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... continued Next morning, our field training party departed off to Rumdoodle Hut were there was a large snow tail used to practice self arresting on ice / snow slopes.
There are four ways to self arrest - from easiest to hardest -
To practice self arrest, we climbed up to the top of the snow slope and each took it in turns to slide down the slope in the four different starting positions. The slope was about 25 metres high, and sliding down it I gained quite a bit of speed ! After I had got the hand of the feet first arresting, I tried the head first on my back slides, which turned out to be quite a lot of fun. Just imagine going down a slippery dip head first, on your back! After an hour or so I had done at least two dozen slides down the slope - and then I capped it off by climbing near to the top and doing a good long 'bum slide' down to the bottom without trying to stop. Next stop was Fang, a peak in the David Range which runs parallel to the Masson's Range. Fang peak (named because it looks like a Shark's tooth) was an hours quad ride across the plateau ice via a cane line.
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Walking
across snow and ice slopes is a fairly risky business, but as with
all risks, they can be managed and reduced. Aids such as crampons
are used to make a firm grip on snow and ice, while ice axes are
used to "arrest" yourself if you fall and start sliding
down a snow or ice covered slope. When you are walking, you carry
an ice axe in your up hill hand, then when you slip you have to
grab the handle of the axe, and place your body weight over the
axe and use the tip of the axe to make a "brake" in the
snow. 