Matt and I headed out with Michael and Pete for some practice on St. Mary's glacier. Since there aren't many crevasses in Colorado, we had to make do with what we could find. That's where St. Mary's comes in. It's a moderate, permanent snow field on the approach to James Peak. Whether or not it is a glacier, I can't say, though if you believe the name...

Anyway, crevasses or no, we were planning to climb some steep snow slopes while in Colorado. Having the ability to self arrest on snow and alpine ice is a skill that you can't afford to ignore.

The hike in from the trailhead only takes about 20 to 30 minutes and is an easy walk up a well traveled trail. The parking at the trailhead has become somewhat of an issue, but any problems weren't apparent while we were there. Once we got to the glacier, we donned our crampons and set about practicing "glacier travel." We climbed up about 1/3 of the way and practiced self arrest after removing our crampons. The angle of the slope is such that getting up any speed while sliding is quite challenging, but we gave it as good a go as we could. We practiced arresting while falling feet first on our bellies, then progressed through the various positions until we got to head first on our backs. Even though the slope is moderate, it took some commitment on my part to throw myself down the slope on my back. The arresting was relatively straight forward and didn't present any problems for either Matt or myself. Next we practiced roped travel using the Kiwi coil, and running belays on the steepest section of the glacier. Matt and I both practiced placing pickets and using the boot belay for each other.

Finally, we watched Mike dig a bollard in the snow and rappel off of it, then we finished up with some more self arrests before we headed off towards Stevens Gulch.