Backcountry ski touring news.
Let’s begin with our recent Western U.S. avalanche tragedies. Without delving into nuanced analysis, I’ll dwell on the obvious. It is sad and disconcerting that so many accidents have involved multiple entrainments and fatalities. I’m considering this a wake up call and reminder. If you’re exposed to hazard, do everything possible to expose just one person at a time. Making this happen is easier with a smaller group — I’m a fan of three being the ideal. But situational awareness is key as well. With our sport’s explosion in popularity, you’re bound to share terrain with multiple groups. Given weather or timbered terrain, you may not see groups below you, and they may not know you’re above.
Remember when Backcountry.com was in the news, and not in our hearts? When they invoked legal action against other businesses using the word “backcountry” in their names? But for a public outcry, boycott and other demonstrations of discontent, this ridiculousness could have gotten out of hand. I still wonder how it happened. I’d been involved with Backcountry.com since their founding, as an affiliate publisher, starting when they were called the “Backcountry Store.” They were so nice back then. Then they bought the Backcountry.com domain name for a rumored eighty grand. When you have that kind of paper to toss around, you’ve got power. And that kind of power doesn’t just sit there doing nothing. Latest: They announced the opening of two brick-and-mortar stores to happen this spring.
I’m pro-business, but I’ll be the first to admit that when Wal-Mart comes to town, things change. I saw it happen here in Colorado. If Backcountry’s foray into the world of clothing racks and commercial grade carpet causes just one privately owned specialty backcountry retailer to go under, that’s one too many. Your opinion, readers? More here.
While skiing, I’ve been chased downhill by plenty of dogs. Never by a bear. Apparently, a bruin galloped after this skier, who appears to be entirely oblivious as he makes turn after casual turn. It must have been quite a surprise when he finally looked over his shoulder.
Would you quit skiing your favorite backcountry area if lynx needed it for habitat? Lynx issues have been bandied about for years. Can they coexist with human recreation? Motorized? Non motorized? And should we restrict human access to lands where the cute kitty lives, or might live? As you can expect, I come in on the side of recreation. But I see the dilemma. How much of the backcountry do we obviate through our very presence before it becomes frontcountry? The science will someday tell us what the lynx need, but will we give it to them? More here.
Good news from Wyoming, and something similar could happen near Aspen. Grand Targhee resort will not implement a cat skiing operation in a popular sidecountry zone. From my read, it sounds like they still might develop the area called South Bowl, and the article alludes to someday installing a ski lift, but there’s the possibility they could leave it as, for wont of better term, I’ll call “developed backcountry.” More here.
As for Aspen, one of the best things about the town’s signature hill, Aspen Mountain, is the plethora of small, secretive sidecountry zones that those in the know can access from the lifts. One such zone is known as Pandora’s, a gladed powder stash I and most of my local skier friends have dropped hundreds of times. Aspen Skiing Company can not resist the temptation of developing this fine little gem. You can’t blame them — that’s what they do. But times change. Ski lifts are not as important as they once were. To that point, at least one of the Pandora’s development proposal’s public commenters advocates managing Pandora’s as a “backcountry [avalanche] controlled area.” In my view, that’s what should happen. No specific lift, no grooming, perhaps a bit of logging to open up more terrain. Other than avalanche control, the area is used this way already — there’s even been a modicum of outlaw vegetation management over the years. More here.
Snowflake photos are always delight. This fellow is next level.
I’m a backcountry guy, yet for some reason the idea of urban skiing has always appealed to me. Perhaps it’s the seeming outlaw nature of the activity. Or maybe the domination of concrete and steel by snow and board. In any case, always fun when the media hits on it.
A big shoutout goes to our local friend Peter Arlein of mountainFLOW Eco-wax, the plant based glidy for your planks. His company was selected for the Shark Tank show, and it appears he made a deal. For those new to this sort of product, the concept is basic. Conventional ski wax is petroleum based. It wears off your skis and ends up in the watershed. Eco-wax is biodegradable, and is ostensibly friendlier to the environment. However significant this might be to the overall scheme of environmental challenges, it can’t hurt to use it or other biodegradable wax products. One less thing to worry about. Reportage here.
