tirolerpeter Glad to see that there is someone older than I doing this thing!!! I try to keep in mind, however, the adage >>There's no fool, like an old fool.<< as I age. Your conditioning program looks very interesting. I have a hard time sticking with exercise equipment , and alas my waist line shows it. Anyway, your experience nearly drowning in snow may help you if you get caught in an Avalanche. I want to add some comments on that here. First of all once you spend some time at terrestial altitude, you should be learning something about these beasts of nature. The avalanche that took out the lodge and lift line in the Sierra's happened at Alpine Meadows. I saw pictures in Newsweek of a memorial they had on the tenth anniversary of the disaster. Try picturing a group of still youthful snow bunnies and ski bums with missing limbs.
Some party. On another topic, did you find your helmut a hinderance when floundering around in the snow? I wonder what a hood with a mouth hole and helmut might be like in such extreme situations. I'm not comfortable with a helmut. They increase the possiblility of serious neck injuries for one. I will wear a hood if it is raining or snowing out. However, I prefer hats as they have the optimal visibility range. I was rear-ended somewhere in Utah once by some wild-eyed punk coming out of my blind side going into a powder bowl. He took air off of the lip without knowing who was in the area. The deep snow saved me from serious injury, but since them I am always leary about my periferal vision. When I played American football with a helmut, my coach (a very capable Canadian football league vetran) was always instructing me to keep my concentration on my periferal vision.