Hiking in snow

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Snowshoes are tiring to wear as you need to take a wider, swinging step as well as a higher one. Snowshoes work best when the snow has some give to it but not too much (i.e. a bit less than knee-height give). Snowshoes are pretty much useless on compacted snow. They're not used in the High Arctic where the snow is deep but effectively like concrete. My experience is with prairie-style snowshoes (i.e., the traditional long snowshoe with a tail). Bearpaw snowshoes are almost tailless and much shorter. They're principally used in forested areas where they're more maneuverable than the prairie-style. They give good support as the snow isn't usually quite as deep. [I'm basing that on my sister's observations as a user.] I'd say you can ignore the snow penalty and treat the terrain as if the snow were equivalent ground when wearing snowshoes.

The snowshoes I used were a weird hybrid of plastic and sinew. I think someone made them out of spare parts and the remains of deer from the hunting season. Importantly, they also had studs on the bottom of the frames, for snowpack and ice.

Local weather conditions means we can end up with hard ice/snow plates that linger stubbornly after another few feet of snow get dumped on top, and when snowshoeing you can find yourself going from snow to ice-covered-hell to snow again.

I've worn studded boots for icy conditions, and those were better than the studded snowshoes. But the studded snowshoes were better than boots with no studs, reducing it from "icy" to just "super clumsy like snowshoes always are".

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I don't think that's how it works. Both terrain and weather allege to modify daily travel. Modifying your speed modifies your daily travel — if you can cut the time it takes to travel the maximum distance in half, you've just doubled the maximum distance.

Your example would be easier to follow without all the other modifiers.

Suppose we have the following character:

ST 10, DX 10, IQ 10, HT 10
Basic Speed 5, Basic Move 5
No encumbrance
Assume all Hiking rolls are failed.

What is the daily mileage of the character in the following situations? Assume "deep snow" weather always divides by 4.

Cross-country light forest in good weather: 50 miles
Cross-country light forest in deep snow: ?
Cross-country mountains in good weather: 10 miles
Cross-country mountains in deep snow: ?
Light forest road in deep snow: ?
Mountain road in deep snow: ?

Cross-country light forest in good weather: ideal daily distance is 50 miles (Terrain is classed as Average) and could be covered in 5 hours at full Move.

Cross-country light forest in deep snow: ideal daily move is 10 miles (Deep snow replaces Light Forest as terrain type. Terrain is now classed as Very Bad) and requires 20 hours to cover at full Move.

Cross-country mountains in good weather: Ideal daily move is 10 miles (Terrain is classed as Very Bad) and could be covered in one hour at full Move.

Cross-country mountains in deep snow: Ideal daily move is still 10 miles (Terrain is still Very Bad with deep snow replacing mountain as terrain type) and would require 4 hours at full Move.

Road in light forest: Ideal daily move is 50 miles (treated as Average Terrain) but it takes four times as long (20 hours) if not cleared down to ankle depth.

Road in mountain: Ideal daily move is 50 miles (treated as Average Terrain) but it takes four times as long (20 hours) if not cleared down to ankle depth.

Road in deep snow: If the road isn’t at least partially cleared of snow, you don’t have a road (Terrain is Very Bad)! Ideal daily distance is 10 miles. If partially cleared, ideal daily move is 50 miles (treated as Average Terrain) but it takes four times as long (20 hours) if not cleared to at least ankle depth.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Cross-country light forest in good weather: ideal daily distance is 50 miles (Terrain is classed as Average) and could be covered in 5 hours at full Move.

Then what's to stop the party from saying, "Why are we limited to 50 miles, if we only traveled for five hours? We started at 7 am and now it's noon. Can't we travel this afternoon too? Let's walk 100 miles today!"

Cross-country mountains in good weather: Ideal daily move is 10 miles (Terrain is classed as Very Bad) and could be covered in one hour at full Move.

That's walking at ten miles per hour! This doesn't pass a reality check. This can't be the way the rules are supposed to work.

[AlexanderHowl]

I generally use terrain and weather for daily progress. When you have deep snow, you are moving slower and resting more often, thus you have a 0.2 multiplier in deep snow because of the terrain. Deep forests are a separate terrain, even during winter, because the trees will capture large amounts of snow, though you still need to navigate around the trees (though snowing weather will still slow you down).

Weather is a separate category and is cumulative with terrain, so dense packed snow is very bad terrain and heavy snowing quarters progress (it hides hollows and holes, it blocks passages, etc). If you have deep snow combined with heavy snowing, you will move at x0.05 normal pace (x0.025 normal pace with ice crusted snow). If you have skis though, you treat snow as Average terrain and ignore the effects of snowing (so a man on skis will travel twenty times faster than a man on foot when struggling through deep snow and heavy snowing). This fits reality, as it is very difficult to walk through deep snow during heavy snowing.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Then what's to stop the party from saying, "Why are we limited to 50 miles, if we only traveled for five hours? We started at 7 am and now it's noon. Can't we travel this afternoon too? Let's walk 100 miles today!"



That's walking at ten miles per hour! This doesn't pass a reality check. This can't be the way the rules are supposed to work.

