UKC

Kinda curious. Why don't we use snowshoes more often? I have just been reading various dispatches about knee deep, waist deep and even chest deep snow in the Karakorum. From my own limited experience fighting snow, I have wondered why snow shoes are not more often in our arsenal of gear. Is it a cultural thing? ..no one else is using them It's just not done? Is it ego...well my route is hardcore and not for pussy snow shoes. Impractical? as in There is a chance they are not required.

I have used snow shoes on Mustagh ata and Denali, wondering why they are not used more often elsewhere

Anyways just thoughts after reading dispatches on G2, BP, (Manaslu) and even K2

In reply to radson: If it is waist deep I'd think you're looking at high avalanche risk and most likely, anyone who has committed to climbing big mountains would also have spent the time to learn to ski

In reply to radson:
I'm on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We get anywhere from 5 to 10 Metres of snow every winter in the alpine. We use ski touring gear (both AT and telemark) to get around a lot.Skis are ideal for covering a lot of ground in a given time.

But for certain situations snowshoes are the go to tool and most serious winter mountaineers have a pair or access to some. They're especially useful for:
- Alpine & water ice route approaches, especially where you need to pack your transport over a peak;
- Valley approaches through the forest where the constant freeze/thaw can make the snow surface a nightmare on skis...
- snowboarders who don't have a splitboard use them to get to the top of backcountry drops
and so on.

www.wildisle.ca

In reply to radson: Wild isle sums it up pretty well. It's much more efficient to ski, but sometimes you might want to carry your footwear so snowshoes are better.

It is a bit unfashionable, but most people out in the high mountains in winter are ski touring (where snowshoes would be AWFUL) instead of mountaineering (where they can be perfectly useful). So as well as not many people using them, not many people are around to see those who are using them. If that makes sense.

In reply to Tobias at Home:

No and no. Plenty of deep snow can be well bonded or sufficiently flat not to slide. As for your 2nd point, I bet if you polled all the climbers on all the big peaks - the 14x8K, 7S and Himalaya/Karakoram/Andes in general - you would get maybe half who could ski and probably only 20% who were 'good' and maybe 5% who were capable of skiing down a 30 deg slope at 6000m with a pack on. You don't *need* skis to climb big mountains so there is not need to commit to skiing if you commit to climb them.

Radson has asked about BIG mountains, not British Columbia etc. In these home areas - US, Scotland, Alps, NZ - then skis will almost always be better, for all the usual reasons. But on BIG mountains?

- skis are an extra thing to carry a long way, for probably very little use
- snowshoes may even be considered the same (though I used them up to 6000m in Tibet and found them worth it)
- skiing either up or down at 6000m would be bloody hard work, only a small minority of climbers would be up to that. Who wants to carry their skis and skins on top of their usual load up the moraine, thorugh the icefall and, finally, onto the snowy flat bit?
- snowshoes are not cool, they're for gumbies, skiers are cool, so Serious Mountain People don't want to be seen dead on snowshoes, anywhere. I use them regularly.
- on a lot of big mountains in the Himalaya and Karakoram where the most people are, most of the people are not doing most of the trail-breaking. That's Sherpas, or whomever is unlucky/stupid enough to turn up first.
- one of the problems with snowshoes in climbing is transitioning from snow to ice, or just generally finding varying conditions within a short space. You don't want to be plodding up or down a 20 degree soft snow slope then suddenly come across a section of 50 deg ice which your snowshoes won't handle, requiring you to stop, take off snowshoes, put on crampons, climb it, then reverse all that - or keep the crampons on then have to carry the snowshoes. Too much faff, and possibly dangerous faff at that.
- as Radson suggests, snowshoes are an admission that your route is not very steep, so there will be a lingering subconscious aversion to them amongst plenty of climbers headed off to a Serious Mountain.
- excess baggage. It's bad enough as it is, without taking something as bulky as snowshoes, which can't(?) be bought in KTM or Skardu.
- snowshoes might enable your legs to go faster than your lungs can breathe
- snowshoes might give you one less excuse to turn around cos of 'deep snow' and thus say The Mountain Has Spoken And She Will Not Let Us Pass, This Year. Thank You For All Your Messages Of Support, The Most Important Thing Is That We All Return Alive WIth Many New Friends And Memories To Last A Lifetime. Until Next Time, Namaste! etc etc.

In reply to radson:

because a good, alpine functional (ie crampon friendly) snowshoe isnt easily available.

ive thought this too, especially for saving time on slushy glacial approaches and the snow fields at the bottom of the chutes that come off BP, k2 etc.

i have experimented with some traditional japanese snow shoes, that can go on over crampons (in fact they are made to go over crampons), are tiny and light, but never taken them to any big peaks.
they are helped by a bit of modification, and the strapping is a bit shit, but up until front pointing is needed they work ok. by example, i think after a bit of practice you could use them up the regular BP route camp 2 (except the steep section just before) then above to c3 except where dedicated footwork and sections of ice demanding front pointing were more important.

as it goes, the snowshoes im taking about would clip quite easily to a harness when not needed, and can easily be rappelled in.

you may know the shoe in question yourself. if you want to try them let me know and i will arrange a pair.

In reply to radson: From my experience there's a small number of combinations of activity and conditions in which snow shoes are the weapon of choice. But once you're outside those circumstances snow shoes are, as a friend of mine once said, the work of the devil.

In reply to radson:

Thanks Damo, in your own special way you kind of re-enforced what I suspected

Ed, do you have a pic of your proposed setup. God forbid, if I do have another bash at BP, I would be quite keen on trying something a bit different rather than the utter sheer frustration and futility of pulling my leg out of snow sinkholes.

In reply to radson:

will arrange it asap

In reply to radson: Met a team coming down Noshaq in 2010 who had left their snowshoes in BC and really regretted it so we borrowed them for our climbs further up the Wakhan and they were indispensable for approach on glaciers after mid morning. This year in the same area we took our own but were on steeper ground or moraines throughout and didn't use them. However there were a number if peaks nearby that would have been purgatory to get to/from without them. Definitely a place for them with flattish approaches on snowy glaciers. I've used them to good effect on slighty steeper (35-40 deg give or take) slopes in Greenland where a large party made a long zig zag trail up a very soft slope and to approach several peaks. An Eastern European team in the same area at the same time never got much past their BC because they didn't have any.

Used a pair coming down to the Britannia hut from the Alallin pass and I was moving with less effort than those who had crampons. But coming up from the Täsch hut on crampons I had the disadvantage of carrying the snowshoes. For short trips more trouble than they are worth but for long approaches they must make life easier.