As we savor the final weeks of ski season, we at Backcountry.com have noticed the usual seasonable influx of non-ironic denim and colorblock one-pieces on the spring-breaker-flooded resort slopes. Nobody enjoys a hearty point-and-laugh from the mid-mountain patio as much as we do, and we thank the tourists who film their exploits and post them on the interwebs so we can continue to gape vicariously online. Read More …
Beth Lopez
Beth tries to never stray too far from her cabin in Utah's Wasatch unless it's to go to a worthy place--a place conducive to backpacking, climbing, backcountry skiing, trail running, or pirating the high seas. Processed cheese and smooth jazz are not present in worthwhile places. Beth dares you to beat her at Scrabble. If you do, you shall be allowed to shovel her driveway.
Top 10 Gape-tastic Videos
By: Beth Lopez | April 2nd, 2010Employee Touring Setups: What the Incurable Powder Junkies Use
By: Beth Lopez | March 23rd, 2010
It’s hard to go touring in the Wasatch without running into a Backcountry.com employee, which makes it feel like just another day at the office–an office stuffed with some of the finest easy-access ski terrain around.
This dedicated crew of tour-ists (touring + enthusiasts, for the gravely uninformed) awakes in the pre-dawn hours to hit Superior before a morning meeting and spends the holy Sabbath trekking up the Pfeifferhorn. Collectively, the Backcountry posse possesses an impressive wealth of backcountry gear knowledge–and as any bloke on the skin track can tell you, having the right touring setup makes the difference between an amazing day and a miserable slog. Read More …
Ditch the Resort Food Prices
By: Beth Lopez | March 12th, 2010
It’s not like die-hard skiers needed to adjust their resort spending habits due when the economy turned south—we were poor long before that. But sometimes, the lure of hot chili cheese fries and a cold beer is just too much to pass up. You’re cold, you’re wet, you want something warm in your stomach, and you crave a tasty beverage to wash it down.
So around here, we dedicate ourselves to innovatively sidestepping the $6.50 PBR tallboy (these exist in real life) and the $11 cheese fries available at the resort restaurant and bring some delicacies ourselves. On our menu? Deliciousness. Read More …
Breathability vs Windproofing – Measuring it Up
By: Beth Lopez | February 16th, 2010Outerwear manufacturers gratuitously toss around the terms “windproof,” “wind-resistant,” and “breathable.” And yes, every garment registers somewhere between zero and awesome on the wind-resistance and breathability scales. But it can be hard to pin manufacturers down on an actual number rating. 
And usually when you do see a rating, all you can guess is that higher numbers are better, because, to us Americans, bigger is better (duh).
We’d like to shed a little light on this whole ratings thing and how manufacturers come up with those numbers—and what those numbers actually reflect in terms of your comfort. Read More …
Make Your Ski Boots Fit Better
By: Beth Lopez | February 10th, 2010
When buying ski boots, it doesn’t matter how carefully you research or how many laps you walk around the shop before throwing down your credit card—they likely won’t fit perfectly right out of the box. A perfectly reputable, high-quality boot may simply not work for your foot—and unfortunately many of us figure this out after dropping $700 and spending several ski days in cramped-up agony. Read More …
Beacon Basics: Save Your (Beeping) Life
By: Beth Lopez | January 25th, 2010
Whether you occasionally dart out of the resort gate for a couple of virgin turns or you spend entire seasons shunning the ski lift in favor of the backcountry skin track, you need a beacon strapped around your sternum. It can make the difference between sharing a pitcher with your pals at the end of the day and explaining to search and rescue why you couldn’t dig your pals out of a slide before they asphyxiated. Stark, but there it is. Read More …
The Birth of a Ski: When Wood, Fiberglass, Metal, and Beer Meet in a Garage
By: Beth Lopez | October 19th, 2009
If you love talking skis as much as we do, you follow ski companies’ every development, own a coffee table just for a spot to pile the annual Best Of mags, and gorge yourself at resort demo days. But the ability to rattle off a few tech terms, materials, and construction types doesn’t necessarily equate to a commanding knowledge of how skis are actually made. I do know the difference between torsion box construction and a baby unicorn, but for a more in-depth understanding of ski building, I spent some time at the Salt Lake garage workshop operated by Dwyer Haney, HardwoodSkis.com blogger / sandwich-eater extraordinaire. Read More …