For gentle checks to pace, touching at intervals with the axe point, or pressing on one or both heels momentarily, is sufficient.
Sitting.
Practically no snow slope of right consistency and termination is too steep to glissade down; but many incline at too low an angle, or are of too soft a surface, to glissade down in a standing position.
So long as we are young and thoughtless, and place the enthusiastic memories of youthful tobogganing before the after-discomfort of wet clothing,—a youth which in the case of mountaineers appears to extend well on into the sixties,—we hail such soft slopes as the recovered opportunity of recalling a lost ideal; and we descend them sitting-wise.
For sitting, the methods of guiding and braking with the axe and the feet are much the same as for standing; only they are more clumsy and proportionately less effective, as the slope also is less exacting. The axe is held under the arm, in the same manner, to brake, and is transferred from side to side to steer.
The foot steering is performed by obstructing with one heel or the other. For a sharper turn, the legs are lifted and swung across in the desired direction. To avoid rolling over in a quick turn like this, the body leans over on the side towards which the turn is made, and the weight is thrown inward and back upon the axe. The whole length of the outside of the leg and thigh contributes to the steering action, as an equivalent for the canting of the feet in a standing turn. Leg and thigh thus supplement the ineffective guidance of the heels. The movement checks the pace usefully, for the snow will begin to hummock under the thighs and up under the jacket, whereas before it was merely percolating through the breeches.
In descending direct the legs are kept together, and the body is converted into as rigid a reproduction of a torpedo as the incidents of descent permit. To accelerate the pace the body can be thrown back and held stiff, which takes off the brake made by the curves of the back and distributes the weight, as on a sleigh or ski. This movement adds the neck to the other potential snow orifices.
On unwilling slopes, punting with the axe and a swimming motion of the legs can be resorted to, for propulsion; but the effort is not dignified. Shooting, or ‘chuting,’ head-foremost has an exuberant appearance, but does not add materially to the chances of pace.
Braking is done upon easy slopes by opening the legs, and allowing a triangle of travelling snow to pack between them. To brake sharply, the axe point is driven into the snow under the arm, the body is arched stiffly upward clear of the slope on the support of the axe, and the heels are driven down and in, close together.
For standing glissading, if the surface is good, we generally each choose a line of virgin snow. Pace will come of itself, and is not so important as uniformity of surface. But in sitting glissading the first to descend has the worst place. He has to make a clearer and harder track for the rest. If a trough of this kind is once formed, it will be most polished in its exact centre; and men are well advised to turn slightly upon one thigh and shoot down upon their longest but narrowest available body-surface.