– The Backcountry Ski Touring Blog
  • Avalanches
  • Gear Reviews
    • Ski Reviews
    • Boot Reviews
    • Binding Reviews
    • Snowboard Splitboard
    • Book Reviews
    • Avalanche Beacon Reviews
    • Airbag Backpacks
    • Backcountry Electronics
    • Misc Gear Reviews
  • Podcast
  • Tips & Tricks
    • Ski Touring Basics
    • Boot Fitting
    • Fitness & Health
    • Gear Mods
  • Trip Reports
    • Fourteeners
    • Huts – Cabins – Lodges
    • Denali McKinley
    • 8,000 Meter Skiing
  • Stories
    • History
    • Humor
    • Land Use Issues
    • Evergreen Ski Touring
    • Poetry
  • Resources
    • All Posts Listed
    • 100 Recent Comments
    • Backcountry Skiing & Ski Touring Webcams
    • Ski Weights Comparison
    • Archives of WildSnow.com
    • Authors Page
    • Ski Touring Bindings
      • Trab TR2 Index and FAQ
      • Salomon Guardian & Tracker
      • Naxo Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Silvretta Pure Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Marker F10-12 Duke Baron
      • G3 Onyx Ski Binding FAQ
      • G3 ION Ski Touring Binding
      • Fritschi Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Fritschi Diamir Frame Bindings Mount DIY
      • Fritschi Diamir Bindings FAQ
      • Fritschi Tecton FAQ
      • Atomic Salomon Backland MTN
      • Dynafit Tri-Step Binding 2001-2003
      • Naxo randonnee alpine touring AT ski binding FAQ
      • Dynafit Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Dynafit Binding Frequently Asked Questions FAQ
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Review 1
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Page Two
    • History
      • Ski Touring Binding Museum
      • Trooper Traverse Intro & Index
      • Randonnee Ski Touring “AT” ski gear — What is Hip?
      • Chronology
    • Backcountry Skiing Core Glossary
    • Gear Review Policy & Disclosures

– The Backcountry Ski Touring Blog

Banner
  • Avalanches
  • Gear Reviews
    • Ski Reviews
    • Boot Reviews
    • Binding Reviews
    • Snowboard Splitboard
    • Book Reviews
    • Avalanche Beacon Reviews
    • Airbag Backpacks
    • Backcountry Electronics
    • Misc Gear Reviews
  • Podcast
  • Tips & Tricks
    • Ski Touring Basics
    • Boot Fitting
    • Fitness & Health
    • Gear Mods
  • Trip Reports
    • Fourteeners
    • Huts – Cabins – Lodges
    • Denali McKinley
    • 8,000 Meter Skiing
  • Stories
    • History
    • Humor
    • Land Use Issues
    • Evergreen Ski Touring
    • Poetry
  • Resources
    • All Posts Listed
    • 100 Recent Comments
    • Backcountry Skiing & Ski Touring Webcams
    • Ski Weights Comparison
    • Archives of WildSnow.com
    • Authors Page
    • Ski Touring Bindings
      • Trab TR2 Index and FAQ
      • Salomon Guardian & Tracker
      • Naxo Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Silvretta Pure Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Marker F10-12 Duke Baron
      • G3 Onyx Ski Binding FAQ
      • G3 ION Ski Touring Binding
      • Fritschi Backcountry Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Fritschi Diamir Frame Bindings Mount DIY
      • Fritschi Diamir Bindings FAQ
      • Fritschi Tecton FAQ
      • Atomic Salomon Backland MTN
      • Dynafit Tri-Step Binding 2001-2003
      • Naxo randonnee alpine touring AT ski binding FAQ
      • Dynafit Skiing Bindings – Info Index
      • Dynafit Binding Frequently Asked Questions FAQ
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Review 1
      • Dynafit Beast 16 FAQ Page Two
    • History
      • Ski Touring Binding Museum
      • Trooper Traverse Intro & Index
      • Randonnee Ski Touring “AT” ski gear — What is Hip?
      • Chronology
    • Backcountry Skiing Core Glossary
    • Gear Review Policy & Disclosures
   

Ski Mountaineering: Best in Your Backyard?

by Manasseh Franklin August 21, 2019
written by Manasseh Franklin August 21, 2019
Lusti lays out on her home turf. PC Robin Bonner

Lusti lays out on her home turf. Photo: Robin Bonner

Globe trotting pro skiers weigh in on the home range

The allure of unknown terrain has long been sought in backcountry skiing. Big budget festival films glorify the novelty of unskied lines on the edges of exploration. In ski towns around the world, even the most dedicated locals embark on the increasingly popular “Japanuary” migration. Just this spring, I joined many others flocking to Northwest to harvest spring volcano snow despite that Colorado was having its deepest May in recent history.