In covid skiing news, I’ve been watching Austria. I’m jonesing to visit. For now, the only visiting I’ll do is in my imagination. Apparently, if you’re foreigner and choose to enter the country for skiing or whatever, they can ding you for big bucks, in this case $2,633! I suppose I’d better not attempt a stealth mission. Apparently the police search the hotels for scofflaws! While I was googling around, I also landed on this enormous article about the Jackson, Wyoming region’s covid woes. It was an interesting comparative read after studying up on Austria.
Check this article for a good overview of the skiing-riding situation in Europe. It’s not pretty.
Lastly, we have the continuing legal case of the Colorado skiers who triggered a destructive avalanche. They’re looking at a possible $168,000 fine. The case against them is based on a video they shot, then shared with the Colorado Avalanche Info Center out of the goodness of their hearts. No good deed goes unpunished. If the pair are convicted, we hope the court shows leniency. As for the rest of us, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s come close to knocking an avalanche onto an open road. Lesson: “road below” should be included in the list of avalanche red-flag priorities. More here.
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.
21 comments
Entertainments? Might want to copy edit that one.
Thanks Dan, that was an embarrassing error on my part.
Eric, I didn’t know that about the photographer. Even if I’d known, I would have blogged about the photos. There have been plenty of artists that were whacked… sometimes it seems to come with the territory. Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy their art.
Interesting about Nathan Myhrvold photographing snowflakes. I like him a bit better, knowing this. Last time I read it about him, he was espousing the view that we scientists made up global warming to support our underlying hatred of SUVs. Which is not only bizarre but also startingly out of touch with who scientists are. (I mean, the vast majority of my fellow ice-and-climate scientists are also backcountry skiers and/or climbers who depends on their SUV more than most folks do.)
Agree 100%, Lou. Thanks. You are right. I suppose I was just blowing off a bit of steam. It was certainly not directed at Your Blogness!
A few thoughts.
backcountry.com B&M – don’t care, it is just life. They actually had some gear I needed this winter, Sorry to Bent Gate and WildyX (does CCB count as a specialty store any longer? I would probably say no).
Lynx – What a cool animal, I would probably walk away from a zone to protect them
Mountain Flow – I backed the kickstarter, the wax is good but it is impossible to scrape, impossible. I find I reach for traditional waxes because I just don’t want to deal with scrapping it. I hope they keep developing and do well.
Re: skiing above roads, a few years ago I remember UAC practically begging folks not to ski Superior in iffy conditions, because slides there can easily bury the LCC road. Idk the answer, but nowadays it gets skied so much it’s almost like a resort run;)
Oops, didn’t mean that as a reply to Parker.
Down here in the San Juans, we frequently see lynx tracks following skier skin tracks, presumably to conserve energy. In fact, I have seen several lynx track in the past week. That said, since they are nocturnal sightings are rare. Several years ago, however, I was incredibly fortunate to have multiple encounters with lynx while backcountry skiing. The second time, a mother lynx and her cub followed me up my skin track. They caught up to me while I was taking a break and then turned off the trail and wandered into the trees coming within about 30′ of me. They did not seem particularly concerned with my presence. As both a backcountry skier and wildlife photographer I seriously hope they continue to survive and thrive in Colorado, but I based on my experience I don’t feel that backcountry skiers are a significant threat to them here in the San Juans.
Recent lynx paper titled: Winter recreation and Canada lynx: reducing conflict through niche partitioning. 2019. Squires et al. Ecosphere journal. Study in southern Rky Mtns.
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.2876
Perhaps this is the study mentioned (but not identified) in the Carbondale newspaper article.
Human pressures add up, especially over many decades. Species at the southern edge of their historic range are getting even more pressure; fewer suitable lynx habitat areas available in Colorado. Science matters.
So if I interpreted their results correctly, models that included recreation did a better job at describing lynx locations, but the effect of various recreation activities differed.
