Sun, snow, and Mt. Superior
With weather worthy of sandals and shorts in Salt Lake City, June 5th, to me, seemed like an excellent day for skiing. Lots of late-season snow and consistent melt/freeze cycles with little rain left considerable coverage on favorable aspects above 8,000 feet. And after more than 20 consecutive weekends of charging down the fall line, the idea of another Saturday without strapping sticks to my feet made me feel a little dead inside. It is an addiction, after all.
Photo courtesy: Petra Cliffs
Last month, three unlucky skiers were caught in a large avalanche in the Alaskan backcountry. Guide Steve Charest of Petra Cliffs and one of the skiers were taken for a ride and partially buried. The other skier was fully buried and nowhere to be seen. Read More …
Photo by: Steve Charest
A few weeks ago I was on the last leg of a red-eye from Los Angeles to my home in Vermont. I was haggard. As I was zoning out at my window seat, a young woman sat down next to me, looking equally as tired. “Are you as ready as I am to get back to Burlington?” I asked.
“You have no idea.”
With a knowing smirk, I waited patiently for the typical sob story of missed connections, bitchy airline employees, and lost baggage.
“I’m coming back from Alaska … I was caught in an avalanche.” Read More …
I’m almost at the top, trying to avoid glancing down. The bootpack is so steep that my skis, strapped to my pack, brush the snow above my head. The guy in front of me is sporting jeans and somehow managing the climb with what must be a pair of at least 190s nonchalantly slung over his shoulder. Crushed cans of Coors Original rattle in the cargo pocket of my ski pants. This is New Hampshire. This is Tuckerman’s.
Having spent nearly a decade skiing the Rockies, I often and only half-jokingly espoused the virtues of my East coast roots. So it always bothered me that I had never skied the East coast’s premier test-piece – the headwall of Tuckerman’s Ravine on New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington. Read More …
While driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon, I received the news that an extraordinary person and dear friend, Jack Hannan, had passed away. My heart sank deep into my insides. On March 31st, Jack and three others were dropped off by helicopter on Mt. Currie (near Jack’s home in Pemberton, BC) for a fun day of backcountry skiing. The crew had safely skied down their line and had been getting ready to boot-pack up to another area of the peak when the highest member of the group suddenly noticed a slide heading straight towards them. Jack was positioned a bit lower than the rest of the group and was the only one swept away by the avalanche. It’s believed that the Class 3 slide occurred naturally due to a cornice failure. The rest of his party wasn’t harmed by the slide, and they were able to find and uncover him quickly, but unfortunately the trauma was too much for Jack, and it’s believed he was killed instantly. Read More …
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 …
Haute Route Shack - Photo: Dustin Robertson
March and April are the ideal times to head across the pond for the hut-to-hut-tour to end all hut-to-hut tours: the Haute Route. The Haute Route, or High Route, traverses from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland. It usually takes seven to ten days to travel through 60 miles of the most stunning scenery in the world: glaciers, mountain passes, and 14,000-foot peaks in every direction. Read More …
The sun has yet to rise, but the Wasatch trailhead parking lots are already jam-packed with avid backcountry skiers and snowboarders. If you’re tired of the crowds in Utah and looking to experience a truly serene place away from it all, check out the Tushar Mountain Range. Located just 3.5 hours south of Salt Lake City off of I-15, the Tushars offer plenty of parking and tons of untracked snow to please any powder junkie. Read More …
Untouched fall lines everywhere your eyes land, private lodgings for you and your friends, no cell phones, computers, or other distractions to take away from skiing powder, and a warm fire to tend—it’s hard to say no to a multi-day hut or yurt trip.
And while hut and yurt trips are inevitably incredible, I’ve discovered a handful of helpful hints for packing and gearing up that can ensure an epic trip. After all, angry feet, lack of hydration, or exhaustion from carrying an over-burdened pack can ruin a trip—just like being cold can. When packing for a multi-day ski touring trip, consider each activity you’ll be engaged in during the trip as well as its associated gear (or stuff to make said activity or time comfortable), and then create a checklist of what you do and do not need. Read More …
Ah yes. It’s President’s Day again. That wonderful day of the year when we celebrate the birth of George Washington by, apparently, shopping for new cars or armchairs on sale. For the lucky few who actually get the holiday off, it is often a time to enjoy skiing the resort with the family. Yet few things are more irritating than waiting in line for five hours while you watch your precious day off tick on by. Heaven forbid if it snows the night before. Then you’re in for a holiday at the resort free-for-all.
Luckily, we’ve come up with five ways to cope with the President’s Day Blues. Read More …
Shoes to packs, hit the trails.
Backcountry house-hunting, simplified.
Stay dry out there.
GTS: Get The Shot
By: Adam Riser | June 25th, 2010No Comments »
This is the beginning of all hell breaking loose, but I missed all the gnar.
“I’m ready!” you tell your friend above, and a couple seconds later hear the distant response of “OK, dropping!” You fire off frames as your friend bursts from the lip of the jump, but he lets out an “Oh S#!T” as soon as he’s in the air, and you both know this is going to end badly. You have two choices. You can either lower your camera, and cringe as your buddy takes a massive digger, or you can hold down the shutter release and fire off frames like a machine gunner making his last stand. Either way, strange as it may seem, the first thing your friend will say when you get over to him is, “Tell me you got a picture of that.”
I’ve seen some pretty nasty stuff happen to friends while I was holding a camera, but I rarely got the defining photo because I didn’t want to be that jerk who stood there taking pictures while his friend got broken off. Read More …
Tags: backcountry skiing, climbing, outdoor photography, photography
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