Alaska range, why not snowshoes

Heading to the kahiltna in a few weeks, main objectives hunter north face couloirs, maybe SW ridge Frances, maybe crosson, kahiltna dome etc.

Skiing has always been the main approach plan because that's what all the cool kids do. We have the gear and ability. 2-boot system though.

But I recently went out with some actually decent MSR snowshoes and was surprised at how little it sucked. (Except for the part where I was still post-holing, but that would be the same on skis, surface area is the same)

Thinking through the pros and cons, snowshoes look way better on paper. Can anyone explain why skis are the standard despite that?

Snowshoes pros: 

-Approach: Lighter, faster, easier. I still find skinning way more strenuous than hiking, even though my setup is light & glidey and I've been training skinning specifically. This is true even on terrain as low angle as I'll be on in alaska. Skis only start to win if it's up-and-down or completely flat. Not that 1700' gain to hunter is gonna wear me out completely, but it's always good to save energy for the route.
- don't need to change boots. kinda a big deal tbh.
- crevasse rescue: Easier to hold a fall of a partner downhill of you. Easier to keep a tight rope to prevent bad falls in the first place.
- easier to carry up a route if needed.
- Reliability: field repairable.  Bring 1 extra snowshoe for the team. if you only have skis and a toe piece breaks, your trip is over.

Snowshoes cons: 

- look like a jerry
- if everyone else is on skis, you'll have to break trail. (how likely is this?)
- Slower than unroped skiing.

Tie: 

- flotation: my skis 171x85cm=225sq in, snowshoes 28x8"=224 sq in. Others might have longer skis to tilt the scales, but not by much.
- Probably similar overall speed as roped-up skiing? (I never skied while roped up so correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds slow, and you lost time on approach and transition.)

Questions
- how common or advisable is it to unrope when skiing downhill?

- Is it true that although the surface area is the same, you'd be less likely to break a snow bridge on skis because your weight is distributed further in the direction of travel?
- For SW ridge frances, do you generally have to carry flotation over the summit?
- am I wrong about any of the pros and cons above? or missing any?

thanks in advance for your correction or corroboration. 

Hi Ellen, sounds like a great trip. You’ve picked some beautiful options.

Having guided a couple hundred days in the Alaska Range, and almost none of them on skis, I’d say that if you need to ask strangers, then you’ll probably have a better time without skis. Sorry if that sounded bad, but really, if you’re expertly proficient at skiing roped and pulling loaded sleds through real deal glacier terrain, you’d know it…

I never really felt like skis were at all necessary on a Kahiltna climbing itinerary…

Have a  great time. The Mt. Frances ridge route is an excellent day climb from the airstrip. And the MiniMoonflower is really really fun, just don’t camp too close to the base. We were surprised at how far out onto the glacier we got rockfall and debris.

And EDIT: And even though you’re going to be pretty low elevation, it could still be hella cold in April/May. If you’re planning on plastic double or 6000M-style boots I’d bring overboots just in case, or just bring full-on Denali 8000M boots…

Thanks for the advice so far. It's not really a question of ski skill for us though. We can ski well enough to get to/from those routes (in AT gear. Past advice convinced me not to switch to silvrettas). That said, it sounds really hard to hold a fall of the downhill partner on skis in downhill mode. Everyone has to ski on a glacier for the first time at some point, and this seems like a perfectly good time to start, *if* there was actually an advantage to using skis at all. So the latter is my question. 

Sorry for a few more questions, feel free to ignore if it's too many, we should be able to figure stuff out 

Having guided a couple hundred days in the Alaska Range, and almost none of them on skis

This sounds like good news for a snowshoe-pack being just as likely to exist as a skin track?

And the MiniMoonflower is really really fun, just don’t camp too close to the base

Btw. Is it actually reasonable to camp closer to the base than Kahiltna base camp? Guidebook says "Camps: Kahiltna base camp is the only recommended spot", but also mentions a "safe spot at 8200".
The approach is not too huge, but we'd prefer to 1) Inspect the route in daylight before climbing in the dark, 2) potentially camp out to do multiple routes on that face. 

The Mt. Frances ridge route is an excellent day climb

It is necessary to descend in the night/morning due to avy/crevasse risk right? So if you also start climbing in the morning, that means you have to spend the following night either moving down the mountain or bivying on it?

I am a rank amateur so take this with a block of salt.  I suspect skies are safer because you are less likely to fall in to a crevasse than with snow shoes.  Even though the snow shoes and skies have the same surface area the distribution of the surface area is better with respect to breaking through.  i.e. the ski could reach across crevasse when the snow shoe does not.

climber patwrote:

Even though the snow shoes and skies have the same surface area the distribution of the surface area is better with respect to breaking through.  i.e. the ski could reach across crevasse when the snow shoe does not.

yeah I was wondering about this too. It's probably true, but to what extent? Probability of falling is lower but consequence is higher. Hard to say which option is overall safer

I think alaska crevasses are wider than a ski.. but maybe the ski puts pressure on the snow in a more ideal way to not break it? It doesn't seem like the difference would be huge. idk I'm not a physicist 

Ellen Swrote:

This sounds like good news for a snowshoe-pack being just as likely to exist as a skin track?

