How to Build a Snow Anchor

Hi, I'm Emily Drinkwater, an AMJA instructor team member. I'm going to talk about a few different types of snow anchors, which are really useful to know about for steep snow climbing or if you find yourself in a crevasse rescue situation. The first one will be a T-Trench style anchor. I'll use a picket, but I could also use my axe. So I just made a T-Trench. It was undercut from the beginning. Right now it's deep enough in this good quality snow that I can bury a picket or my axe. So this is a mid-clip picket. Right now I'm just going to place it to figure out where I want the cable to line up. I'm going to take it back out and cut that spot. I'll use my tool to place this down a little deeper and then set it. So I could backfill this to add a little bit more security. I'm cutting from this side, not from the front of the trench. The benefits of backfilling keep the picket from trying to ride up and out. The T-Trench is one of the strongest types of snow anchors that works in a variety of environments. For a vertically driven picket, I will place this with the front edge facing toward the load and I'll go aim off just by 10-15 degrees. So if I go too far back this way, it's quite a bit weaker. And if I go too far forward this way, it can pull right out. So the optimal angle is 10-15 degrees. Having a hammer is ideal. It makes hammering this in pretty easy. But I can also use my adze by flipping this just upside down and hammering it in that way as well. Now I'll use a carabiner to clip those top two holes and I'm done. The downside to this type of placement is that if it's softer snow, it's not as strong. The final type of snow anchor is a vertical mid-clip using the picket in this orientation with the cable toward the load. So just like the previous one, I want to be 10-15 degrees back from the snow surface. I'm going to hammer this in. So right now in this kind of snow, the cable of my picket is still kind of riding up and out like this. I want it to come straight out from that mid-clip point. So I'm going to add a carabiner to the end and my axe and give this a little additional pull but as you can see, it's still popping up and out. Yeah, I can have a friend come and step on it and give that a good pull into place. So you can see that this is an efficient way to build a snow anchor. In good quality snow, it's strong, but in softer snow this wouldn't be my first choice.