Somehow Jason Tattersall got my email address about a year ago and if there is one thing you can count on him for, besides skiing hard and speaking his mind, it's entertaining emails about once a week. He forwarded this video to me (and many others) on Tuesday.
Most of the time when I get these types of emails I pay attention for about 10-20 seconds...and then move on to something else. A bit of a short attention span I guess. Anyway, this video of Dan Osman solo speed climbing Bears Reach (5.7) on Lover's Leap in California got me thinking. What would the skiing equivalent of this type of feat be? Would it be a combination of ascent and descent gnarliness? Or would it be focused on skiing something in minimal time? Would it be about hucking the biggest air and skiing off like it was no big deal? And what about slope angle? What is the skiing equivalent of 5.7 for an accomplished climber? My guess is that 50-55° would be close to 5.7 for a moderately accomplished ski mountaineer. Would skiing the Carolina Face on Mt Cook live up to the hype of speed climbing 5.7? I would say so!
But then again...would it be about ski mountaineering and the hairiest line you could find? Or would setting a new world record on the Hannenkahm be as big of an achievement? Bode's already skiing the fence these days and winning medals. What's next?
That video is so cool, definitely gets you pumped to go out and climb!
I am a much better skier than I am climber but looking at that photo of Mount Cook, I think the 5.7 would be a lot less scary!
I think skiing’s equivelent would be something like Alex Lowe’s legendary dawn patrols of full day ski tours before work. Not necessarily difficult, but astonishing due to the ground covered.
The skiing equivalent would have to be a moderately technical descent in an absurdly fast time, that has the serious potential of death if you fall. Maybe something like the south east face of the South Teton, in like 5 minutes.Or Maybe something on Mt Rainer, like the mowich face with reckless speed. I don’t see it catching on!
I would say that analog in the skiing world would be skiing a heavily loaded avalanche prone slope. (In other words, maybe not the brightest thing you could do.)
It’s worth mentioning that Dan Osman died doing some “rope jumping” in Yosemite on some ropes that had been left outside in the weather for a month.
Skiing the Black Ice Couloir unroped… and really fast. Or maybe the Hossack-McGowan before work?
I think skiing the Hossack McGowan in any style would be more like 5.14…one of the hardest lines possible? I like the South Teton idea…and the Alex Lowe stuff. Not death defying…but damn impressive!
Dano was the goods!! RIP
Funny this subject was brought! My Rock Climbing/ Ski Partner’s often wished we could use the rock climbing decimel system for certain slopes. For instance we thought that South Glory Bowl was a 5.2. I guess we think too much.
Powderjunky said,
The 5.7 would be less scary than Mount Cook. I couldn’t agree more. Look’s like you’d have to do a lot of poking around and looking for the fall lines.
Soloing 5.7 to me feels like meadow skipping on 35 degree slopes with perhaps an avy prone rollover here and there. Likely things will be fine, but if you screw up………..well.
The Hossack McGowan, after sort of trying to ski it a few years ago, seems like 5.16xxxxx. Beyond my acceptable level of risk.
I like a fun 5.9 splitter handcrack in the desert, like a 3,000ft 40 degree pow face. Just fun, not scary.
I think Mike Calla said it best … a moderately technical line that you ski in absurdly fast time, with death fall potential.
I can’t see equating _speed_ soloing 3 pitches of 5.7 to meadowskipping 35 degree slopes in considerable hazard conditions. For a couple of reasons. 1) Frequency. People ski 35 degrees in avy prone conditions all the time. Not sure anyone has repeated Osman’s feat on that route??? 2) Consequences. If he fell, he was dead. Even adding huge cliffs to the avy scenario, people survive some pretty huge rides with less than fatal consequences.