Finding Skis in Powder?

A snowHead

Just back from epic powder skiing in Hokkaido. The waist to chest-deep snow was like nothing we have ever experienced.

Losing a ski was a concern - a member of a different group to ours (skiing with the same guiding company) did lose one in the powder. Doing so would have been absolutely awful in terms of getting off the mountain.

We had powder traces (ie the coloured ribbons that attach to your skis) but I'm not sure how much use they would have been in four or five feet of powder. It was easy to envisage a ski shooting some distance under the surface of the light snow, completely submerging the ribbon with it.

Two of our group had ResQski electronic finder devices attached to their skis. I have looked these up but they are no longer available.

Any thoughts Puzzled

A snowHead

Maybe a homemade leash, with some fishing line in the chain, with a known breaking point....ie Keeps you attached to your ski, but will break if things get dangerous. What that breaking point should be, I'm not so sure.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@mountainaddict, even though the company has ceased trading there are still a few available from them, if you go on the Resqski website and send them a message, you should get a response from them.
but, he does state that he only checks the emails sporadically.

he replied to me and i am just waiting for a paypal invoice, the only payment they can accept, so as i can place an order.

it was £25 for a handset and set of sensors

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Thanks @Old Fartbag and @terrygasson.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

no worries

great picture by the way, Japan is on my bucket list once my daughters are off the "payroll" Toofy Grin

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Crank the bindings up to 11 and htfu.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

It might be easy to envisage a ski shooting off some distance under snow, but in reality they just don't do that. The ski will almost certainly be uphill of the skier. Mark the position where the skier has stopped with your poles. Then take off the other ski (use someone else's if both yours are buried). Use the ski like giant knife and cut a long slice through the snow, as deep as you can go across the snow just behind you. Then move up the slope and repeat a foot or so up the slope. Repeat and move up again. Eventually you will be greeted with a reassuring clunk when you hit the missing ski. I've never seen this fail - and have used it and seen it used numerous times. Thanks to Fabrice of Topski (Val D'Isere) who taught me that in 2005 before setting off on a day of very deep off-piste powder exploration with him guiding/instructing.

After all it is free

I found the thread where Spyderjon talked of putting a loop of fishing line with a breaking strain of 60lbs, into a Dynafit leash.

The para reads:

One of the problems with a fixed leash is that the ski is gonna stay with you in a slide - which is why the B&D leash has a shear link within it which will snap with that amount of load applied to it thus freeing you from your 'anchor'.

You could make your own by adding in a 60lb breaking strain loop of fishing line in to your Dynafit leash connection but as that leash is so short there's still a chance that it would snap in a regular fall with the potential for a lost ski. That's why the B&D leash is a lot longer so that it gives a gradual deceleration in a fall plus they extend enough to allow you to fix/remove skins without taking the skins off.

I have an old school Salomon Powder Strap, into which I considered inserting a shear link. Never did though.

ResQski would be much less faff.

@beeryletcher, you haven’t skied in Hokkaido have you?

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don't fall, don't lose your skis. simples.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snow reports

Give Jon a ring at piste office, think he may have some resqski kits left

Lost my ski a few weeks ago, found it the following day with a metal detector approx 100m below the fall. Resqski which I bought from Jon ages ago which was still sitting on box which was promptly stuck on ski.

All too often unexpected things happen in the fascinating variety of conditions up the hill. I was enjoying some nice deep stuff at Aminona, and suddenly heard two loud clips and then I was rag dolling down the hill. All was well, though, and I back tracked up to where I had first fallen, trying to locate my skis from there. Digging around, I found where they had gone and why they had released. A path ran across the area, and had left various hard bands of ice in the snow pack, which was then covered by deep powder. My boots had wanged into one ice band, and the skis had come off, then zoomed under the ice sheet. Probing just showed a thick sheet of ice over the area, and there was no way we were going to be able to dig it to try to find them. So we focused on the holes they had left when zooming in under the ice - which we found. They were eventually retrieved by over a metre of horizontal digging under the ice. It initially felt like a 'wait till Spring' situation but persistence paid off.

You know it makes sense.

Snowboarders have to leash up in some resorts, but not all resorts.
Ive never seen a runaway snowboard, but plenty of ski’s, inc a few shooting off into the trees!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@beeryletcher, have seen skis go a surprising distance in unpredictable directions in just 30cm of powder... and spent an hour searching. Powder tracers work, but are a bit of a pain to use.

A snowHead

Sorry, you lost me at

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I have seen people with Apple tiles fixed the skis with sticky velcro, and someone else with bluetooth tracking tiles he swore by. Unknown if either work though.

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Get a snowboard. They don’t fly off your feet when you eat it, ride better in powder than skis and also make you more appealing to the opposite sex.

