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Post by jimnelson on Feb 16, 2013 14:00:49 GMT -8
I've been thinking about snow travel and how we teach it. Currently we include a variety of self-arrest positions/situations. One is self-arrest when wearing crampons, where it is taught to lift your feet off the snow, which is very different from how we teach it when not wearing crampons.
I keep finding myself questioning this. Can someone help me understand the reasoning behind this? I'm also interested to learn where this idea came from, or when the Mountaineers started teaching it?
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Post by geneyore on Feb 17, 2013 5:32:42 GMT -8
Good question
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Post by nicklyle on Feb 20, 2013 11:29:00 GMT -8
What is the alternative? Mountaineers do a lot of scrambling up steep snow in boots. Using your feet can make self arrest more powerful. With crampons using feet is purportedly dangerous, is it not?
Nick
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Post by jimnelson on Feb 23, 2013 14:42:47 GMT -8
What about the danger of not being able to arrest?
What if the runout is bad?
Not using your feet doesn't make sense to me, so I am trying to understand where the idea comes from and if there are good reasons for it?
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Post by nicklyle on Feb 25, 2013 14:13:59 GMT -8
Well, never having tried this experiment myself, I took the word of others that if a person were sliding fast downhill and plunged cramponed feet into very hard snow or ice the result might be an injury, or out of control cartwheeling. It certainly is true that self arrest doesn't work so well when you can only drive your knees into the snow, in order to avoid catching a crampon.
Now that you mention it, it seems likely to me that in softer snow it might really make sense to go ahead and plunge those crampon clad feet into the snow during self arrest.
I always teach students to dig in their crampon shod feet when preparing to use self arrest to catch a falling climber to whom they are roped. The stance I recommend is with feet dug in and hips close to the snow so that the pull on the rope can be resisted by the muscles and bones of the legs, in line with the slope. No other stance will work.
I have seen students pulled out of their stance and downslope when they made the mistake of holding their hips high off the slope. This ass-high position can work when using self-arrest to stop one's own fall, perhaps helping to drive the feet into the snow, but when the pull of another climber comes to bear on your harness while you have your butt way up off the snow you will be pulled off your stance.
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Post by chrisdessert on Mar 6, 2013 22:51:32 GMT -8
If the consequences of not stopping are higher (crevasse, drop off, etc below) shouldn't you kick crampons into the slope and risk injury/flipping over to stop the fall? As Nick mentioned, hard ice/snow may preclude it as opposed to softer snow conditions that provide more give and less injury/flip potential.
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Post by nickhunt on Mar 7, 2013 12:02:30 GMT -8
Hey guys,
Just thought I'd add my thoughts to this discussion. Below is an email response I wrote to someone who asked this question.
I hope it helps! (Another) Nick Begin quote: "This is one of those questions that seems to divide climbers down the middle. From everything I've heard, the reason for lifting the feet during the arrest while wearing crampons is to (allegedly) reduce the risk of injury to the ankles and legs. The thought is the front points of the crampon will catch "too well" in the snow, and the resulting force on the ankles will be enough to cause significant damage to the climber. I've heard claims of broken ankles, feet, legs, etc.
I personally don't agree with this argument for two different reasons. First, by lifting your feet during the arrest, you are instead opting to use your knees: the kneecaps are extremely fragile, and on firm snow or icy slopes (the exact scenarios where you would be wearing the spikes), there is a good chance the kneecaps would end up in your stomach after attempting to arrest a serious fall! This replaces supposed damage to the ankles with damage to the knees, which doesn't seem to be a better scenario than before.
Second, when executed properly, an arrest should begin at the exact moment a fall or slide begins, before the climber has any chance to gain momentum. Thus the force on the climber's ankles when using the crampon isn't going to be that high to begin with. Since the crampon is necessary for traction to begin with, it seems like a crampon will be necessary to kick adequate buckets with the feet to stop the slide. I don't believe just knees would be sufficient.
... [T]he feet make the arrest. In terrain where crampons are necessary, you'll need crampons to get the purchase necessary to stop the slide. The key is to arrest early in the fall and as quickly as possible: the chances of actually stopping a long slide on icy or firm snow, after the climber has gained momentum, is fairly low, regardless of the technique used."
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Post by jasonmartin on May 19, 2013 6:54:27 GMT -8
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Post by gregggagliardi on May 20, 2013 12:04:04 GMT -8
Self arrest is very limited in protecting a fall on steep hard snow. So limited that beginners should be taught that they cannot rely on it. It much better to depend on good footwork, self-belay and alert climbing partners.
Toes in with crampons would seem to work best on softer snow or right away (i.e., immediately) on a fall on hard steep snow. Once the falling climber begins to generate much speed the likelihood of arresting the fall using any method quickly drops off and also the likelihood of flipping or breaking an ankle rises. The risks of injury with the arrest need to be weighed against the risk of injury if the team fails to arrest. That obviously depends on what is below the (and the climber's knowledge of the terrain below).
Here is one way to put it:
1. Depend on good footwork and self belay as primary protection when climbing steep, hard snow. Don't trust an ice axe arrest, because you can't trust it.
