Between Brotherbob12, Jim, and Paul, there is a nice list of "things to be aware of" here. (btw, I love Paul's TR's! Hopefully he will post another up after his next ski tour) I'll just add one more. We used to snowshoe backpack up at Mt. Lassen when I was a kid. One time I was out on my own away from camp poking around without snowshoes in the trees and in a slight swale. I could hear water flowing...like a stream. I was standing there like an idiot thinking hard about the sound when it dawned on me that I was standing on the stream. As I quickly turned and move away from the area, one foot went thru but I was able to lay down and crawl away from the area. I should have moved more slowly from the area. Lucky I didn't weigh much at the time.

So my tip is to stop and listen to the sounds of the area. Its one way to help avoid problem areas. In my very limited experience in snow, it is usually very quiet.


So now a question; I am able to mitigate sweating in snow by layering ... for the most part. My feet still sweat a lot and in the morning I have frozen boots. My old solution was to put the boots in a bag and toss them in the bottom of my sleeping bag. As I grew this became less and less comfortable, and currently I am hoping to avoid this situation on multiple night trips. It seems like liners are the easiest (and Best?) solution. So the solution would be buy a pair of boots with liners and carry a spare pair to rotate out with? I'm going to be swimming in plastic bags with just a thin pair of socks between the plastic and my feet.

Chris