Take care when clipping high.

Take care when clipping high. Especially at the beginning of the route or close to ledges etc.
Illustration from the Petzl techtips section.

What to do when you loose half your chainring bolts?

Ever tried spreading your chainring bolts all over the trail?
I tried it today. When I discovered something was wrong, to bolts and nuts were missing completely, and the other two had loosened so much, they only had a couple of threads keeping them together with the nuts.
A 15 min search only revealed one bolt. Two nuts and a bolt had been abducted by the numerous very large ants that were all over the trail today.
So how to continue?
Search in your pockets (saddlebag in this case) and see what you can find.
In addition to my tools and spare tube, I found a couple of meters of 3mm cord.
Tighten to two remaining bolts and tie the cord through the two empty holes.

Two bolts and cord for the rest.

It holds up pretty well. Enough to both ride home and to get some icecream to celebrate the arrival of summer.

Sluff management

Jim Conway and Mark Newcomb has made a good writeup on sluff hazards and sluff management techniques, for the US Forrest Service Avalanche Center.
It's not new anymore, but the information is still relevant. I think it's easy to understand and easy to apply.

http://www.fsavalanche.org/encyclopedia/sluff.htm

Small sluff on Cheops Mountain. Rogers Pass, BC.

Recue mission on Combeynot

"Chris; Iben have twisted her knee!" Someone yelled. I'm at around 2900 m and breaking trail on the boot pack after it got too steep to skin. The majority of the group is about 100 m below me, around a corner. I can't see what's going on down there. Communication is difficult because of distance and terrain. Decision is easy, go down and see how bad it is.

The had started in beautiful weather at Col Du Lautaret, and we had ascended the 900 vertical m in little less the 3.5 hours earlier.
The goal was Pic Ouest de Combeynot (3145m). Our skin track had gotten gradually steeper with more frequent kick turns, before we decided to boot pack the steepest part.

Pic Blanc Du Galibier

Easy and popular ski touring on a nice peak close to the (cycling)historic Col Du Galibier.

On good weather days the peak is quite popular, fifteen cars at the trailhead (Col Du Lautaret) are not uncommon.

Most people ski down the south east side (same route as the ascent), but the west wall gives access to good skiing, often untracked and holds powder longer. The first 150 vertical meters of the west wall, are a bit steep. So make sure conditions are stable.

Pic Blanc Du Galibier. Erik posing.

Airtravel and Avalanche Airbags

Airtravel and airbag packs are a subject I see debated all over the web and fairly often.
There seems to be a lot mystery and misconceptions around this matter (also among airline check-in staff).

I bought my Mammut Pro 45 Avalanche Airbag Backpack last year, and flew with it a couple of times last season.
This season I have, so far, flown six times with the pack and cartridge.

Some components of the system comes under the dangerous goods regulations. Which part depends on what brand of airbag you use.
For Mammut/Snowpulse, BCA and Wary the dangerous goods component is the cartridge only.
For ABS the dangerous goods components are the deployment handle and the cartridge.

As stated by the IATA (International Air Transport Association) it is legal to carry an avalanche airbag cartridge on a plane. Either in your carry-on or in the checked piece.
Extract from the IATA website:

Skitouring Revelstoke. Greely Bowl and northeast

Got some local advice on where to find good skiing and touring just outside the Revelstoke Mountain Resort boundary. About 1.5 hours of skinning in total and a full day of very good skiing. I guess the pics speaks for themselves. The timing was also right, perfect ski conditions just before the big storm tomorrow shuts down all touring possibilities for the next couple of days.