While it’s tempting to look to far off lands with rose colored goggles, maybe the best skiing adventures can be found within driving distance. For many sponsored skiers with enviable budgets to ski around the world, those edges and those wild lines are most gratifying when they stay put.

Patagonia snow

SPONSORED BY: PATAGONIA

Take North Face athlete Christina “Lusti” Lustenberger who we had on the Totally Deep Backcountry Skiing Podcast last week. I had a chance to follow up with her while she was visiting Aspen for a late May training trip. After sipping spritzers and hearing her take on the merits of skiing in her home mountains, I was ready vow to never leave the Colorado Rockies again.

Of her home hills where she tests her mettle she says, “It’s really nice being in a place where there is a lifetime of exploring and ski touring and a place that is going to allow you to grow as an athlete or a person of the mountains.”

She’s referring to the whimsical glaciated peaks and valleys of interior British Columbia where Christina was born and raised on skis. Her father owned a ski shop at the base of Panorama resort in Invermere B.C., and by age six Christina was training to race. Several World Cup tours, a showing at the 2006 Winter Olympics and five corresponding knee surgeries later, she retired.

Since then she’s been quietly sneaking into the public consciousness of big mountain ski mountaineering. Recently, she was featured in the Sherpas film Children of the Columbia, in which she Christina drops a gut flipping line on Wildcat Peak in British Columbia. It’s one of many big mountain lines she ruminated on before even thinking of attempting.

Two specs in the Canadian hills. PC: Fred Marmseter

Two specs in the Canadian hills. Photo: Fred Marmseter

“Most of the lines I see as a possible first descent, I see many years before going and trying. They are in the back of my mind as wonders. Wondering what it would take and who would be a good partner.”

Her next objective, for example, is one she’s been eyeing for much of her life.

“It’s a line that I grew up looking at as a child,” she says. “At some point in my teenage years I all of the sudden looked at it with a little more curiosity in the sense of wondering if it could be skied.”

So now, each winter, she waits and she watches the snow fill it in. Patience, she says, is key.

“I wait for my confidence and motivation to be high, wait for conditions to confirm a good success and then convince myself it’s time to try it. Sometimes it’s the first, second, or third try…” And sometimes, being deeply familiar with the snowpack and conditions is enough to give her the go-ahead.

Such was the case with her first descent of Black Friar Couloir, a sheer line in the Adamant Mountains in BC with a 60 degree ice pitch that Christina opted to ski through rather than rappel.

Lusti credits her confidence to knowing her home snowpack. PC: Tom Grant

Lusti credits her confidence to knowing her home snowpack. Photo: Tom Grant

“Black Friar is a good example of having a specific line in the back of my head, thinking about it for many years and finally, after waiting for the right conditions, right partners and weather, things aligned and we were successful… Knowing what kind of snow season we had, it made perfect sense to take the risk and fly in to give the line an honest go.”

Christina still travels for skiing more than most of us do in a lifetime. Her trip to Aspen was a stand-in for a North Face team Russia ski expedition that had been cancelled. Despite the constant opportunity to ski essentially wherever she dreams, she says the bottom line is that staying local just can’t be beat.

“When you travel across the world you have to rely on other people which can be a really great asset to have local beta.” But, she says “being at home definitely gives you that strength and encouragement and the local knowledge that carries your confidence into the mountains.”

An additional take from guide Nate Rowland

Ok, ok. Maybe not all of us can live in a proving ground so plentiful as Interior BC, but we can still make a point to be as educated about and familiar with the snowpack we ski most often. To get some additional perspective, I checked in with Aspen local, ski guide and fellow North Face athlete Nate Rowland. For Nate, who spends the majority of his ski days in the Aspen area, the merits of digging deep into nearby peaks are multifaceted.

A lifetime of objectives presents itself from a high summit deep in the Maroon-Snowmass Wilderness.

