Peak Mountain Guides Blog

Our lead guide Matt Wade recently authored an informative and interesting blog post for our long-time supporters, Backcountry Access.  In the post, which follows the activities of a recent Peak Mountain Guides Level 2 Avalanche Course, Matt describes a process for managing avalanche risk in a complex snowpack.  Click the link below to read the story.

Managing Risk in a Complex Snowpack

AMGA Certified Rock Guide Matt Wade describes how to use the BARK acronym to check your harness and tie-in point before climbing.

Have you ever screwed an ice screw just a bit too far and – bing! – you feel one of the teeth grate the rock below?  Ouch!  Any screw that has been damaged will become very difficult to place, sapping precious energy when you’re on a tough lead.  Fortunately, with a little handy work a damaged screw can be repaired.  Here is a video from our friends at Petzl that describes how to revive your dull ice screws into like-new condition.

Here is a video from our friends at Backcountry Access (BCA) that describes how to perform a beacon search.  In the video, Andy from BCA describes the three phases of the search: signal search, coarse search, and fine search.  If you have never practiced this skill the video will give you a good idea of the basics.  If you already know how to perform a beacon search the video will give you a nice refresher before the season.  Have fun and be safe out there!

The hand shear test is an easy snowpack test that can be done to evaluate the bonding between layers in the top 40cm of the snowpack. It can be done very quickly while traveling uphill or downhill, making it a very efficient way to gain information about snow stability. At Peak Mountain Guides we are big fans of this test for assessing near-surface instabilities around storm snow or wind slabs.

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In the following video, ice climbing instructor Matt Wade describes the fundamental techniques for climbing steep ice.  These techniques are suitable for any type of steep ice climbing, whether you’re ascending a frozen waterfall or an alpine face.  If you have any questions, or if you would like to learn more about ice climbing, please contact us.

This video tech tip describes how to rig an autoblock friction hitch as a backup in a rappel system. We often use this system to increase our margin of safety when rappelling. The backup gives us some extra peace of mind anytime the rope is difficult to hold onto or if there is a chance we could accidentally let go of the rope while descending. For example, this system is especially useful if there is potential for rockfall or icefall, if the ropes are icy and/or wet, if it is very windy, or if we simply want to stop and take a photo while rappelling down.

Due to the winding nature of alpine routes we commonly carry a multitude of longer slings to reduce rope drag and to prevent the rope from binding on horns, flakes, or loose rock.  Our favorite way to carry these slings is as “alpine quickdraws”.  The alpine quickdraw is a shoulder length sling that has been shortened to be carried as a quickdraw on your harness.  It’s a very efficient way to manage loose slings, and it gives you the choice to use the sling in the shortened configuration or as a true shoulder length runner.  Check out the video below to see how to rig an alpine quickdraw.