[pct-l] "What's Under the Snow?"

[ned at mountaineducation.org]

"What's under the snow?" (part 1)

 

Another aspect of PCT snow-hiking that aspiring thrus commonly dismiss is,
"What's under the snow?"

 

When people look at snow, they see a white surface. When standing on it,
they don't even wonder if anything could be inside.

 

In fact, the snowpack is comprised of all the variously thick layers of snow
from each of the storms that added to it during the winter. Some layers will
be soft and fluffy, others will be wet, frozen slabs, while others will be
sheets of ice.

 

Snow falls on tall and short trees, logs, boulders, and dead stumps alike,
burying them in the snowpack. Wind transports all sorts of other debris,
both big and small, onto the snow surface just to get buried in the pack
with the arrival of the next storm.

 

So, beneath any random spot on the snow could be all sorts of nasty things
just waiting to injure your foot and leg as they slide dramatically by in an
otherwise benign snow-hiking event we call "Postholing."

 

It's not so benign, really, as your foot and leg can get pretty twisted and
cut up in the process of suddenly and unexpectedly plunging through the
snow's surface at a location where the snow can't hold your weight.
Unfortunately, where this happens once, it often continues for quite a
distance, maybe the rest of the time you're on the snow!

 

How do you avoid this potentially spine-jarring, leg-cutting, knee-twisting,
foot-jamming event called postholing?

 

Snow-hike when the pack is cold enough to hold your weight, like say during
"early season" (before the mountains start warming up in May), during the
early morning (a few hours before and after sunrise), or in the shade (in
the trees or on the north sides of ridges).

 

(c) 2016  <https://www.facebook.com/mountaineducation/> Mountain Education,
Inc.

 
<https://www.facebook.com/mountaineducation/photos/pcb.1342037812487369/1342
020289155788/?type=3> 


 

Ned Tibbits, Director

Mountain Education, Inc.

ned at mountaineducation.org <mailto:ned at mountaineducation.org>