2005.10.16 Matt Gunn Proposed Ski Tour Ratings for South Coast
After some thought and discussion I've put together a proposed rating system for ski tours and ski descents in the southern coast mountains. It is a combination of alpine grades for overall tour difficulty and a crux ski descent grade. I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts on this rating system.

Proposed South Coast Ski Tour Ratings

Click here for more information about ski tour rating systems

2005.06.09 Mike Warren weather slash conditions
(response to mitch): certainly weather plays a big role in ski-travere difficulty, but the same is true of alpine climbs yet the ratings are still useful. Ice-climbing, too: depending upon the year climbs get harder or easier. Still, a general rating is useful to a lot of people if only to reduce the number of trips one has to bail on.

Also (to Don): the descriptions in many alpine (and ski) guidebooks are sort of a trip-report style and generally include options at points where things might differ year-to-year (e.g. ice sections which might only form intermittantly). I agree these are the most useful sorts of information, though; one just has to learn how to adjust for various authors.

2005.06.07 Don Funk Trip report is the most useful...
I think a trip report (or summary) describing what an individual or party went through would be the most useful in giving others an idea of what a particular route would be like. There are so many factors that can influence the length of time and difficulty in completing a route, and as Mitch says, even weather and seasonal factors can make a huge difference. In my early days of backcountry skiing, I used Baldwin's book "Exploring the Coast Mountains on Skis" quite extensively. Each trip in his book is given a rating according to trip difficulty (letter A to D) and skiing difficulty (1 to 5) I found this system to be quite useful to give one an overall idea of the length and skiing difficulty of the route. But even then, I found the ratings to be somewhat ambiguous. As I gained more experience, I began making use of my maps to a greater degree, and with increasing experience in reading them, would have a pretty good idea as to what I would be "in for" on a particular route.

2005.06.07 Mitch Sulkers Ice and Snow v. Rock
One of the problems with rating snow and ice routes is that seasonal and weather-related issues can seriously change the actual grade one faces. (All right, a blizzard on El Cap does the same thing, but...)

I actually think I'm in the camp with Sandra. People who might rely on ratings for something as complex as a ski route might be drawn into situations the guidebook won't get them out of (kinda like the blizzard on El Cap...)

2005.06.07 Mike Warren neat idea
Interesting idea. Perhaps the alpine grades should be used as overall (long) tour difficulty and a spot-grade-type system used for day-type tours to avoid confusion; the F->ED system is already reasonably well deployed and would give most alpinists a quick idea of the relative commitment of a ski tour...although how does one factor in things like food caches or overall tour length? I suppose the alpine grades already more-or-less accomodate for this...

2005.06.06 Matt Gunn rating thoughts...
Scott: I agree, there is some similarity between the Baldwin grades and the lower end of the Swiss tour grade. However, you are lumping the upper Swiss grades together to match the Baldwin grades. I would say that it is in the upper end of the spectrum that the grades become even more relevant. The increase in difficulty and danger is certainly not linear when you begin adding steeper slopes and exposure.

Sandra: your comment goes right to the heart of a major question about route information. There is certainly a camp of people that prefer less information to preserve the sense of exploration and adventure. On the other hand, there are many people who like more information and detail. The great thing about this question is that people can make what they want of their wilderness experience. People can choose to seek out as much or as little information as possible, just as they can choose to visit areas that are well documented or not. However, it seems clear to me that many people are keen to get as much information as they about trip locations. I think this is for two reasons. 1) To make informed decisions about where to go with precious recreation time 2) To increase the odds of achieving whatever the goal of a given trip is. I think the popularity of sites like bivouac show how much people are interested in details about trip areas.
 

As for ski ratings specifically, it's clear that many people are interested in some sort of detailed rating system. Check out the current forum threads on telemarktips and the couloir website. Topo maps have a lot of good infomation, but there are many things that you can't find out such as slope angle, dog legs in couloirs, small cliff bands and exposure.

If you use climbing as an analogy, like it or not, grades are an important part of the activity. The reason is that grades gives people a basis to compare routes and make route selections based on their motivation. Some people want to take it easy and climb routes well within their comfort zone. Others want to push themselves and climb routes at their limit. Grades help people sort out these route decisions. I don't think many people would say that rock climbing grades are spoon feeding the climbers.

As a final thought: if the euros are doing it, it must be a good idea!
 ;)

2005.06.06 Sandra McGuinness Are we dumbing people down?
Is there sometimes just too much information? If you can't read the map enough to work out the level of difficulty on a ski tour, where your escape routes are, what sections look dodgy etc., maybe you shouldn't be on that tour.

The French system looks a bit like the one Parks Canada has brought in so people know the level of avalanche risk they are exposing themselves to before going on a tour. While this at first glance seems like good information - at least you can't say you weren't informed of the level of risk - at some point it begins to seem like people are being spoon fed.

2005.06.01 Scott Nelson Existing grades
Just thinking abou the existing grades used by books like John Baldwin's Exploring hte coast mountains on skis. It seems to me like there is a pretty close match between the swiss grade and the number part of the grade he uses. F=1, PD=2 AD=3, D&TD=4 and ED&ABO=5

2005.06.01 Matt Gunn 'traverse commitment'
Perhaps there could be another column on the 'Overall Tour Difficulty' for traverses? It could include criteria such as how remote the traverse is, route finding complexities, excape options, glacial terrain features, crux sections, etc.

  These factors could set level for traverses (F, PD, AD, D, etc.)

What do you think?

2005.06.01 Scott Nelson Needs modification for 'wilderness' ski tours
While I think this system work very well for Switzerland, longer ski tours in Canada and the USA also need to consider the commitment level. On some multiday trips there is simply no way to escape from poor weather or bad conditions, which can increase the seriousness of a route. In Switzerland, you can often just ski down the nearest valley and catch the bus home if things start to turn bad.