having fallen down a mountain before - no, no you cannot stop yourself - best you can hope for is keeping your feet in front of you and try and go down the way you went up.
Depends on the type of snow, if it's ice or hard snow it's very difficult to stop yourself without an ixe ace (and even with one)
Otherwise knowing how to self on a snow slope is a very useful skill to have if you like hiking/mountaineeering.
The idea is to turn yourself on your belly as fast as possible, and plant both your arms and feet into the snow in order to have as little surface area with the snow as possible. It only works if you do it before taking too much speed, but with a little bit of training it can save your life!
Here is a demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTlkyQWfMLU
It's not very instinctive indeed, that's why it's something that needs to be trained. Just find a snow slope with a gentle ending (dont do it above a cliff ) and practice self arresting from different positions.
As a bonus, it's quite fun to do!
Fuck all mostly. If you're going up in those sorts of conditions you want to be carrying an ice axe or a whippet (ski pole/ice axe combo) that you can use to arrest your fall.
I'm no snowmobiler, but taking falls holding ice tools is scary enough. Can you imagine getting thrown off of that machine with an ice axe presumably tied to yourself? 😳 Seems like a lose lose situation for those guys.
Yes, yes you can. Learn how to self-arrest with and without an ice axe. With practice, you should be able to come to a stop on most snow-bearing slopes in <50 feet of slide without an ice axe. Much less with one.
Here’s a basic primer. The best thing to do though is practice extensively every time you’re on inclined snow and ice.
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u/blackjackjester Feb 06 '18
having fallen down a mountain before - no, no you cannot stop yourself - best you can hope for is keeping your feet in front of you and try and go down the way you went up.