Andrew McLean doing what he does best, double whippets in hand. Photo courtesy of Scarpa.
Double whippets, gear design and, of course, steep skiing
Editor’s note: As we prepare to churn out new episodes for the upcoming season, we take a look back in the archives to replay Doug and Randy’s episode with steep skiing legend and author of the Chuting Gallery, Andrew McLean. Stay tuned for a new Totally Deep episode to drop next Wednesday.
If you’ve ever skied with a whippet, you have Andrew McLean to thank. Similarly, if you’ve skied in Wasatch, there’s a good chance you’ve schussed a line he pioneered. And if you were watching Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report circa 2008, you can give kudos to McLean for bringing steep ski mountaineering to the late night Comedy Central crowd.
This is all to say, Andrew McLean has been a driving force in the world of ski mountaineering well before it was publicly ‘a thing.’ So you can imagine how stoked Doug and Randy were to get him into the Totally Deep mobile recording studio (A.K.A. a hotel room at summer Outdoor Retailer) to dive into Andrew’s career of steep skiing, gear design and pioneering big lines around the world.
From Doug: “This is one of my favorite episodes ever. The photo above of Andrew getting steep features his invention and one of my favorite tools, the whippet. It makes me feel way better about my liberal use of it when I hear he is often skiing around the Wasatch backcountry with one in each hand. This is from a different age in gear design and development when it was the athletes themselves that drove the demand, design, and end user.”
For over 14 years, Andrew designed gear for Black Diamond, innovating some favorite tools including the Hot Wire carabiner (the first wire gate biner), camalots, and ski leashes. Throughout the episode, you’ll hear more about gear design than you ever thought to ask. Other hot topics in the show include whether to rappel into a steep line, skiing the Messner Couloir, the making of the Chuting Gallery and rating ski lines.
And, of course, steep skiing. Which led Doug to ask the burning question: “So…how do I steep ski?”
“The beauty of steep skiing is that it’s 99% mental,” Andrew replies. Of course there’s more to it than that, actually a lot more, into which he gives great detail. But to hear the full rundown, you’ll just have to listen to the show.
Outdoor Retailer in-hotel podcast special with Andrew McLean.
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4 comments
Did you ask him about his plea bargain?
Because the podcast was recorded before the incident….
Theft and criminal mischief?! I blame the mind-altering airborne Dugway dust and combined effect of all the polygamous and alcohol-afeared yearnings rising 24/7/365 from the gosh-darned smoggiest city this side of Beijing to waft over the scratchy piles of dirt, scrub and scree known as the Wasatch (always sounded like an STD, “duuuuude watch out, that chick totally gave me a case of wasatch”) to settle amid the nouveau-riche lake-effect worshipping environs of Park City. It’s driving folks batty in more ways than one. WTF eh? indeed and too funny, John, but I really doubt they would question this particular primo prima facie secret stash descent of his. Bottles of watery Blue probably left them all as giddy as Justin Trudeau painting his face a dark shade of brown before a party, no way their gonna grill the “Straight Chuter” though you can always wonder what makes some people tick. Here we have a dastardly husband and wife duo apparently busted for stealing some hunting equipment and cameras, i guess that’s what results when an “extreme” skier and an equally extreme ivy league lawyer couple up and stroll with a hankering for the rarified stoke only free stuff can deliver. “Hey, we’re walking, in our fifties aging fast and it’s Utah, right? so let’s go steal something!” Party on Chooch! I wonder if his act followed the felon bad check-writing Mayor of Jackson WY on old “Crazy Ear” Colbert’s show….a “hoods in the woods” episode apparently. Some might get all bent outta shape, making stuff up and yelling for impeachment American-style to knock him from his lofty perch atop the Park City steep skiing and carabiner crafting heap but I’m sure it was all in good fun, an elite Congressional team determined at great expense that no one was negligently hurt, not one seriously killed and definitely not a single microscopic shred of the greasy liquified morass of the allegedly sinister and legendarily hazardous quid pro quo anywhere in sight here, am i right?…and darn it maybe they’re just illegally exercising their right to protest the hunting of Bambi and any other creature hapless enough to find itself harried, harassed and hunted in the most expensive and exclusive heavy caliber play zones of that stubbled and cracked wasteland known as Utah. The hills here may have eyes [if less hunting cameras] but let no one say mountain towns in UT don’t suffer exotic traits, egos and occasional lapses in judgement with aplomb. Droppin!
Hi all-this is a ski blog, not a celebrity gossip column. Andrew has made great contributions to our sport and if you want to bash his personal character or mistakes he made, you’ll need to do it elsewhere as we are shutting down the comments.
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