Brohm Ridge 2006

Brohm Ridge 2006

Eight intrepid souls traveled to Brohm Ridge on Saturday, Sept 30, 2006 with Stan as our instructor to hone our cravasse rescue skills. It had been an early start from North Van - we left the Embassy at 6:00 AM.


We car pooled to Squamish, refulled with coffee and continued on to the Brohm Ridge logging road. It took two hours of hiking to reach the glacier. The day was a little foggy, but we had no trouble following the trail.

The glacier was quite open and has clearly been receeding quickly over the years. Brian remembered how it was 30 years ago when it had flowed down around the corner - many kilometers away.



We "suited up" with our crampons and ropes and headed out in search of a suitable crevasse. We travelled out for about 20 minutes to find a good site.




We were shown a technique for drilling the ice with an ice screw and threading a sling through to form an ice anchor. It is a good way to set a rappel and you only leave a sling!








We then moved over to a large crevasse and took turns "falling" in the crevasse and having the other two on the rope set up anchors and a haul system to pull us back out.

Here is Jeff setting up the anchor system.








Preparing the 3:1 haul system. By using a pulley on a dropped loop we could get an effective 6:1 system.














Keith checking on our "subject"!










The view cleared up and we could look down the glacier towards Table and Castle Mountains.

Here are a few other random shots from the day.

There is probably not a more beautiful spot to practice skills and learn new glacier techniques.

Thanks to Stan for organizing and running the session - it was great. Thanks too to all who attended, it was a great day.

- Greg

Tonight our training is Map and Compass skills. Should be a good review.