Ski Tour Planning

The last line in my Kaleetan Pk post - at the bottom of the photos - got me thinking:


"Statistics:  Kaleetan Peak (6259'), Snoqualmie Pass.  13 milometers, 4380' climbed and skied."


Kilometers?  This is America, what the hell am I doing using kilometers?  And then to mention elevation as a measurement in feet in the same sentence!  I might as well be running around screaming "SOCIALIST!  SOCIALIST!  SOCIALIST!"  What am I thinking?

It boils down to tour planning - which is essential is I'm trying to make a plan that fills an 8-hour commitment, but doesn't accidentally run over to 10 (bad).  Or 12 (very bad), without some sort of good excuse like Joe-blew-his-toe-binding-and-we-spent-an-hour-rigging-a-repair-to-get-back.

A tour plan can also help figure out deadlines.  Need to ski a slope before it gets so warm that you're scared of it?  Figure your tour plan, determine the latest time that you dare be on that slope, and pin the tour leg to that time to determine when to get going.

Anyways, I thought I'd write a post about how I do this:

1.  Get a map, and draw in the route you want to take.  I find National Geographic Topo to be really useful for this in the US.  Make a note of the total distance and elevation.

13 kilometers and 4380' of gain/descent later, we have a tour.

2.  Now split the route by Transitions - points that you expect to switch between skinning, booting, and skiing.  Take note of the elevation of each transition point, and the distance between points.  On paper, I usually draw a short line across the transition point and write the elevation there.  On Topo, I'll split the route as many times as I need to, and have the uphill portions in red, the bootpacks in yellow, and the downhill in blue.  Each individual distance between transitions is a Leg.

The same tour broken into Transition/Legs.  Note that I expected a boot pack to gain Bryant Col, Kaleetan Notch,
and Kaleetan Peak.

3.  Start plugging these elevations, distances, and skins, boots, and descents.  Spreadsheet this - either on paper or on the computer.  I rigged up a blank spreadsheet on Google Docs that looks like this:

4.  Take a look here - I have columns for Elev Difference (the absolute value of the elevation difference between the start and the finish of each leg), then that same measurement in meters in the next column, which starts to hint at my socialist tendencies.  I need both values because 1) clients always ask how "much further?" and typically think better in feet, but 2) the metric value makes time plan calculations easier to use.  Its also important to note that most USGS maps still measure topography in feet, making this the better value to use if you're doing this on paper.  If you are doing this on paper, than divide your feet value by 330 to determine meters.

5.  Distance - since I can have Topo measure horizontal distance in kilometers, and I really only care about this for time plan calculations, I try to keep things short by measuring distance in km.  I round it up the the next whole unit to factor in time spent at transitions eating, drinking, photo-taking, and jawing, so the total sum of leg distances on the spreadsheet will add up to more than the original measurement back in step #1.

6.  Unit estimates - I use is the Munter Method for time estimation - which gives a "unit" for each 100 meters of elevation difference, and a "unit" for each horizontal kilometer and add up the units per leg.  I also make a note if this leg is skinning/booting/skiing (U/B/D) to help me with the next step.

7.  For the Munter Method, I take the units per leg and divide it on an open ended scale to arrive at a time estimate.  As a general rule of thumb, 4=skinning and 10=skiing.  These values may be changed based on the group, i.e. a group of beginner backcountry skiers may be 3/9, while on my AMGA Ski Mountain Guide exam we were traveling at 7/12.  Being able to use a spreadsheet, with formulas, makes this a quick exercise - that slowest part is transcribing the elevations and distances from the map to the spreadsheet.

But what matters?  Some of these columns are important in the field, so I'll either print this off and stick it in my pocket, or I'll write the following columns into my notebook:

Those notes are extremely short hand, and will look something like this:

Does this work?  We followed this tour last Sunday, and finished it in 8:15 - 15 minutes faster than my 8:30 plan.  When I worry about foul weather, I'll enter GPS waypoints and make notes of which points correspond to transitions, and compass bearing are written down on a printed map.

TeleVision Trailer

OK, unless you're hiking up Mt Rainier the ski season is still a few months away. But ski movies are just around the corner - premieres start next month. Powderwhore Production's trailer just came out for their 2010 film, TeleVision. This is one movie that I'm going to make sure to see on tour - my friend Paul Kimbrough is one of the film's stars!

