Techniques for climbing out of deep pow?

J

June~

New member
happens to all of us...venture off into the wooded area, wipe out and find yourself stuck in waist deep powder. frustrating as hell.
any tried and true techniques for climbing out?
 
on big pow days i sometimes tie a flourescent ribbon/tape to my bindings about 2ft long (kind bundle it up into my pant leg) that way you can find them if you eject. All you can really do is get your skis.....otherwise your sinkin
 
I just personally get on my side and push up from the side, seems to work for me. Or you could probly crawl out somehow. That's about it from me.
 
Flail, swear, flail some more, do some fucked up rolling around, have a dig for gear, swear more, step in.
 
Try to spread out your body weight. Instead of trying to walk and post holing up to your waist. Get on your hands/forearms and knee and try to crawl around that way. Having to move around in deep snow isn't easy so try to avoid it, but that is the technique I use when I don't have a choice.
 
as the guy above said, making an X with your poles is useful, but i always ski with a pack, and i will put that down and push up off of that. i will sometimes put it down on top of my poles in the X position.
 
also if you have a ski with you you can use it by putting it between your hands and using it to push yourself up, the whole ski has to be on top of the snow if that makes any sense.
 
if you get in a situation when your under the snow head first, dont panic and slowly push your self out without making yourself go in deeper
 
I don't mind climbing through the powder. I love it.
What i don't like is getting hot while doing it. Because then i'm all sweaty, pissed off and no longer horny.
 
Haha this makes me think to a couple years back when my school headed out to CO for a ski trip. I'm from the east and it was my first time out so I had no idea what to expect from the pow. I got stuck in a tree well upside down and proceeded to spend 10 minutes finding a way out and the rest of the day looking for my buds.
 
this thread is absolutly retarded. if you dont have the common sense to get out of pow without asking ns, maybe you should stop skiing.
 
You are "absolutly" retarded actually. OP was asking for our personal methods of escape from deep pow, that doesn't warrant a reply calling them a retard.
 
You are "absolutly" retarded actually. OP was asking for our personal methods of escape from deep pow, that doesn't warrant a reply calling them a retard.
 
Fucking mobile ns. Also does that mean that all the people that suffocate in tree wells are retarded as well?
 
if you're an idiot you fall under the chair.

Dropping cliffs under the chair (hoots and hollers) and shredding the fuck out of this line = G.N.A.R. points.
 
can someone explain this X technique a little bit.

Excuse my lack of understanding. I live in eastern ontario so a pow day for me is a few inches, not feet.
 
If a pow day is a few inches for you, it won't make any difference. When it's a couple of feet, making your poles into an X pattern (cross them and lean on the center) gives you more surface area over the snow thus making it easier to press yourself out of the snow, because your hands don't sink right in instead of pushing you out.
 
Yea thats what im saying. Ive never had this problem hence why ive never used any of these techniques.

But yea that makes sense. Hopefully someday ill get to ski some deep pow.
 
i prefer the rollie-pollie method. as long as there isnt a clusterfuck of trees and rocks below be, i just roll downhill until everything works out.
 
its only happened to me a few times. once in japan and once in aspen. if you can keep your skis on and get into an upright position you can sometimes walk out of it, depending on how heavy the snow is. in japan i had to take my skis off and ended up lying across the snow with one ski in each hand, reaching out and planting the ski in the snow and pulling myself forwards. its very tiring though..
 
once you've found your skis the easiest way to get them back on is to push the tails into the snow so that they are perpendicular to the slope you are on. Then you can easily put them back on.
 
I was skiing the trees at Steamboat on a powder day with a bunch of people. I was standing on the uphill side of 2 aspen trees that were about 3 feet apart or so. I waited until everyone had gone because I wanted to ski last. I was just about to go when my down hill ski sunk and I tipped over down hill. It was just one of the stupid things that happens, but now I was laying on my side with my head going downhill and my skis were above the 2 aspens. I had my dins set at just about the max and I was completely fucked. The snow was deep. I couldn't roll out of it, because of the trees. I tried releasing my bindings with my pole, but I had to do it all with my arms. It wasn't working and I thought it was all over for me. I was starting to panic. Finally I just laid there for awhile and caught my breath and then used every ounce of strength I had. It worked and I got one ski off. That was enough for me to get out. I couldn't believe how tired I was from just that.

If you are going to be skiing in deep pow, I would suggest laying down with your feet uphill from you and see if you can still get your skis off. If you can't do it, you might want to lower your din settings until you can do it.
 
Use your skis and a ledge to climb out? It thought this was how everyone did it. It works fine in heavy neckdeep eastcoast pow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top