Self Arrest Technique Without an Ice Axe

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It doesn’t take a lot for self arrest to fail. Snow that is icy or too firm can be impossible to get an ice axe to bight into as we slide with any momentum. Slope angles that are too steep can mean acceleration happens to fast, and so by the time we begin self arrest procedures we are already moving too quickly (and therefore have too much momentum). We could have crampons on our feet that mean we have to dig in our knees rather than our feet (dig in our feet before we have slowed down and the crampons can bight so hard that we flip over and lose control), reducing the digging we can do into the snow, as our rounded knees struggle to dig into the surface.

This video isn’t about improving those odds. In fact, all three of the methods shown in the video - all of which assume we do not have our axe - are inferior to the practice of using our ice axe. Rather, this video is about what to do when all of the other options have been exhausted. These are the last ditch effort to save yourself, not the first set of techniques to turn to.

So, if I’ve fallen AND I’ve lost my axe, I’m still not one to give up. Maybe I don’t stop myself but DO slow myself down enough that the unseen patch of soft snow can grab me. Maybe I only slow myself down enough to save me from more traumatic injury. I don’t know what the outcome will be, so for as long as it is unknown, I will try to fight for a better outcome.

I’m sure I will get a lot of comments and messages talking about how these techniques won’t work. The reality is that they have all worked, before. BUT, yes, they have also all NOT worked before. There is this great scene in the movie The Lion in Winter when the three brothers, facing execution by King Henry II, contemplate begging for mercy. Richard says he will not and is chastised by one brother as a fool thinking it matters how he “falls down” in death. Richard replies, “When the fall is all there is, it matters.”

It may be that these techniques will not save you should you ever have to deploy them. It may be that they do. But at there very least, we can try to exhaust our ability to impact our situation. I feel like it’s my duty to try. I have people counting on me to come home.