Win/win/win

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I've heli-boarded an awful lot, in very deep snow, and never seen anyone lose a ski. I've also never seen anyone use "powder traces". Around here the snow pack is usually several meters deep, but skis don't dig down through the layers. People may crash, but almost always their gear is visible. On the rare occasions when it's not, you just have to work out where they fell and work out where the skis are likely to be. Monoskis travel more than skis. It's not a real problem, not worth worrying about or buying toys to "help" with.

If you turn up with "powder traces" no one will want to get in helicopter with you because (a) you're going to crash; and (b) you don't even know how crashing works. You won't take them out on day 2.

As a fairly well travelled snowboarder I've not had to "leash up" this century, and I'm unclear if any resorts still have those sort of rules. I don't carry a leash, ever, and I'm not sure anyone should be encouraging such insanities. People getting beaten up by the edges of their skis sounds like a horrendous idea. Skiers in slides are supposed to jettison their gear including the skis.

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The more shite you do the more shite happens.

I've lost two skis, one in an avalanche, luckily or not it came off as I found myself anchored upside down at the start of the slide, though at the time I thought it was sluff. And we never found the ski in a slide that turned out to be a good 150m+ though @KenX, who was with me bizarrely found another one, a lady's rental ski that I was able to adjust the bindings on and ski back down.

Went up three times in the Summer and never found it.

Then there was my cliff incident when I went (fell) off a 15-20m+ cliff and subsequently lost a ski, which we could not find, I was quite beaten up to say the least, and my mate skied out on one ski with me on his other.

A guide mate found the ski the following Summer, and said how clients usually exaggerate the size of jumps/cliffs, but in my case I had underestimated it Laughing

I'll see if I can find the picture, and as we always said, was it a lucky or unlucky ski ?

Then as per what @BobinCH, mentioned, first turns in Japan, and I was on the edge of the piste cranking and my ski came off and I was on one ski to see the ski fly off down a hill submarining into the light powder where the brakes just don't work and almost see the track it made, so followed that which was tough hike through knee/thigh deep snow to where it had anchored itself against a tree.

I have used Resqski and it was too glitchy for me, and powder trails, and as has been mentioned they were too much of a PITA.

As for leashes on snowboards, I did a lot of shite using those, way back when, we used hard boots and crampons as we were often hiking and a leash was a godsend to use wrapping it around your hand when it was just a short hike in gnarly no fall / no drop terrain when it was not worth putting on your pack, in much the same way I still use my pole straps when ski-touring on steep traverses.

Right off out first lifts to rip the corduroy.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@Weathercam, ....yep....nice angles Weathercam....there speaks the voice of much experience on the hill...

listen and learn ....

After all it is free

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@BobinCH,

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Bloody hell W-cam that is a hell of a fall.

I am glad you fell where you did and the snow pack was forgiving, rather than the rock ‘X marks the spot’ the left above you.

Have you seen ‘hole in one’? Callum Pettit….

http://youtube.com/v/qYR67k_gIQY

I was skiing with Yves and he took - for him very unusual - a small fall down a bank, only to emerge with an extra Black Diamond touring ski….just the one….

BTW how are the rando-C’s

snow reports

@Weathercam, have you build a church yet? To thank the gods for keeping you ticking? That looks quite a drop Shocked

You know it makes sense.

@Weathercam, Shocked

where did you fall off?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I've seen a runaway snowboard too. I was in a gondola at Stubai when a snowboard flew in the air straight down the lift line, eventually lodging itself in a pylon. I believe it's owner had simply walked around the corner at the top of the lift, and the wind had taken it from their hands. Had they been attached with a leash, they probably would have gone too Shocked

A snowHead

Sadly, I hardly ever get to use my powder ribbons, only about 1 day in 10 of my ski trips have skiable offpiste, but the times that I have fallen in deep snow & had my ribbons attached (cord loop on the rear binding & the 1.5m of orange ribbon stuffed up my trouser leg) they have either located a buried ski much quicker than otherwise or they have located a ski in an area that I wouldn't have thought to look.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@valais2,

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@Weathercam, It sounds like you were very lucky. I know of someone who went over apparently 8m in a whiteout (didn't see it) – two broken legs and about a year of rehab was the result Confused

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@Weathercam, crikey!! you must have thought the game was up!

On a lighter note a chum happily headed off once down what looked like a lovely powder pitch, yelped and disappeared. She'd dropped about 3 metres onto the piste below in the middle of three or four packed ESF lines of very young children. No-one was hurt but it wasn't clear who was most surprised Shocked

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Jesu @Weathercam, you got lucky there. Love the crater.

I didn't lose a ski (Hokkaido) but it took me an eternity trying to get them back on after a fall (due to small branch just below the surface. Honestly guv). The snow, which is everything it's cracked up to be just gives way so easily you can't build a platform for your skis. I do have traces, they're just a pain to use.

Help!!

Finding Skis in Powder?

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