UKC

Dear All,

Sorry if this has been done before but I couldn't find anything useful in the Search Facility.

If the weather comes in when you are touring, what timings do people use for measuring distances?

In reply to Jim Walton:

going up or down ?

In bad weather I tend to use compass for direction (not always easy if descending) together with an altimeter. Assuming you know where you started from, direction plus height usually allows you to estimate your position, although not if skiing on a plateau.

Or just use a GPS

In reply to Jim Walton:

GPS seems to do that pretty well.

In reply to Jim Walton:
I confess I tend to ski tour in good weather. However, for the two times I have ended in pea soup conditions touring I've used a compass with my other half (a splitboarder thus tends to walk the flat sections once the board is re-assembled) pacing to work out distance or just used gps/memory map on phone and followed that.

As I like the downhill parts I generally go for days where I'm likely to be able to see things as it's no fun otherwise.

In reply to Doug:

Hi,

I'm fairly handy and timings when I'm walking/climbing in summer or winter. But I was wondering if anyone had any experience of timing themselves over distances when touring on the flat (lets say you were coming back to Point 1141m from Ben Macdui and the clag came in).

It's not something I've ever had to do but I was wondering if anyone had. I've thought about putting marks on my ski's and counting the number of times the tips pass as a way of measuring distances but this has its own issues in deep snow!

In reply to Doug:

Pacing is good for flat and gentle up hill if you can do it in a straight line. If there are two of you you can use a rope length going down but very slow and time consuming. Not recommended for more than a length or two.

Altimeter and slope aspect works reasonably well but you are effectively skiing and relocating.

GPS is the easiest, ski where it is safe ground & Check GPS to relocate. If you can ski and read GPS then great. I have put in a waymark say 200m from an edge skied to it then changed direction to ski to new waymark tracking parallel with edge until clear of the danger etc. just give everything a wide margin. With digital mapping in a GPS it is easy. However if in serious terrain the safest thing to do is to take skis off and walk / pace on bearing. Then no chance of sliding off out of control into trouble. Less likelihood of falling over and injuring yourself in whiteout or suddenly hitting ice sheets or sastrugi or even boulders or gravel at speed.

In reply to Jim Walton:

Although you can ski on a bearing & use the altitude as a form of waymark, especially if you have an altimeter which allows you to set alarms for given heights - I don't but my now ancient Thomen has a moveable line which I can set & then stop when the needle reaches the line

But GPS is much easier although I'm not so convinced about taking skis of & walking in glaciated terrain

In reply to Doug:

Navigating yesterday on skis, in the Cairngorms, in a whiteout I just estimated my speed- either 3kph when really bad or 5kph with a tailwind and some definition- and used timing for short 500 m sections. Worked as well as on foot.
Navigating with a compass and two sticks is not easy......

In reply to Jim Walton:

I too tend to use a compass and an altimeter.

I've also heard someone tell me about a reliable pacing method when skinning, if you're not getting a slide as well. He made a mark 50cm back from the tips, and if pacing, would move his skis until the tip of one ski met the mark on the other ski. Each double pace then takes you a meter.

Alternatively you could simply measure your pacing as you would while hillwalking.

Mehmet