BTW - current guidelines are to leave crampons on during glissading (unless obviously not required, Freedom of the Hills is outdated).
Who issued these new guidelines superseding decades of sound advice? Wearing crampons while glissading isn’t a clever innovation that the authors of Freedom of the Hills were too dumb to think of. It’s an unsafe practice that mountaineers learned not to do decades ago. If you catch a crampon point on the snow or ice, you can easily snap an ankle or tumble ass over teakettle down the mountain. If you can’t hike out, you could conceivably spend your last night waiting for a rescue that turns into a recovery. This kind of misinformation could get someone seriously injured. Never wear crampons while glissading!
If the snow isn’t too steep or icy, you know how to glissade safely, there are no hidden rocks, and you don’t care about damaging your pants or getting soaking wet, feel free to take off your crampons and glissade. Otherwise, just walk down the mountain. This is much safer than glissading and almost as fast.
