Practice time

April 17

Wednesday was spent at the lower end of the icefall practicing techniques using crampon (the spikey things under the boots..), a jumar (a device that attaches to a fixed rope and grips in one direction but can be easily pushed upwards) and figure of eight (several techniques to descend a fixed rope using something as simple as an arm wrap to using a figuring of eight metal device to create friction with the rope.

All went well and the experience on other mountains quickly came back. We saw some other teams also practicing. Unfortunately a girl broke her arm on training day who was choppered out early the next morning.