Crossing Crevasses Safely: Three Techniques

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Nature is powerful.

Maybe we think about this most often in the context of disasters: hurricanes, tornados, rock slides… and for us alpine climbers, avalanches. But while mountains can show their force when we do get things like rock slides and avalanches, I tend to think of them as potential energy (to borrow the physics term) all of the time. Anything that is “up” has the potential to come down, and when it does come down (and becomes kinetic energy) that energy can convert to force (by adding mass, like the rocks or the snow) that can do harm.

In some way, then, mountains are always “looming,” and the potential for force to impact us is always there. It don’t look up at a mountain and see a static object, unmoving and permanent. I see something dynamic and constantly in motion. That motion may not be perceptible most of the time, but when it becomes perceptible it usually is already dangerous. As noted climber Jerry Roach once said, “geologic time includes now.” Wrong-place-wrong-time events do exist.

I bring this up, because in the video I talk about three procedures for getting across a crevasse and two of those are dependent upon if you are traveling uphill or downhill. The variable at play? Gravity.

Even in this small way, that “potential energy” becomes very real as it turns into force during the event of a crevasse fall. Suddenly, the people uphill of a fall will have a harder time arresting that fall. So, we have different techniques in play because the risk changes based on if there are any climbers still lower on the hill, below the fall.

This is just one example of why I like alpine climbing so much. It is extremely variable. Of course, that variability increases risk. But, if we are actively trying to identify and mitigate risks, then the climbing becomes extraordinarily engaging. When I’m climbing well (in the alpine, it’s different on a sport climb), my mind is very open and aware of risks. I hold no illusions that I am aware of all the risks, but I am aware of many. The identification and evaluation of those risks exercises my mind while the physical act of moving up, against gravity, exercises my body.

The video is worth I watch (I think), either because you want to know the specifics about these glacier travel procedures or maybe because thinking about the subtle differences terrain can create in risk profiles is good to think about.

As they say, “climbing is a thinking man’s sport.”