Where you're going, there's either going to be no track, or a snowshoe trail. Most of the traffic at Kahiltna Base Camp are guided groups going up to the W Butt. They're all using snowshoes. A few non-guided groups might be on skis, but they're going to be going up the wanded snowshoe rut as well. If you go to Crosson or Kahiltna Dome, you'll take the wanded rut to a point where you'll branch off and break your own trail. If you go up-glacier to Mini-Moonflower, Kahiltna Queen, etc... you'll be breaking trail.

Btw. Is it actually reasonable to camp closer to the base than Kahiltna base camp? Guidebook says "Camps: Kahiltna base camp is the only recommended spot", but also mentions a "safe spot at 8200".

IMO, if you're going to do multiple routes up-glacier it's not a bad idea to make a camp higher. There's plenty of good terrain to make camp that puts you closer to the routes.If I was just going to climb Mini-Moonflower I might just go up the day before, break a trail, and get a good closer look.

...but we'd prefer to 1) Inspect the route in daylight before climbing in the dark...

You're not really going to be climbing anything in the dark. Not sure when you're going, but there's not much real "dark" going on. 

It is necessary to descend in the night/morning due to avy/crevasse risk right? So if you also start climbing in the morning, that means you have to spend the following night either moving down the mountain or bivying on it?

Again, not sure when you're going, but guiding groups on the W Butt, we're usually not going onto a night-travel schedule on the Kahiltna until later in June. So much depends on short-term conditions. If its cloudy or hazy the temp might not change much during the day. If it's calm and sunny it might get freakishly hot mid-day. Worst is probably when there's thin snow and it stays bitterly cold, as the snow doesn't go through freez-thaw cycles and stays soft and weak. There can be paper-thin bridges that are completely hidden... Of course, YMMV!

All the best and have a great trip!

amazing thank you so much Teton Tom! 

You’ll be fine either way, but I highly recommend skis all the way. Skiing IS faster, even with a boot transfer. At the end of the day, you will be back to base camp 45 minutes to an hour faster on skis. The skiing around base camp is not great, but on those countless off days, you can go skiing or at least touring and he will go faster. If you’re talking about the southwest Ridge of Mount Francis, you will go down Heartbreak Hill. You’ll be there a hell of a lot faster on skis although, you might not bring skis to that because then you will have to hoof it back there to get them. I would still always recommend skis, but you will be fine with snow shoes if that’s what you decide to do. I’ve been on both ends of crevasse falls with skis. As long as you have the appropriate amount of rope out, I recommend about 55-65’ between partners, anybody should be able to stop a reasonable fall if there’s not too much slack in the rope. as this always the case, it’s courteous to not walk in the skin track so if you were thinking of bringing snow shoes, you should probably walk next to the skin track, which would negate any speed gains you might be thinking. Just a thought. Cheers.

I think we will bring both tbh. I am pretty convinced to make snowshoes the primary approach strategy, but if it turns out I'm wrong we can switch for any particular objective.

If we took this discussion out of the alaska range, then skis lose even worse (trees, creek beds, talus scrambling, tourist dodging, stream wading, snow-free spots, etc..) obviously there are cases where skis win but they seem rare to me. Cant believe I tried to force skiing ice approaches for so long. 

Ellen Swrote:

tourist dodging

I feel like this is the biggest pro for ski approaching in RMNP. It's a whole new sport.

Having just flown out of the range after getting 3 feet of snow, skiis or bust. We were at least able to romp around and do some skiing, but also just travel around the glacier to look at things. With snowshoes we would not have left camp. (I say this as someone who does not go skiing for fun ever)

Update: The essential insight I was missing is that postholing in snowshoes is way worse than postholing in skis.. As I said above, skis and snowshoes have similar surface area if you get the max size snowshoes for your height (28" for me at 5'7") and have reasonably skinny uphill-oriented skis. So, the threshold at which they start to posthole should be the same. But assuming both systems do posthole, skis can just kind of glide forward through the same posthole the whole time, whereas a snowshoe has to be picked up out of the snow on each step. It's like climbing steep stairs even if you're on flat ground, and with heavy ankle weights (the snowshoes and the snow sitting on top of them)!

First time we went up to hunter we took skis, it kinda sucked to switch boots and skins were alternately falling off in the cold or glopping up in the heat, but the actual travel was fine. 

Second time we didn't want to deal with cold, wet, uncomfy ski boots, so we took snowshoes. It took five hours of hard physical effort to break trail for 3 miles! 

Of course if trail is already broken, both systems are fine. 

When we tried Frances we were actually able to get away without flotation at all - but that was just lucky timing. Most of the time you'd want to carry flotation over the route, and youd be happier to carry snowshoes instead of skis.

tldr neither choice of flotation will make or break your trip, both have their pros and cons, the best option is to bring both of course. if you can only bring one, it should be skis, but skiing should not be considered a prerequisite for climbing in the alaska range.