Ruapehu Crater Lake overnighter

Whakapapa is advertising opening the skifield in 3 days. Anyone want to bet they open the field to say they did it but the road remains closed due to avalanche risk. Also the happy valley chair wont open because of deicing. Thats all 1000 meters below where you want to be.

saw a photo of turoa skifield the snow was half way up the side of a building

Thanks all guys, after your concerns that plan B is your self-arrest works 100% of the time, I stayed a bit lower :-) I stayed between 1500 and 1700, pretty much all snow, at least 30 cms, often much more, with a very nice layer of frosty ice. Very flew places with fluffy snow. Makes for good holding. I made sure I tried only slopes where my self-arrest technique could fail without having to regret the consequences too much, hahah! Definitely crampons only territory right now with the sun baking the snow. As you may have seen in the news there was someone doing Tongariro Crossing and [fell down 100 metres on the Red Crater](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12062105), having to be flown to the hospital. Classical case of you don't know what you don't know. And we can't blame the tourist operators, as they started at 4am, as far as I know, no operator starts that early.

I remember the self arrest training we did in the club well even though it was a few years ago. Self arrest was taught in much the same way as cpr in a first aid course. It gets hammered into you and a whole day of the weekend course was spent on it. Still sliding down a hill any way you can think of and trying to stop half way is a lot more fun than blowing up a dummy for 2 hours. Even so on an earlier training session one participant fell during a hike not long after the training Didnt stop until she found that large solid object in the form of a rock. 4 broken ribs and a liver so bruised they though it would need transplanting. 3 weeks in Taurarmanui base hospital. I dont know what went wrong as I wasnt there

more details about the tongariro rescue on "bulletproof ice" https://www.rescue.org.nz/media/woman-rescued-after-fall-on-mt-tongariro/

>I remember the self arrest training we did in the club well even though it was a few years ago. Self arrest was taught in much the same way as cpr in a first aid course. It gets hammered into you and a whole day of the weekend course was spent on it. Still sliding down a hill any way you can think of and trying to stop half way is a lot more fun than blowing up a dummy for 2 hours. Even so on an earlier training session one participant fell during a hike not long after the training Didnt stop until she found that large solid object in the form of a rock. 4 broken ribs and a liver so bruised they though it would need transplanting. 3 weeks in Taurarmanui base hospital. I dont know what went wrong as I wasnt there Yeah, it's a bit like river crossing training. Important to learn and practice the techniques, but even more important is to learn to judge the situations where those techniques have next to no chance of working, where you have to back off or understand clearly that any slip is going to be your last.

Ian_H, that's exactly what I would like to learn. But it seems most of this judgement is learnt through making mistakes...

>that's exactly what I would like to learn. But it seems most of this judgement is learnt through making mistakes… You learn from experience - which can include making mistakes, but not necessarily. What it does take is time. First, get knowledge. Then get experience (and enhanced knowledge) from doing. The more dangerous and the more difficult, the more time it takes. Obviously (to me, at least), experience of *dangerous* things (like river crossing, glacier traverse, rock climbing, sky diving ....) should be gained in the company of experienced people. ... and in the future, you can return the favour by transferring your experience-gained skills to others.

do trips with experienced people. join a club.... learn from them

That type of ice can be as hard as glass. Sharp crampons will grip it but only while sharp and they will not remain that sharp for long. How many people have got to the first trick bit of the day put crampons on then a few hundred meters later slipped on an easier bit. If the ice axe cutting steps is like chipping granite youve got ask what you are doing there.