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Friday Mug Contest — Heroes Of Backcountry Skiing

by Lou Dawson August 15, 2008
written by Lou Dawson August 15, 2008

We have a winner: Stuart correctly identified the photo as Bill Briggs, first man to ski the Grand Teton and longtime backcountry skiing pioneer. The contest shot (and bonus one below) were taken during the famed Bugaboos high ski traverse he did with Barry Corbet, Roberts French and Sterling Neal in 1959.

In honor of Bill, how about I publish the classic hero shot of him you’ve all probably seen before?

History of backcountry skiing.
Bill Briggs, Canada, 1959. Roberts French photo

Hint’s in the title boys and girls. Prize is a Backcountry Access backpack shipped to your door. Name the person. First comment with correct answer wins. If we have no correct answer after a few hours, I’ll post hints. I’ve also got more obvious shots of this guy so we can get those up as well if necessary. Get on it!

History of backcountry skiing.
Guess his name and win. Roberts French photo

Lou Dawson

WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain. For more about Lou, please see his personal website at https://www.loudawson.com/ (Blogger stats: 5 foot 10 inches (178 cm) tall, 160 lbs (72574.8 grams).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lou.dawson.writer

www.loudawson.com
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27 comments

Teledude August 15, 2008 - 9:05 am

Lou Dawson ๐Ÿ˜‰

Lou August 15, 2008 - 9:08 am

LOL. Nope.

C. Lowe August 15, 2008 - 9:11 am

Michael Kennedy?

Aaron August 15, 2008 - 9:11 am

Knut Haukelid?

stuart August 15, 2008 - 9:14 am

chic scott?

Lou August 15, 2008 - 9:18 am

Stuart is the closest so far, in a sort of roundabout way…

stuart August 15, 2008 - 9:37 am

Close doesn’t cut it, how about Bill Briggs?

Lou August 15, 2008 - 9:39 am

Stuart, you’ve got it! Congratulations! I’ll email you.

stuart August 15, 2008 - 9:48 am

Wahooo!
Thanks so much Lou.
I knew all the time I’ve spent on your site wasn’t a waste. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Steve August 15, 2008 - 9:48 am

Too fast, do another! This is better than work.

Lou August 15, 2008 - 10:01 am

So many people hit this blogpost this morning it crashed my super duper expnso server! So thanks everyone for the load test!!! Good prep for winter.

Steve, yeah, was that too easy?

I’ll pick one I think is a bit tougher next Friday.

Thanks everyone, and if you’ve got anything to say about Brigger, leave some more comments. Might as well keep load testing this thing.

stuart August 15, 2008 - 10:18 am

Easy, don’t diminish my moment of glory!

The hint did help, since both guys did big traverses in Canada.

Steve August 15, 2008 - 10:19 am

It wasn’t too easy but the really hard part was trying to get an answer up during the server crash.

My comment: I finally saw the movie “Steep” and it was awesome. Great section on Briggs. Good Dawson interview as well!

stuart August 15, 2008 - 10:26 am

I hope it was clear my statement was in jest. I forgot the ๐Ÿ˜‰

And luck helps too.. ๐Ÿ™‚

scott nelson August 15, 2008 - 10:28 am

Can anyone comment on his binding setup in the pic? Looks like a “typical” older tele rig, but what is that in front of the toepiece? Or am I just looking at it wrong?

Lou August 15, 2008 - 10:31 am

Stuart, your humor was obvious so no problem.

Regarding the server crash. Apologies to everyone for that — luckily it was only for about 5 minutes. The folks I bought hosting from provide super support, so they’re already working on this issue. That said, if necessary I’ll change once again. Sigh. Amazing how you get punished for tiny bit of success with getting a few people to actually read a blog.

Lou August 15, 2008 - 10:36 am

Scott, I spoke with Briggs about the bindings and vividly remember the conversation.

They used a bit older cable binding on the latest Head skis, so they had a free-heel setup that was super reliable. They basically were doing free-heel parallel but also had long thongs and side lugs if they wanted to lash down their heels. The system had little to no safety release.

The Bugs traverse took them 10 days.

scott nelson August 15, 2008 - 11:17 am

I kinda feel like a “wimp” when I look at my modern BD and G3 gear and how easy it makes skiing, well sorta easy anyways…… Hats off to those guys! I’m sending you a PM regarding some jeep stuff.

Lou August 15, 2008 - 11:24 am

Scott, my feeling exactly. Things have really changed. I love that the sport is so much more accessible, but one can’t help but enjoy thinking how elite the early pioneers were. It’s kind of like rock climbing in that way.

Lou August 15, 2008 - 11:35 am

All, I heard back from RealWebHost about the crash this morning. They said it was simply too much traffic for the server. Amazing. And I have to thank everyone for your continued faith and participation in WildSnow.

We’ll continue to progress. Problem now is that my level of advertising payment is somewhat predicated on older stats and thus grandfathered rates that don’t support the expense of technology we now need. Raising rates is tough, as people get locked into the past and have a hard time understanding how big we’re getting, even though they’ll get what they pay for in terms of advertising impressions.

So if you all can put in a good word to our advertisers that would be appreciated. Just tell ’em you can vouch for how much traffic we’re getting, and to PLEASE support us!

Scott August 15, 2008 - 1:56 pm

Hey lou have you tried a dedicated server yet?

Pete August 15, 2008 - 2:31 pm

Is this the same Bill Briggs who co-authored the book “A Multigrid Tutorial” with Henson & McCormick? I know that *that* Bill Briggs is a bit of an alpinist, but–if it’s the same one–I never realized he had some first descents!

Lou August 15, 2008 - 3:13 pm

There is another Bill Briggs who’s a climber and such, I think the one you speak of is him. There is also Roger Briggs, who used to do some crazy stuff in Colorado on things such as Longs Peak. No relation to Bill.

NealB August 16, 2008 - 10:13 am

Roger and Bill are brothers (the non-teton sking Bill Briggs, that is). Roger is the one who’s name is more recognizable, but Bill is an awesome climber himself. I’ve climbed with both of them and they each tend to seek out sparsely protected, really hard trad routes — there is never a dull day when climbing with a Briggs. The two of them have done many first ascents in CO together, including on Longs. Bill is a mathematician and has authored at least one teaching book on the subject. Roger was a teacher at Fairview High School in Boulder.

Ski Freak August 17, 2008 - 12:30 pm

That is old skool!

Adam September 5, 2008 - 4:10 pm

Speaking of Bill Briggs, does anyone know where/when the article describing his Grand Teton descent (“Take Some Good Turns”) was published? Not sure he even wrote the piece.

Lou September 5, 2008 - 5:42 pm

Adam, I’ve got a couple of articles clipped, but don’t recall that one…

Comments are closed.

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