PT: Explain your crevasse self rescue setup (I honestly have no idea) to me? Also, what sort of food did you bring? I know you well enough to not be surprised if it was just a few sticks of butter, but I'm hoping there was more to it than that...

CV: First, although you're from the Coast, a little bit of context. In SW BC the standard (in spring) is to ski around unroped on glaciers. Parties just carry a rope in case a rescue is required, or in case bad weather interferes with navigation and the ability to see where the heavily crevassed are. Most never use it. And it's not crazy - we have glaciers not because it's cold, but because we get so much snow. From March to June, in a normal snow year on most glaciers, the crevasses are all under metres on snow. By late spring, once the snowpack has settled and become firm, the crevassed areas are usually easy to see (or predict from experience / satellite images), and a surprisingly thin snowbridge can support you on skis anyway.

Although uncommon crevasse falls are obviously still possible. In most accident reports I've read (from spring) the skier gets banged up but sustains relatively minor injuries (if any) - broken nose, ribs, maybe a mild concussion - and is hauled out in good shape by the rest of the party. Rarely they are killed outright, but I have yet to actually read an accident report where the skiers sustained major trauma but survived because the rest of the party was able to rescue them with their rope.

Anyway, I figured that I should carry something to be able to extract myself, so I came up with a system involving my harness, 2 ice screws with pre-tied leg loops and non-locking biners and a short length of dynamic rope, loop in tied both ends, clove-hitched with one end close to the harness and the other end with a locking biner. Everything is pre-tied to exactly the right length, as determined by practice/experimenting.

The sequence, once you stop falling, is to screw in an ice screw as high as the dynamic rope leash allows, and clip it with the locking biner/rope so you won't fall further while taking off your skis, putting on more clothes, etc. Once ready to climb clip a leg-loop into the same screw with one of the non-lockers, and flip the biner such that you can clip it again before weighting it and stepping up. Once you step up you can clip the short end of the rope leash into the non-locker along with the leg loop so you are stable and can use both hands to place the next screw, move the long leash up to it, clip the next foot loop, and repeat. As long as I've got at least one good leg and arm I should be able to do it.

The trickiest part would be the overhanging snow by the lip... it seems the "best" way is probably to jam both ski poles leaning a bit back from vertical as deep as you can a little wider than shoulder-width, jam your skis horizontally behind them, and yard yourself up on your skis. If the lip is too sketchy at least I can probably get satellite reception once I'm out of most of the crevasse and swap ice screws (to compensate for slow melt-out / creep) while I wait for the cavalry.

PT: I don't know if you're a genius or totally insane. Probably a bit of both - though I think I'm going to have to try out your self rescue technique. I don't think we'll see the ACMG touting it as a preferred technique, but for solo missions it's a hell of a lot better than nothing...

How about food? What did you bring?

CV: My food was all carbs, mostly sugar. A mix of dried (sugar-added) fruit, energy gels, candy - you know, healthy stuff. I've learned that my mouth starts to feel gross after a while eating this stuff constantly. I actually brought a toothbrush, and brushed a few times while out there (without stopping, obviously). I think I should probably train my body to eat more fats too, but carbs was what I'd eaten while training so I stuck to it for this season.