Roped Skiing
Ted Mahon finishes skiing Colorado's fourteeners.
Firstly, congratulations to Ted Mahon on safely finishing the project. The blog comments made me want to say something about ski descents and aesthetics, though. And this is not meant to disrespect Ted and Al in any form!
Does anyone disagree that ropework detracts from a ski descent? I love technical skiing, maybe as much as anyone, but to me ropework interrupts the flow. Not because it's scary, or difficult, but because it inherently isn't skiing. I'd just as quickly downclimb, depending on the situation - whichever is more expedient.
Lou's comments struck me as funny, especially
Makes everything on the Grand Teton look old school, doesn’t it?
If new school is determined by how much one uses a rope to ski, then I want to be old skool. And please don't misinterpret: I have used ropes on ski descents; I will use them again. I'm just talking about what's ideal.
Which way will you look to ski Capitol, Frank?
Firstly, congratulations to Ted Mahon on safely finishing the project. The blog comments made me want to say something about ski descents and aesthetics, though. And this is not meant to disrespect Ted and Al in any form!
Does anyone disagree that ropework detracts from a ski descent? I love technical skiing, maybe as much as anyone, but to me ropework interrupts the flow. Not because it's scary, or difficult, but because it inherently isn't skiing. I'd just as quickly downclimb, depending on the situation - whichever is more expedient.
Lou's comments struck me as funny, especially
Makes everything on the Grand Teton look old school, doesn’t it?
If new school is determined by how much one uses a rope to ski, then I want to be old skool. And please don't misinterpret: I have used ropes on ski descents; I will use them again. I'm just talking about what's ideal.
Which way will you look to ski Capitol, Frank?
posted by SkiSickness at 12:01 PM
4 Comments:
Some mountains, sadly, do not fit the ideal. Here's what I wrote on another site:
Lou skied the knife edge on belay- then he got to K2, where he would have needed to take his skis off and climb the little bit to K2 and then ski from there. Davenport and Beidleman had to take their skis off and do an ascending traverse to reach the S facing exit ramp from the E face. Ted and Al skied on belay and did some raps. What's the difference? None of these routes were exactly clean from top to bottom, but from a ski-mountaineering standpoint, they're pretty equal.
Which one flows more like water? None of them, really. The D/B line is a double fall-line left to a double fall-line right, with an upclimb in the middle. In a good snow year, a slightly modified D/B line will flow nicely. Sadly, this year may have been big, but conditions look no better than other years (too windy). Mahon's line is pretty ugly for a while, but then becomes a nice fall line, albeit with a rap exit.
I've got another line in mind, but it too requires a short rap. Hopefully a successful TR coming after the weekend... :)
One short rap is as ideal as it could be... good luck, man!
Also, agreed that if you could somehow iron that wrinkle in the middle then the Davenport-Biedelman line would be pretty neato.
Side stepping with an axe, kick turns, rope work, they all define ski-alpinism and separates it from ski touring.
Every ski descent is different, which makes criticism an exercise in bad timing. People rappel everyday in la Grave don't think twice about a belay if that is what it takes and leave the spray at the door.
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