backcountry journal
March - April 2007
Mio heading back down to the igloo
10 April - Switzerland
Today we aimed for the one of the 3000m peaks looking down on us. The last 300m or so of vertical ascent would be across the upper reaches of a glacier that I knew absolutely nothing about. We had investigated out the crevasse positions on our map and confirmed some of them visually, even though almost totally bridged. It was possible to navigate a path between them and overall the glacier appeared quite benign. But over the previous few days as the weather warmed and the sun became stronger we had noticed that some linear sagging had appeared across the glacier. This was not evident on any other slope of similar aspect or altitude so we ruled out natural snow pack creep. To be conservative we decided that it was probably the most obvious thing: sagging crevasse bridges caused by recent warming of the snow. It was nice to know exactly the where the hidden crevasses were but also enough to convince us not to walk across them or traverse parallel to them, which at some stage we would have been required to. So we cut our tour short 300m from the top and had yet another long and fantastic descent along easy riding 30 degree northerly aspect terrain, again riding top to bottom right up until our igloo.
Today we aimed for the one of the 3000m peaks looking down on us. The last 300m or so of vertical ascent would be across the upper reaches of a glacier that I knew absolutely nothing about. We had investigated out the crevasse positions on our map and confirmed some of them visually, even though almost totally bridged. It was possible to navigate a path between them and overall the glacier appeared quite benign. But over the previous few days as the weather warmed and the sun became stronger we had noticed that some linear sagging had appeared across the glacier. This was not evident on any other slope of similar aspect or altitude so we ruled out natural snow pack creep. To be conservative we decided that it was probably the most obvious thing: sagging crevasse bridges caused by recent warming of the snow. It was nice to know exactly the where the hidden crevasses were but also enough to convince us not to walk across them or traverse parallel to them, which at some stage we would have been required to. So we cut our tour short 300m from the top and had yet another long and fantastic descent along easy riding 30 degree northerly aspect terrain, again riding top to bottom right up until our igloo.
12 April - Switzerland
Our last igloo day and we hiked 700m vertical to descend back to the igloo partially via the huge snaking gully that was adjacent to our previous days riding. Usually appalling avalanche terrain, this gully had a bomb-proof snow pack and offered a huge natural half pipe running about 500m of vertical descent and with walls over 30 feet high in places. Unfortunately the forecast clouds moved in and our descent was in incredibly flat light offering no terrain contrast at all. I went first to set a track giving Mio a continuous point of reference in the otherwise unbroken white surroundings within the gully. It was a disappointing last run as a result, but at least the clouds cooled the environment making a little easier my mega effort to walk and snowboard our equipment back down the valley to the waiting campervan. That night we put the van on an underground train to access another Swiss valley and drove back to Germany.
13 April - Germany
All day driving home, unpacking and cleaning the rental campervan. To bad that it ended.
Check out the slide show of the igloo adventure. It explains it in much better detail with way less text that I usually use (I should manage to add the slide show by the end of April)
Our last igloo day and we hiked 700m vertical to descend back to the igloo partially via the huge snaking gully that was adjacent to our previous days riding. Usually appalling avalanche terrain, this gully had a bomb-proof snow pack and offered a huge natural half pipe running about 500m of vertical descent and with walls over 30 feet high in places. Unfortunately the forecast clouds moved in and our descent was in incredibly flat light offering no terrain contrast at all. I went first to set a track giving Mio a continuous point of reference in the otherwise unbroken white surroundings within the gully. It was a disappointing last run as a result, but at least the clouds cooled the environment making a little easier my mega effort to walk and snowboard our equipment back down the valley to the waiting campervan. That night we put the van on an underground train to access another Swiss valley and drove back to Germany.
13 April - Germany
All day driving home, unpacking and cleaning the rental campervan. To bad that it ended.
Check out the slide show of the igloo adventure. It explains it in much better detail with way less text that I usually use (I should manage to add the slide show by the end of April)
