Snow Travel: Skills for Climbing, Hiking, and Crossing Over Snow (Mountaineers Outdoor Expert)

Snow Travel: Skills for Climbing, Hiking, and Moving Across Snow (Mountaineers Outdoor Expert Series) is a comprehensive how-to book covering all the essential techniques for safe and efficient movement across snow fields. Author Mike Zawaski, a longtime instructor with Outward Bound and the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), has decades of snow-travel experience. Whether you're a hiker, scrambler, backcountry skier, climber, or general winter traveler, you will discover fundamental information including:

1.Picking the right gear and other pre-trip planning: ice ax, crampons, clothing, and essentials for safety

2.How to choose a route: evaluating snowpack and picking out the fall line

3.Basics of kicking steps: walking flat-footed, front pointing, duck stepping, stepping efficiently with crampons or ski/snowboard boots, and more

4.Using your ice ax: traversing, chopping steps, glissading, self arresting, and utilizing a range of ice-ax positions

5.Snow hazards: elephant