Posts by Manziel
Generally, the more expensive a ski is, the more expensive material and manufacturing processes can be used. For example, cheap ski typically has a foam core which is quite soft and is equally soft...
While doing some research for my answer in are ski areas shutting down? I was a bit shocked by the American prices for lift tickets. Vail is at $220 and while this may be an exceptionally expensive...
Source: Wikimedia Commons Probably the easiest and most durable version is the use of cairns. Provided there is enough rocks around, they are easy to build, unaffected by bleaching of the sun and...
I have been digging a bit for numbers and it turned out to be surprisingly hard. Although I have been hearing every now and then about a ski resort that has been closing, I have not found much of d...
I just stumbled over an explanation of this in a ski review. According to this, the radius in use depends on where you put your pressure. If there is more pressure to the front it will use the long...
You probably should not use it any more. Old ropes seem to be surprisingly strong. A German mountaineering magazine made tests with old ropes. Of 14 tested ropes, 10 would still have been strong en...
Some skis nowadays have a different sidecut radius at the front, center and back of the ski. With the different radius they claim to be suitable for both long and short turns. (So far the theory) ...
In his book "The Push" he describes this a bit. Most of the time they were using a running belay which means they were climbing at the same time with some pieces of protection in between them to av...
Professional use These devices are intended for professional rope work. When doing rope access work, there are typically two ropes involved. One is the working line which is loaded with the worker...
The correct answer for sure is "it depends on the exact model" but that is quite useless ;) As far as I can see all the airbag vests deploy over your whole shoulder area. This is definitely not su...
Some explanations come to my mind Freedom of movement Especially if you use the climbing aid, your toes will go through the plane of the snow shoe. The hole allows your toe box to get "through" t...
A bit later it states that during glacier travel, there should be a minimum of two rope teams. Is there any explanation why there should be 2 teams? The only case where this makes really sens...
I have never been to yosemite so I cannot answer about this part based on experience. There is however a question about backpacking in april which suggests that there will be still a lot of snow in...
I think you just excluded the main difference which are avalanches (on steeper sections). Another difference is the higher risk of freezing to death in winter but this is not glacier specific and e...
There is one thing to bear in mind about making safety equipment mandatory and that is the effect of risk compensation. Basically it means whenever you make something safer, a certain group of peop...
There have already been quite some answers but I have the feeling that these answers are a bit one-sided towards paper maps and definitely do not reflect the reality outdoors. First, navigation on...
This touches quite a lot of different dimensions so it will be hard to answer everything in a single post. One of the appeals of climbing outdoors is that it is outdoors. Consider a nice sunny day...
There are multiple types of winter hiking that you may refer to. First there is the winter hiking trails. These are often found in or near ski resorts. They are often groomed and can therefore be u...
From the technical side I do not see any major issues. Assuming you made a proper, redundant top-rope anchor, your main concern should be a possible sharp edge at the top which can be countered wit...
This is a well-known problem, escpecially on sport routes that have been bolted on rappel and have a bolt placed every like 2m in a straight line. The only real solution is to ask someone involved ...
There are some helpful basics like tieing into a rope and belaying that directly transfer from rock to ice climbing as they are the same regardless of the conditions. Further transferable skills m...
Most likely this is not a problem of physical power or endurance. A moderately active person should have sufficiently trained legs for climbing. This is especially true for the beginner end of the ...
I would definitely discourage this. Accidentially releasing the device is dangerous and can lead to fatal incidents. Moreover, releasing the device is rarely needed to my experience. Therefore this...
There are certainly use cases for snow shoes. However, I believe this is rather a niche when talking about proper alpinism and not just snow shoe hiking as it is always an addition to the normal eq...
Basically all answers boil down to the availability of anchors. If there is any fixed anchors like bolts, rapelling would be your best choice. You would have the weight of a harness and a carabiner...