[SGVLUG] OT: Snow

[David Lawyer]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2005 at 03:19:16PM -0800, Dustin wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Nov 2005, Chris Smith wrote:
> 
> 
> I spun my car into the interstate median somewhere between Miles City and
> Glendive (you've never heard of them, and that's the point)

Around 1959 I was in Miles City supervising the installation of a
TACAN station for the FAA.

But I've never really been cold for long, even though I spent 1 1/2
years in Greenland, half way between the Arctic Circle and the N. Pole.

One fun night experience with cold was falling thru a snow bridge at the
outlet of Lake of the Woods in Desolation Valley Wilderness near Lake
Tahoe.  My wet pants rapidly frooze and become heavy with ice and snow.
But I got out my tent and sleeping bag from my backpack, took off my
frozen pants, got in my sleeping bag (with the tent under it),
shivered, and ate brown sugar which I had brought along for such an
occasion.  After a while I stopped shivering and felt great.

The other people I was with didn't show up till the next day at noon,
by which time I was nearing the top of Pyramid Peak after having
practiced self-arrest with my ice axe since it was getting icy near
the top.

A frightening experience was falling on an icy slope (an uncontrolled
glissade) at night and sliding down a couple hundred feet on the S.
side of Mt. Waterman well outside the ski area near Devils Can.  I
expected to die so it felt good when I fortunately came to a stop due
to hitting a small tree and softer snow.  But then my yellow sweater
sleeves had turned red in the moonlight and it took me several seconds
to realize that this red was my blood.  I've still got the scars from
this.  Having lost both ski poles and my flashlight I had to use heavy
tree branches as walking sticks and choose a longer, but less steep,
route over the mountain to get back to the road.

When snow is wet and sticks to trees, it causes some branches to break
off and some trees to fall.  Being in a tent, when every couple of
minutes you hear something crash, isn't much fun.  One crash collapsed
our tent but it was only snow.  A one-person tent was completely
burried by the snow.  This was in the Sierras during the heaviest
storm of the year.  I though I knew how to camp in snow, since I had
done it a few times before, but I didn't know how to cope with the
worst storm of the season.

			David Lawyer