Okay, Move 5 = 5 yards/second x 60 seconds/minute = 300 yards/ min x 60 minutes/hour = 18,000 yards/hour/1760 yards/mile = 10 10/44 miles/hour. That isn't actually a walking pace, that's a non-sprinting, running pace. So in that case, time is actually abstracted as a full day, so:

revised:
Cross-country light forest in good weather: ideal daily distance is 50 miles (Terrain is classed as Average) and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).

Cross-country light forest in deep snow: ideal daily move is 10 miles (Deep Snow replaces Light Forest as terrain type. Terrain is now classed as Very Bad) and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).


Cross-country mountains in good weather: Ideal daily move is 10 miles (Terrain is classed as Very Bad) and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).


Cross-country mountains in deep snow: Ideal daily move is still 10 miles (Terrain is still Very Bad with Deep Snow replacing Mountain as terrain type) and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).


Road in light forest: Ideal daily move is 50/4 = 12.5 miles (treated as Average Terrain) with deeper than ankle snow penalty and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).

Road in mountain: Ideal daily move is 50/4 = 12.5 miles (treated as Average Terrain) with deeper than ankle snow penalty and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).

Road in deep snow: If the road isn’t at least partially cleared of snow, you don’t have a road (Terrain is Very Bad)! Ideal daily distance is 10 miles. If partially cleared, ideal daily move is 50/4 = 12.5 miles (treated as Average Terrain) and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).

So, if you have snow but no deeper than ankle depth, halve ideal daily distance for the underlying terrain type. If the snow is deeper than ankle deep, Terrain type is Deep Snow and classed as Very Bad. Snow-covered (or ice-covered) roads [regardless of road quality] are Average Terrain with Weather penalties for snow until cleared. If cleared, Road quality once again affects effective Terrain.

[Stormcrow]

So you're saying use snow as terrain when off-road and as weather when on a road?

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

So you're saying use snow as terrain when off-road and as weather when on a road?

Almost.

Use Deep Snow as Terrain for off-road travel in more than ankle-deep snow.
Apply the ankle-deep Weather penalty, in addition to whatever the off-road Terrain is, when the snow is "only" ankle-deep.
On a road that is at least partially cleared treat snow as Weather, rather than Terrain.
If the road isn't at least partially cleared, and the snow is deeper than ankle-depth, it isn't a road anymore. It's Deep Snow Terrain.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Walking on well packed granular snow is tiring, the same way that walking on sand is tiring and for the same reasons. Its a granular surface that warps under your feet and skids around and is generally crappy, even if it's not any significant depth or has had all the "fluff" crushed out of it after a few weeks of dry, cold, windy conditions.

You also have to slightly change your pace to avoid the risk of slipping, taking shorter steps so that you plant more of your foot with each step rather than taking full strides. That slows you down even if it doesn't fatigue you.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Wading through snow is like walking on snow, with the added penalty of wading through stuff. It's not as much extra weight as wading through water, but it has added hazards from the depth being concealed. You'll be walking on a packed layer, and then wading through layers of fresher fluffier stuff.

Ideally, you'd figure out snow depth vs. leg length. Any depth of snow which forces you to "kick" your way through it rather than being able to step over the snowpack with each step makes movement much slower and more fatiguing.

Any depth of snow much deeper than knee height means that it's harder to "kick" and you have to use your entire body to "plow" through it.

Really deep snow (like the Western slopes of the Sierra Nevada during winter, at least when the weather isn't being weird, or places which get unreasonable amounts of Lake Effect snowfall) means that you might sink in over your head, so you sort of have to "swim" through the snow.

And that's on foot for a human. Never mind a wheeled vehicle or an animal with much worse ground pressure than a human, like a moose.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/snowmo...snow-1.3743617

Originally Posted by Bruno

Snow shoes are helpful for both kinds, but dramatically better for the deep fluffy stuff.

Ditto for cross-country skis. And modern snowshoes are an improvement over the old-style "tennis racquet" style showshoes.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Cross-country mountains in good weather: Ideal daily move is 10 miles (Terrain is classed as Very Bad) and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).


Cross-country mountains in deep snow: Ideal daily move is still 10 miles (Terrain is still Very Bad with Deep Snow replacing Mountain as terrain type) and takes the full day (as per p.351 Time Required and Fatigue Cost).

Unless you're following valleys or similar low terrain features, it's not unreasonable to require characters to make Climbing and/or Survival (Mountain) skill rolls in these conditions. There are lots of hazards in the mountains in winter, not least of which are avalanches.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Unless you're following valleys or similar low terrain features, it's not unreasonable to require characters to make Climbing and/or Survival (Mountain) skill rolls in these conditions. There are lots of hazards in the mountains in winter, not least of which are avalanches.

It's not unreasonable even if you are in a valley. Valleys are often at the foot of mountains and avalanches end up there. Avalanches can hit bottom faster than you can get out of the way and with considerable force.

As an example, a couple of years before I was on avalanche control, an avalanche control crew got caught by an avalanche dropping on them by the roadway in a valley at the foot of the mountain. The crew made it to the safety of the avalanche shed. The 2.5 T cargo truck was left by the roadway and got picked up by the avalanche. It was found in the following spring after the snow melted, a quarter-mile from the roadway.