Pro Guiding Service - Plan to Survive

Located halfway up Mount Rainier, Camp Muir is a popular day-ski destination. It's a relatively safe tour if you stay on route, there is no rockfall, avalanche, or crevasse danger. Yet every year, more people die on the lower mountain than on the far more dangerous upper. Why? Poor tour planning. Tour planning is a fundamental mountain skill, but few skiers properly grasp it. Start planning well before your departure by considering questions like: How strong is the group? What has the weather been like? What is the forecast? Is there avalanche hazard? How long should the tour take? You can obtain much of this information from guidebooks, topographic maps, avalanche hotlines, ranger stations, or backcountry shops. Or, try to talk to someone who's done the tour, the more recently the better. Then plot your route beforehand. I like to draw bearings on the map, noting key terrain features and their elevations along with distance, elevation gain/loss, and estimated tour time. Also plan an alternate, or escape, route. More than once I've returned via a different route because something (e.g., avalanche danger or time constraints) prevented me from completing the tour as planned. Be sure to bring maps for areas that may provide good escape routes but aren't in your original plan. At a minimum, bring a larger scale (1:50,000) map in addition to one at 1:24,000 so you can view alternatives. Once you get to the mountains, pay attention to potential hazards. Is there evidence of rock or ice fall, avalanches, crevasse danger, or cornice collapses? Remember to consider that hazards can increase or decrease according to the time of day. Calculating your travel time will help put you on a slope at the optimal time. The punctual Swiss have developed a system for this. Say you're going on a day tour to Thompson Peak, and you see from the map that it's four kilometers each way. Assign each kilometer one point, for a total of four points. You then calculate the total elevation gain at 3,600 feet. Give each 300-foot increment (100 meters) one point, for a total of 12. Add the points for vertical distance to those for horizontal distance and divide by four for a total time: four hours. Point values for the descent are the same, but divide the total by 10 since you'll be skiing down instead of climbing up. In this example, your total of 16 points divided by 10 equals 1.6, or one hour and 36 minutes of travel time. These calculations do not include rest breaks. Add in two hypothetical 15-minute breaks on the ascent, and a half-hour stay at the summit. An hour in breaks, four hours of climbing, and one hour and 36 minutes of descent totals six hours and 36 minutes for the whole tour. (This time accounts for average speed in normal conditions. If there's a foot of heavy snow or if Joe, who spends most of his time on the bar stool, is along, you're likely to be slower.) Putting this into practice, let's say you desire to ski Thompson's southwest face and are concerned about avalanche danger. You want to arrive before the sun softens the slope, but not when it's rock hard. Nor do you want to wait at the summit for three hours while it softens. The retailer you bought your map from said he'd skied a peak in the same area last week and the corn was perfect at about 10:30 a.m. From your calculations, you know that you can be at the summit in four and a half hours with two 15-minute breaks.Leaving at 5:30 a.m. will give you plenty of time to relax, have a snack, or, if the conditions soften earlier, start skiing. After each tour, make a habit of reviewing it with your partners. Was your party in danger? What could you have done to eliminate or reduce it? Were your time calculations accurate? Was the terrain different than you expected from the map? Mark on your map any important features or hazards you noticed that weren't indicated. Also jot down the time of day you were in each area, the temperature, and the conditions. This information, combined with weather notes, may prove useful for future tours in the same area. With practice, your tour-planning skills will sharpen dramatically, and you'll be able to return home safely to begin planning the next tour. And that is the goal here, right?