2. Use toes in with crampons but only immediately upon falling, before the speed of the fall is too high. (Note: this requires practice. It is best practiced without crampons in a series of graded falls ( from easy to stop to impossible to stop). This also teaches students the limitations of ice axe arrest.)
3. If the first arrest fails, lift and replant the ice axe drawing it closer to the body, not hanging on at arms length kicking the feet into the snow, which will likely accomplish nothing.. Fight like hell. If you or the team can slow the fall sufficiently with the axe, you might try again with your feet, gradually adding braking power. (Note: this too requires practice (and a cool head), particularly team arrest practice and practice toeing in without crampons to learn something about braking ).
4. Where the consequences of failed arrest are death or serious injury, repeat number 3 until you arrest the fall or the rope team arrests the fall. Failure is not an option.
5. If the terrain below is not treacherously run out or obstacled with crevasses, cliffs, rocks, etc., then aim for slowing and controlling the slide rather than desperately trying to bring it to a complete stop. Better to have to re-climb (or go home) than injure yourself in a fall that would have eventually slowed or stopped on it's own without major consequences.
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Post by dougsanders on Jun 5, 2013 11:07:03 GMT -8
I was taught this technique in 1970 in the Boealps first basic class and applied it in 1976 when I slipped while ascending the final summit slope of Denali. Had dropped my ice axe (remembered being puzzled as to why it was not tethered, bent over to pick it up, suffered vertigo and slipped without my axe.) Immediately went to elbows and knees with no slowing. Slowly lowered feet; one started skidding while the other stuck in the ice spinning me 180. So, I presume it was in, at least, the 2nd edition of FOTH, our text.
The rationale, as I recall it, for using knees was to avoid the crampon instantly sticking in ice or hard snow leading to lower extremity injuries such as seem to be fairly common in glassiding accidents while wearing crampons or to be flipped out of the arrest. In those days we selected ice axes with picks that were a little longer than today's due to NW soft snow. On hard snow we were taught to quickly increase the pressure on the pick (until it was was fully inserted) in lieu of jabbing it in which might yank it out of one's grip or cause shoulder injury.
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Post by jimnelson on Nov 2, 2013 13:21:56 GMT -8
A few more thoughts about crampons and self-arrest. By teaching climbers to lift their feet off the snow when doing self-arrest when wearing crampons, I often hear new climbers give this as a reason NOT to wear crampons for snow travel. Explaining that performing self-arrest with crampons is dangerous. It is easy to see why they might think this. Also crampons are not worn when practicing self-arrest, and they probably shouldn't be. However practicing with a nice runout and the real thing are not the same, possibly leaving students with the idea that crampons should not be worn.
I looked at the clubs accident reports for slips on snow/ failure to self-arrest. Crampons were not worn in pretty much every case from what I could tell. Also there were no reports of slips on snow with failure to self-arrest where crampons were worn.
Does this tell us that self-arrest is difficult when crampons are not worn, and that it is more difficult to slip on snow when crampons are worn?
My sense is that crampons are under utilized for snow travel in the Northwest. For some reason crampons are assumed standard for glacier travel, but not for snow travel.
For example the Seattle Scramble Course includes snow travel in the curriculum, but does not include the use of crampons. In the Seattle Climbing course we include crampons, but for snow travel the focus is Ice Ax and self-arrest without much if any discussion about using crampons as a tool for snow travel safety except to lift them off the snow.
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Post by steveglenn on Nov 3, 2013 13:39:11 GMT -8
When I originally learned self-arrest, I was told to get everything sharp into the snow ASAP, before I started to build up speed. And so I did. That worked for me until I took The Mountaineers' Basic course in 1971. Our practice slope at Paradise was steep and hard (with a very good runout). We were told then, that if we dug our crampons in before we got our ax into the snow that we would flip, or break a leg, or have some other undesirable outcome. We were told to dig our crampons in once we started to slow down. I did that for the practice, and then reverted to my earlier training, which was to avoid speeding up in the first place. As I concentrate more on balance and good foot-work, I have had few falls on snow, and when I have fallen I have not gone far or fast.
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Post by jeffrose on Nov 16, 2013 15:50:20 GMT -8
I agree with many of the points that have been made on this forum. It seems like stopping the fall early is key, so that the falling party doesn't build up speed. We can likely all agree on that. The question, then, is what to do if the climber does, in fact, build up speed.
Many of you have probably seen this video, , where the falling climber picks up speed and is in the kind of terrain that would likely cause a flip or a broken body part if the crampon points snagged. I understand the point about knee caps being damaged, but I still think I'd advocate putting knees down before crampon points.
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Post by gregggagliardi on Nov 17, 2013 16:40:01 GMT -8
The video demonstrates that there are situations in which one cannot rely on self arrest. This is one of them. When the terrain is so steep that two tools are used in low dagger to climb, self arrest is not a reliable option. Belay the pitch or solo at risk. What you do with your crampons in this fall doesn't really matter. You're going down and you're not going to stop until you slow way down, dead or alive (and probably injured)..
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Post by nicklyle on Jan 25, 2015 1:04:54 GMT -8
I would say that self arrest to stop a personal fall is over-emphasized at the expense of emphasizing good footwork, crampon use and especially SELF BELAY.
Roped Team arrest with ice axes is a seperate topic, with it's own particular technique.
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