Comments on: Backcountry Skiing News Roundup

By: Jason Gregg

Jason Gregg — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:51:59 +0000

Lou I went back and read through this to see if you would make any comments about the situation on Maroon Creek road. It’s not really like snowmobiling across a lake but it is supposed to be closed in the winter. The number of cyclists I saw up there today was impressive, mechanized vehicles in a wilderness…

An incredible amount of back and forth went on in this one. My only observation is that Andrew McLean’s position that 99% of the challenge of skiing 14′ers is in non-mechanised access seems to underestimate things a bit.

As far as our Spring here goes it’s looking like the sn-irt has really wrecked it a bit unless you go way high, like up Independence Pass, but that road’s closed too.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:26:37 +0000

Why is it that the wilderness argument always revolves around humans? The fact that you can hear a sled coming from a mile away is one of the reasons for reduced wildlife and the decline in one of the original intents and tenets of wilderness and open space– peaceful human and wildlife interaction. Having a skier quietly glide by v.s. a sled motoring by is, in the end, a difference of degrees in disruption. However, the degree in which backcountry solitude is disrupted by snowmobiles/helicopters, etc. is large and consequential. The critters that try to survive during cold winter months are having to compensate for our increasingly large presence in previously ureachable areas. From a human standpoint, the distant whine of snowmobiles will always detract from the “open space” experience, whether one realizes it or not. Outside my hometown of Bend, Oregon, you can’t start skiing from any of the main, non-motorized trailheads outside earshot from snowmachines. Just another reason to buy a motorhome and use the rest of the planet’s fossil fuels as quickly as possible– the only way we’ll move on from these nasty machines. PS: I did see a Pine Martin track a couple weeks ago while skinning up Tumalo Mtn., but it had been a while. With 7 billion humans on earth by 2012, we’ll need to start making decisions based on degrees of disruption, and it may well be the slow and quiet road. Still fun, just slower and quieter (on the way up anyway).

By: Paul Perkins

Paul Perkins — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:50:23 +0000

I personally don’t understand all the fuss. The loud sound of snowmobiles goes away really fast. The smell goes away shortly after that. The tracks disappear in the next snowstorm.

What doesn’t go away fast are slowpokes on skins! lol.

Besides, most snowmobilers (not the readers of this blog though) are fat, uneducated, drunks who probably lack the physical capacity to steal your dream ski line. If the pollution and noise bothers you, you can have a reciprocal negative impact on the slednecks by…hmmmm…well, maybe you can’t.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:38:33 +0000

Koch shoulda get hisself a gun to proteck hisself from offishuls and from green guvernment! That guys a true rider!

By: Andrew McLean

Andrew McLean — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:16:58 +0000

AO – that is much more my style. I’m envisioning a time in the future where we are all sitting around a nice smokey garbage fire consisting mainly of Bud Lite boxes and Dorito bags while I listen to the sad tales of all of the trouble they’ve had with their machines over the years. Caught on fire… again! Those Yamahas really are overheating pieces of crap. Rodent infestation in your cabin? Oh man! That sounds horrible. (sure, I’ll have another Bud). And that time you almost died when you not so hidden illegal deer perch collapsed. Wow. Close call, eh?