$27 PRE-ORDER

Book Re-review: Climbing Stronger, Faster, Healthier

Climbing Stronger, Faster, Healthier: Beyond the Basics
by Dr. Michael Layton, D.C.
http://www.amazon.com/ | $24.95 | 4.5/5 stars

When my "editorial staff" read my original book review, they asked, "Really?  Is that the best you can do?"  This prompted me to take note, and this past week I finally had time to sit down and trully read the book, cover to cover, in several sittings.  This was something I claimed unable to do in the previous review - WRONG.

Dr. Layton's book has given me treatment ideas for my sore lower back, my tight IT bands in my knees, and my beaten feet.  Its given me a concise form to incorporate bouldering into my training program without overwhelming my climbing performance.  I'm going to try out the recipe for energy gel blocks and bars on page 132, and use the calorie calculations a few pages later to help me reach a lower target weight this summer.  And I found a huge motivational lift reading the short essay, "Grades, Partners, and Mental Games" on page 175.

A client looked it over after I finished my cover-to-cover read on a three day trip to the Palisades, and commented that he really appreciated the plainspoken language and the numerous photos that do the best job, he felt, of depicting exercises or concepts outlined in the text.

And that's what I think it Dr. Layton's strength in this book - he's managed to write something useful across the experience spectrum, assuming that you've at least tide into a rope at the local gym, and that the book doesn't exist in a vacume without dozens of other references available.

Climbing Stronger is a worthy edition to anyone's reference collection - and I'll urge you to get a copy, take the time to read it through, and pick out the gems that will work best for your goals.

Book Review: Climbing Stronger, Faster, Healthier

Climbing Stronger, Faster, Healthier: Beyond the Basics
by Dr. Michael Layton, D.C.
www.amazon.com | $24.95 | 4.5/5 stars

You can have too many reference books. There are different ways to skin the cat, and when not climbing climbers like to argue about climbing. So I've whittled down the reference section to what I think of as an absolute minimum, about a foot of shelf space. Usually, a new reference book replaces an older text covering the same subject. But this time I'm adding Dr. Layton's book to the collection.

Two parts a training and three parts performance, Climbing Stronger is not a reference book that I could pick up and read from start to finish. It's 207 pages is packed with 8-point text, and Dr. Layton promises that later editions will use a larger type. I found it most useful for addressing specific questions: Why may the sole of my foot hurt? How can I add a weight-training program to my climbing regimen? What can I do to lighten my pack load on those multi-day trips?

And Dr. Layton isn't basing his recommendations on his extensive armchair mountaineering experience. Prior to becoming a successful sports chiropractor in Salt Lake City, Dr. Layton was known as "Layton" to the Puget Sound climbing community, where he made some of the great alpine first ascents of the last decade.

I've said this is on my reference shelf, but that's not entirely true. This book is sitting on my coffee table, where I'm still picking it up two months after receiving it to open to a new page and check something else out. Its a great edition to anyone's reference section.

Book Review: Exploring the Coast Mountains on Skis

Exploring the Coast Mountains On Skis:  A Guide to Ski Mountaineering, 3rd Ed.
by John Baldwin | www.johnbaldwin.ca

That's it.  I'm moving to Canada.

I'm surprised more of us snow-loving yankees aren't migrating north already.  We're faced with a winter that may - if we're really lucky - last 4 months.  And Vancouver, for starters, has the most ethnically diverse restaurant scene north of L.A., provincial health care, and a bus line from the city core to the "local" ski hill.  Then this book just puts another nail into the coffin of my days as an American resident.

As John points out in his introduction, the first eddition was 144 pages.  25 years later it weighs in at 447 pages, putting it up there with one of Beckey's tomes.

Covering the coastal ranges from Mt. Baker to Skagway, the length of the BC coast, is trully phenomenal.  Its been sitting on my coffee table, allowing me to check out another chapter of tours and descents, grouped by geography, as I taste my first cup of the day's java.  At first, I checked out all the "local" chapters, the areas that are easily accessible from Vancouver.  Then I really became intrigued by the huts that dot that landscape and get special mention, in appropriate moments, throughout the book.  Then I examined the huge icefields, most of which I had no idea existed.  This morning I started to look around the remote and cool sounding towns tucked into the Coast Range.

With an easy to understand rating system, it makes it simple to flip this book open to any page read the narrative, and get a good grasp of the difficuly and time involved for each adventure.  It doesn't give out the most challenging, no-falls-allowed terrain, but it does give the reader a resource to look for that!

And adventure is key in this book.  John doesn't give out a play-by-play description of how to get to where-ever you want to go.  It gives just enough to get the reader looking in the right direction and asking the right questions.  When I head up to Pemberton in March, you can count on this book coming with me!

