Should we use skiis or snowshoes for the approach?
[back to top] [FAQ contents][Mountaineering FAQ] From: Armin, 5/11/1995 Tough call if the half the team can’t ski. Depends how athletic they are and how fast they can learn to ski. However skiing downhill through cravasses while roped up is a challenge even for experienced skiers. You might want to think about having the skiers ski and the non-skiers use snowshoes if your team is big enough. Going up it’s all the same anyway, and going down you’ll just have to stop and wait for them once in a while. Most likely you’ll cache your skis at around 12,000 feet anyway and walk the rest with crampons. I used AT skis and binding and my Asolo plastic climbing boots. If you plan to ski from the summit and/or down the West Butt you’ll probably want to use AT ski boots as well. It worked OK in plastic climbing boots but would have been a lot more fun with AT ski boots. From: rbmack, 5/13/1999 We snowshoed and it was fine. You only have a couple or three days on either on the way up. With skiing yo
