"Snow Travel: Climbing, Hiking and Crossing Over Snow" ("Mountaineers Outdoor Expert" series) is a comprehensive how-to book covering all the essential techniques for safe and efficient movement across snow fields. Author Mike Zawaski, a longtime instructor with Outward Bound and the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), has decades of snow hiking and snow-travel experience. Whether you're a hiker, scrambler, backcountry skier, climber, or general winter traveller, you will discover fundamental information including: picking the right gear and other pre-trip planning: ice axe, crampons, clothing, and essentials for snow safety; how to choose a route: evaluating snowpack and picking out the fall line; basics of kicking steps: walking flat-footed, front pointing, duck stepping, stepping efficiently with crampons or ski/snowboard boots, and more; using your ice axe: traversing, chopping steps, glissading, self-arresting, and utilising a range of ice-axe positions; snow hazards: elephant traps, cornices, sunburn, snow bridges, and post-holes; and, lesson plans: how to share your knowledge with others.
With "Snow Travel" one can learn to safely hike in the snow, avoid snow hazards, navigate dangerous snowpack and enjoy the backcountry, high country, or even your own backyard.
Author Biography:
Mike Zawaski has been climbing mountains for 20 years and has made ascents of snowy peaks in Alaska, Peru, Mexico, and on all types of snow across the United States. He has taught mountaineering courses for Outward Bound for over 15 years, worked in mountain rescue with Yosemite Search and Rescue, and taught for the Wilderness Medicine Institute of NOLS. An instructor of astronomy, geology, and outdoor education at Front Range Community College, Zawaski is also the founder of The Observant Naturalist, a science education non-profit organisation. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
