Glissading the Volcano

There was an episode of 'Happy Days' where Fonzie jumped over a shark. Now, 'Jumping the Shark' means a show does absurd or over-the-top episodes to boost ratings. I guess we jumped the shark this summer on our Sea2Sky trip when we 'Glissaded the Volcano'.

Climbing about 3500 feet through rock, snow, and ash over 4 hours to the top of an active volcano and watching the steam come out of a crater 500 feet below your feet was pretty absurd. But, taking just 1 hour to get back down was awesome!

Glissading is sledding down a steep hill - with no sled. It's way cool and can be done on snow, sand, ash, grass, on your butt or on your feet. We just sat down, while wearing our rain pants, and arrived 500 feet down the mountain about 30 seconds later.

We would glissade down, walk across the fall line, glissade again, over and over. We made about 6 runs total. In the middle picture, you can see people walking across the top.

Of course, like everything we do, there is a sense of danger and a bit of risk - raising the first while minimizing the second is key. We practiced how to use gloved hands to steer, use elbows, hands, packs, and legs to brake, and especially how to hoot and howl all the way down!

When you get a chance to try glissading, here's a few tips:

• Wear rain pants and jacket, and gloves.
• Tuck your jacket inside your pants to prevent snow from packing inside.
• Follow in the track made by the person ahead of you.
• Don't start a run unless you can see the end of the run - rocks at the bottom really suck.
• Roll to your stomache and raise up on your elbows, digging them in, to stop fast.
• Have everyone practice and demonstrate ability before going.

You can see our whole Sea2Sky trip at this page.

Scout On