Book Review: Die Trying

Die Trying:  One Man's Qest to Conquer the Seven Summits
Bo Parfet with Richard Buskin
www.amacombooks.com | $23.00 USD | 3/5 stars

Mr. Parfet tells a story that is not as a-typical as he may think.  Perhaps this is because the investment banker-turned-entrepreneur hasn't had the free time between overcoming his deslexia, climbing mountains and participating in adventure races to read the numerous books already written by people - like him - who have accomplished the same goal and made the same discoveries.  Like Mr. Parfet, they found in mountaineering an opportunity to set themselves apart from their co-workers and a reason to have a life, not just a life style.

It is well written and an easy read.  Yet with all the comparisons and associations made between a maturing,successful climber and an entrepreneurial businessman, the book reminded me of a corporate motivational speaking tour, coming soon to a city near you.  Taking time to make these connections and the simplified explanations of the routes and equipment made it apparent that his book is meant for those unfamiliar with the sport, not the armchair mountaineer.  What prevents me from being too harsh is that Mr. Parfet accomplished what I wish for every one of my clients.  In setting this arbitrary goal, Mr. Parfet became healthier, fitter, more worldly, and more aware of the environment than he was before.  Those readers trying to find motivation to seek something beyond new golfing trips and restaurants will find this book compelling, as they'll find any book about the Seven Summits compelling.  Climbers already familiar with this plot will be compelled to look for something else.

Movie Review: Wild Stallions

Final Grade: C-
Conclusion:  Skip the movie, watch the trailer instead.  Unless you jib.

So last week Patsy and I joined Zoe, Andrea and James to grab dinner at the Fifty Fifty Brewery in Truckee and to see the ski film Wild Stallions, by Meathead Productions.  I promoted going to see this movie over the Winter Film Festival at the Truckee High School and the opening night of the Alpenglow Winter Film Series, showing a multi-media presentation of big wall climbing by Dave Nettle.  The movie - exclusively an east coast film - was brought to the left coast by a group of local University of Vermont alumni, and the cover charge went to the local disabled winter sports programs.  The dinner and the cover charge were the only things I don't regret.



The movie featured jibbing.  A lot of jibbing.  Then we'd finally get some powder shots, cut with jibbing, and then they'd stop by some school park in town to - you guessed it - jib some more.  Admittingly, the jibbing was fantastic.  But I don't jib.  And the powder shots were all to short and similar - I can't distinguish in memory one tree-filled powder sequence from the next.  And I couldn't tell if the music was coming from the soundtrack or the voice-over of the DJ, confusing me further.

I finally watch the trailer while getting ready to write this and caught a surprise:  the trailer is actually more entertaining than the movie!  It was cool - humorous, adventurous, and I would have watched the movie anyways if I had seen the trailer beforehand.  And I still would have sat there, wondering, "I could be at Bar One right now watching some really fun climbing show." 

In the end - pick something else.  Go pay $10 for a movie-theater movie, or keep that money and head over to your version of Syd's for $2 PBR's instead.

On My Shelf

I have an entire shelf of books dedicated to climbing and skiing instruction.  And I still reference them from time to time.  Before I crack open Freedom of the Hills or the AMGA Technical Manual, I'll try to find the answer in one of these first:

Ice and Mix Climbing: Modern Technique, by Will Gadd

Alpine Climbing: Techniques to Take You Higher, by Mark Houston and Kathy Cosley.

Climbing Self Rescue: Improvising Solutions for Serious Situations, by Andy Tyson and Molly Loomis.

Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering, by Martin Volken, Scott Schell, and Margaret Wheeler.

Extreme Alpinism: Climbing Light, Fast, and High, and Kiss or Kill: Confessions of a Serial, by Mark Twight.

Self-Rescue, by David Fasulo.

Books to Read

I'm asked on almost every trip to recommend a reading list. Here is the stack that I pull from regularly:

These first three books cover everything I ever do in the mountains. They're a much more comprehensive and understandable collection than the Mountaineer's Freedom of the Hills.

Alpine Climbing: Techniques to Take You Higher, by Mark Houston and Kathy Cosley.

Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering, by Martin Volken, Scott Schell, and Margaret Wheeler.

Climbing Self Rescue: Improvising Solutions for Serious Situations, by Andy Tyson and Molly Loomis.

These next two books are a little dated (Extreme Alpinism was printed in 1999 and Self-Rescue in 1997), but are still worthy reads. Twight's book inspired me to examine my climbing tactics and strategies. Fasulo's book features the great illustrations of Mike Clelland - I look at the pictures more than read it!!

Extreme Alpinism: Climbing Light, Fast, and High, by Mark Twight.

Self-Rescue, by David Fasulo.