
added, which precluded the snow-cave clinic, but everyone was teaming up 
to deal with the immediate and expected situations.

Sunday morning was perfect weather for a self-arrest clinic, which was 
fun and very useful.  The weather finally started on our hike back to 
the cars--wind and snow, but we never saw white-out conditions.

In the end, I had one of my lightweight trekking poles snapped in the 
wind due to poor site selection and a poor tarp pitch.  My feet were 
constantly wet due to using trail-runners and waterproof socks, and I 
had a difficult time crossing icy snow because of the running-shoe style 
tread.  I also found myself blindly "following the trail" ahead of me, 
instead of planning and executing my own routes through the snow (I was 
behind Ned at one point, and he set me up by skiing right across a 
snowed-over tree that I nearly fell into.  I laughed when I figured out 
what had happened).  I also pushed myself too hard on the hike out, and 
found myself seriously dehydrated on my drive back to Reno.

Here are some photos from this weekend:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomholz/sets/72157623836291784/

...I wish I had time to do justice to this weekend with a better 
writeup, but I have some errands to take care of this afternoon before 
my flight tomorrow.  See you on the trail or at KO!

Bigfoot

PS - After the hike I looked to see what kind of boots I might buy.. 
there is approximately *nothing* available in size 16 with a good sole 
and heel for snow.  I could do better than the running shoes I'm wearing 
now, but Grr.