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Split boarding
By ruth | February 26, 2008
A couple of weeks back, three friends and I spent two days split-boarding with Whistler Mountain Guides.
Split boards (as you can probably guess) split down the middle so that you can transform them into skis. When in snowboard form, there are metal plates going across the board that you can slide ordinary snowboard bindings onto (also attached to a matching metal plate). When in ski form, there are metal plates facing forward on each ski that you can also attach the binding onto, with the heel loose as in telemark skis. You can then attach skins to the base of the skis and hike uphill.
The boards are surprisingly easy to split and to put back together again – which is good, because you don’t want to be messing around with complex parts in deep snow and interesting weather in the backcountry. Everything uses either simple clips, or a bar through holes secured with a clip.
In all honesty I can’t remember what we did when or what each area was called, so rather than a chronological account I’ll give you some impressions and opinions.
Riding the split board on-piste was not so much fun. It was incredibly heavy, and the split down the middle did nothing for its gliding abilities, especially on flat roads. I had the smallest board they could rent me, which was a 154 – pretty hefty for a short person like me. Luckily we only stayed on-piste while we waited for the alpine lifts to open.
Hiking up was hard work. It took a while to get the knack – you glide your toe across the snow rather than trying to walk properly. The skins work amazingly well – even on pretty steep slopes they didn’t slide back down the hill. Luckily I was at the back of the group so I never had to break trail, which was much harder work, especially in the very deep snow we found in the backcountry. It helped to get into a rhythm with your breath, and go at your own pace, not the pace of the guide or the person in front. My legs were significantly shorter than everyone else’s, after all!
If I remember correctly, on the first day we did three untouched powder runs in the backcountry (Oboe Basin); one really lovely powder run down Flute Bowl; and four hikes up; followed by a trudge back past Harmony to reach the pistes so we could snowboard back to the Village. The backcountry powder was a revelation. It felt bottomless, and the big board really came into its own as I put big surfy turns in. Obviously, in relation to the long hikes, the runs were over very quickly – but the adrenaline really pumped, which helped with the next hike up. Was it worth it? On balance I have to say yes.
On the second day, we went to Blackcomb, got the T-bars up, and traversed across the Horstmann Glacier to the beginning of our first hike. Again, my memory is a little hazy but I think we did two untouched backcountry runs and two in-bounds but non-lift-accessed powder runs. Some of the hiking was harder this time because there was a steep camber on the slope, and the access through the pass to Bodybag Basin (really) was rocky and icy and very exposed. The conditions were touch-and-go at the start of the day, with white-out conditions forcing us to stay close to rocks and trees as reference points.
On both days the avalanche risk was considerable, but our guide, John, really knew what he was doing. He was in radio contact with ski patrol and with other guides; kept a keen eye on conditions and slopes; made sure we all had the right gear and practised using it before setting off; and made sure we knew which slopes and which aspects of them were risky and had to be avoided. There was one slope in particular that was just to one side of a ridge and looked fantastically tempting, but was very much off limits.
I have to admit it was exhausting. By the end of the first day I was so tired I didn’t speak for about three hours. But I think I’d quickly build up fitness if I did it enough.
Am I tempted to get my own split-board and go on backcountry adventures from now on? Yes indeed – but I have two reservations, and they’re big ones. The first is cost – split boards are very expensive. Ours were made by Prior (based in Whistler) and were worth over $1,000 CAD each. The cost per use is likely to be pretty high. The other reservation is whether I’m prepared to go into the backcountry without a qualified mountain guide to shepherd me. I’ve got a lot of education to complete first – avalanche awareness being an important first step. A first aid course probably wouldn’t hurt either…
There’s a full Flickr set of photos if you’re keen to see them.
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Topics: /snow | 1 Comment »
February 27th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Boo hoo, please can you stop talking about how nice the powder is over there in Canada? We’ve had solid sun in the Alps for four weeks now…