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Technique on the Trail - part 9
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If it becomes essential to travel in storm, the following precautions should be taken:
1) Set up an "autocratic" leadership. Choose a competent leader and adhere to his decisions. Keep together. When the route is in doubt, no good will result if the party scatters in all directions looking for it. Confusion follows, sometimes chaos; at best, much time is lost. If search for the route requires separation, members of the party should keep within calling distance of each other—and keep calling. 2) Analyze the route of escape, the dangers of new-snow avalanches. Develop some plan, with alternatives, for using that route. 3) Locate your position. Take immediate bearings, and record your bearings as you travel so that you can backtrack if you have to. The last man, with compass, should direct the party's route, taking care not to be misled in judging direction by the optical illusion brought about by swirling clouds. 4) Keep warm. There is little chance to warm up if you become cold. If there is climbing to do, put on climb ing skins before it becomes too cold. Chilled fingers are almost useless. In very cold weather keep a scarf or facemask over the nose and mouth to prevent freezing of the lungs, or draw the parka hood across the face and breathe the air that has been warmed by the body. Don't over exert. 5) Keep dry. Don't so burden yourself with clothes that you perspire and get wet from the inside (this is easy to do). Keep the pack waterproof. Chances are it will be heavy enough without being soaked. 6) Don't go hungry. Food is a source of necessary heat. Too often the discomfort of stopping to eat in a storm is apt to result in the skier's eating too little. Rely on quick-energy foods that can be eaten quickly, and eat them frequently, on the trail if you prefer not to stop. A simple rule is, eat sugar for energy, protein for heat. 7) Ski slowly and cautiously. At best visibility is so much poorer during storm, as well as in some storm-bred flat light conditions, that it is most difficult to determine snow texture and topography well enough in advance to permit speedy travel. Any accident is doubly serious during storm. Don't protect the eyes so adequately that you in effect blindfold yourself; better, slow down, lower the head, and look through the eyelashes. Travel at night.—Night travel has most of the disadvantages of travel in storm. Although the weather may be more agreeable, visibility, even during brilliantly moonlit nights, is much poorer and travel should be slower. The precautions are the same as for storm travel; in addition, each group of four should be equipped with a headlight, and the battery should be worn so that the cells will be kept warm. The life of the cells will be longer if the light is used intermittently, and small portions of the route remembered until it is necessary to use the light again. The man with the light should remember the handicap of those behind, and that the farther behind they are, the greater is their handicap.
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