A lifetime of objectives presents itself from a high summit deep in the Maroon-Snowmass Wilderness. Photo: Tyler Christoff

“If you’re skiing your home range, you can always match your objective to the conditions, whether you’re skiing it because it’s soft or you’re skiing it because it’s safe,” he says. “You’re making decisions based more on that instead of skiing it just because it’s there, or you’re there, which is something that happens a lot when you’re on objective based expeditions.”

“It always circles back to the safety stuff for me,” he continues. “From a guiding perspective and a skiing for fun perspective. If you know the history of the snowpack because you’ve lived it, it can help you anticipate trouble spots.” And when you do dig pits, you can verify what you already know. “So instead of saying ‘oh that’s a troublesome layer,’ you’re saying ‘oh that’s December 15.'”

"We could ski that, and that, and that..." Skiing on Colorado's Independence Pass went well into late June this year.

“We could ski that, and that, and that…” Skiing on Colorado’s Independence Pass went well into late June this year. Photo: Nathan Rowland

But also, he says, it’s just fun to really get to know an area. “You can get to the summit and look around and say ‘I want to ski that, and that, and that.’ And if you’re in your home range, that’s just what you do. Your next day is informed by what you saw the day before.”

And the view from ski legend Greg Hill

Just for one more take, I connected with another formerly-wide ranging skier, Greg Hill, who in recent years is all about that electric car. He lets the car’s range designate his local turf, and says that as long as he’s not on a sponsored trip, 100% of his personal adventures are in the BC, Alberta and Montana zone. Beyond being more environmentally friendly, he also appreciates the sentimentality of staying close to home.

“There’s so much more value to your backyard adventures because you see them more often when you climb your next mountain,” he said over a quick phone chat. “You look over and there’s just more to the adventures because they keep reliving themselves.”

So: skiing in optimal and safe conditions? Check. Cultivating the base knowledge to push your limits? Check. Inspiring the fuzzy warm feelings of nostalgia? Check.

Being able to admire your figure eights as you sip beers at the car after? Ok, you can pretty much do it whether you flew in or not, but all this talk of staying local got me thinking about staying closer once the snow starts flying again. And next time I see ‘gram posts of somebody’s great Japanuary powderfest, maybe instead of swooning I’ll pick an objective in the peaks nearby and wait ever so patiently for the right day to give it a try.

Thoughts, readers? What are your favorite things about skiing close to home?

15 comments
0
FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
previous post
How to go with the (Lava) Flow
next post
Skyward II Jacket Review–Skiing Masterpiece by OR

15 comments

Jim Milstein August 21, 2019 - 10:31 am

Yup

Scott Allen August 21, 2019 - 2:22 pm

Great post! Local is very Zen…no need to look elsewhere. Though different from interior BC, my backyard Colorado has plenty to offer.
I also appreciate your environment friendly nod to e-vehicles. Finally, the magnify option for each photo is appreciated since it really does pop out in size to be enjoyed on a larger screen.
Keep up the good improvements!

Manasseh August 21, 2019 - 2:58 pm

Thanks for the feedback, Scott. It’s much appreciated!

Sydney Temple August 21, 2019 - 4:46 pm

I think this article could focus more on the global climate impact of leisure/ski travel. The fact that is difficult to get our heads around is that in next 50 years people really need to get a handle on and reduce their personal carbon budgets, outside of the government forced measures for large scale infrastructure the two best the things you can do is limit air travel and eat way less meat. Do not expect governments to do much about climate change, you need to be the change.

https://shameplane.com/?fromCity=Berlin&fromCode=TXL&toCity=Cape%20Town&toCode=CPT&roundtrip=true&typeofseat=3

Manasseh August 22, 2019 - 8:39 am

Thanks for the link, Sydney. Agreed, there are bigger conversations to be had, and ones we haven’t explored much on WildSnow. We’re working on that. Stay tuned.

phillip gallagher August 21, 2019 - 6:09 pm

There is no place like home

Manasseh August 22, 2019 - 8:40 am

Cheers to that, Phillip.

Eric Steig August 21, 2019 - 6:15 pm

It helps when one lives near the best skiing on the planet, as I do (Washington/BC). Easy decision.

Jed August 22, 2019 - 5:41 pm

The locals would kill me (literally) if I divulged any info on the local BC skiing, so I’ll just say, it’s really…. Really good.

