What to do if you’re skiing down and you have not a rope or you want to save time or to full ski a route? Vivian Bruchez is a master on Dry ski, he develop techniques to down ski (climb) in rocky sections. 1. Back on the rock: when is narrow between rocks, put the back on the rock, searching the maximum friction with the but and the back (backpack) and with the hands climb down. The skis will be with the front part up and the back part down.
If it’s to narrow to have the skis on the snow, it’s ice or it’s to steep to don’t fall with only the back friction we can put the skis on the rock on the front, like climbing a cheminée, trying to find the maximum adherence with the skis (pushing to the rock on front with the skis as flat as possible.
2. Front on the rock: sometimes we will need to enter to the narrow part with the front, in this case we will go with the front part of the body (chest) to find friction and use the hands to climb down. The skis will be with the front part on the down and the back up.
3. Other techniques: when is not a narrow couloir but a rocky section, we will try to down climb using both skis like separate climbing foots (trying to put always on snow sections or flat on the rocks. Have the body as close to the ground possible to have the maximum friction and the hands as down as possible to hold as on down climbing.
a video showing Vivian using the skis and hands (hands and ice axe) to climb down a rocky steep :
Nice Blog, thanks for sharing this kind of information.