Lou Dawson 2 August 23, 2019 - 7:24 am

Hey Jed, do those same scary locals have a written test to help decide who is a local, or is it verbal (smile)? Lou

Jim Milstein August 24, 2019 - 7:58 pm

No, Lou, the test is oral. You fail when you pronounce certain shibboleths, which I won’t list for security reasons (they would kill me), the wrong way. Most people don’t realize that they are taking the test. It just seems like good old Canadian bonhomie. And, it’s not about “about”. Way more subtle.

Gezza August 25, 2019 - 1:18 am

Please don’t be so critical of those of us who choose to go to Japan.
For me it’s much more than just the skiing . The skiing just the icing on the cake. Not that I have any intention of divulging where that icing maybe.

Manasseh August 29, 2019 - 7:47 am

Gezza: make no mistake, I’d certainly enjoy a trip to Japan if the opportunity arose…

FREGEAC Laurent August 29, 2019 - 7:22 am

Another thing is that it depends on your life stage, as a young father of a 2 year old kid, my time in the mountain is limited and cannot be away for several consecutive days often.. Therefore being able to do so great ski touring in our backyard (I leave in Haute Savoie near Genève) & have actually access to plenty of touring options within a 1 hour – 1.5 hour range in car is great! I can get up early, do some good skitouring (going light & fast if needed) and be home in the afternoon, or best sometimes, my wife goes in the morning and then I go in the afternoon and only when being close to the mountain / our backyard we can do that. And our backyard is quite nice, between Aravis, Chablais, Mont Blanc & Haut giffre massif & from powder laps to spring ski mountaineering mission at near 4000 m there are many possibilities to practice ski mountaineering in our backyard

Manasseh August 29, 2019 - 7:49 am

Fregeac Laurent: sounds like you’ve got it figured out, and that you’ve got an enviable backyard!

Comments are closed.

Recent Comments

  • Marius on Ski Crampons — When To, When Not To and How
  • Clanicius on Spring Touring Essentials for Day Trips, Overnights, and Ski Mountaineering
  • DavidH on Exploring the Gem of Washington Pass
  • Gary on Exploring the Gem of Washington Pass
  • Jim Pace on Exploring the Gem of Washington Pass

Gear Reviews

  • Atomic Hawx Ultra XTD 115 W Touring Boot Review

    April 7, 2021
  • BCA Scepter Ski Pole Review — Updated and Improved

    April 6, 2021
  • Spring Touring Essentials for Day Trips, Overnights, and Ski Mountaineering

    March 29, 2021

Trip Reports

  • Team WildSnow Recaps 2021 Grand Traverse Ski Race

    April 5, 2021
  • The Gothic Mountain Tour: Not Just a Training Race

    March 3, 2021
  • Making Turns and Skintracks at Bluebird Backcountry

    February 24, 2021

Totally Deep Podcast

  • Totally Deep Podcast 86 — Ross Herr of Dynafit

    March 9, 2021
  • Totally Deep Podcast 85 — Serious Powder Talk with Doug & Randy

    February 25, 2021
  • Drinking Beer with the Bench Girls — Totally Deep Podcast 84

    February 12, 2021

Tips & Tricks

  • Spring Avalanche Drama (and How to Avoid It!)

    April 2, 2021
  • Spring Touring Essentials for Day Trips, Overnights, and Ski Mountaineering

    March 29, 2021
  • Pocket Vs. Harness — Where Should You Wear Your Beacon?

    March 18, 2021

Ski Touring Stories

  • Envisioning a Friendly, Busier Backcountry — Shaun Deutschlander Q&A

    January 18, 2021
  • Giving Myself the Gift of Backcountry

    January 15, 2021
  • Six Who Dared — Elk Mountains Traverse & Richard Compton Tribute

    January 7, 2021

Newsletter Sign-Up

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • About Lou Dawson
  • Authors Page
  • About
  • Contact
  • Copyright & Legal
  • Website Security

@2020 - All Rights Reserved. Designed and Developed by WildSnow


Back To Top

Read alsox

Exploring the Gem of Washington Pass

April 15, 2021

Ski Crampons — When To, When...

April 13, 2021

Ski Touring News Roundup Spring 2021

April 9, 2021