However, that may be an effect of the preferred locations those activities occur in – snowmobiles prefer more open locations, while backcountry skiers prefer more canopy, but not as much canopy cover as the lynx prefer. As they state in the discussion: “We believe the patterns of spatial separation we documented between Canada lynx and winter recreationists, such as in areas of low tree canopy cover selected by snowmobilers, were mostly a function of resource?use decisions rather than a landscape of fear that precluded access…Therefore, lynx were negatively related to motorized use in part because motorized users are naturally restricted to open areas that lynx tend to avoid. Conversely, lynx were positively associated with backcountry ski habitat because skiers often skin?up to climb snow slopes through heavily treed areas, and many prefer to ski the trees on their return as well.” That’s not to say that skiers don’t have effects – also from discussion: “…moose (Alces alces) movement rates were 33?fold faster one hour post?disturbance from backcountry skiers (Neumann et al. 2010), and black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) exhibited elevated corticosterone metabolites (a stress hormone) when experimentally flushed by skiers (Arlettaz et al. 2015).”
The news note about the proposed Grand Targhee expansion is a little misleading. The proposed expansion includes expanding the resort boundary (expanding the Special Use Permit) by 600 acres into the South Bowl area and adding 3 lifts, precluding backcountry use. The resort proposed adding cat skiing to that area until they got around to building the lifts. The change the article refers just eliminates the cat skiing. The lifts and loss of backcountry terrain is still proposed.
Wes- Thx for notes on lynx. I’m a San Juan skier and have also seen lynx follow ski track. Got a pair living near my mining claims these days. Always get’s my attention talking lynx. My daughters, when in 4H in Durango back in about 2005, were involved in 2nd phase of re-introductions. Sold 78 rabbits they bred to feed the captured Canadian lynx before they were released around South Fork. Back in 2016 I’d just flown out of hut in B.C. I’m sitting in Nelson restaurant and I see in local newspaper a story about a lynx that had just been shot at a ranch. It had a collar on it; seems after 3 years in Colorado that lynx had walked all the way back to Nelson! Guess I’m not terrible worried about skiers and lynx together as long as neither has a gun.
Ditto on lynx tracks, used to see them in the area between Aspen and Vail, on the snowmobile packed trails. The tracks are easy to ID once you’ve seen a few. https://sites.ualberta.ca/~gyates/projectlynx/lynxtracks.html Wonderful animals indeed, though I feel sorry for the rabbits. I met a biologist who was studying lynx, he told me their population density ebbs and flows along with that of the rabbits, and not to mistake the influence of food supply with the influence of human activity, though the latter is a factor for sure.
We were pleased to see lynx tracks last Saturday morning about 20 meters from the trail head on Vail Pass. It is great to see them in an area that it seeing massively increased traffic this winter! Now as for the moguls in the burn area…oh never mind!
Once, while skiing through critical snail habitat and kicking cornices, I triggered an enormous avalanche which wiped out an entire herd of unicorns, depositing them in a broken heap right in the middle of a salamander migration corridor. This calamity spooked a purple cow which jumped over the moon, severely damaging the upper atmosphere in the process. Many lynx were harmed.
In the aftermath, the area was designated as a special administrative complication zone. This included a new 30 million dollar infra-red amphibian tracking satellite and a study involving capturing, collaring and tracking of skiers.
Eventually while skiing, I was darted by a biologist who had plans of collaring me and levying a steep fine for unicorn destruction. Fortunately, the meds administered only inspired my escape from the clutches of the govy scientist. I fled like a scared lynx.
Meanwhile, word had gotten out. The internet was mad at me. I was the bad guy of the month. It was over…
These days I am reduced to skiing the obscure hinterlands of the freakosystem, ever watchful for the authority.
Man, skiing in the 21st century sure can get complicated.
Interesting set of things to comment on:
I was not a fan of backcountry.com when they went down the route you describe, Lou, but then I’m not such a big fan of brick and mortar shops either. I’ve worked for the small retailers, bought from the small retailers, and I think there is a lot of romance that is just false, whether in the ski business or other types of small businesses. I never worked for a single boss in ski retail that was anything but a tyrant, with low pay, low emotional reward, and very demanding as if they owned you. Buying from them not much different. Pushy, manipulative, less than honest, etc.
I would quit my favorite ski habitat if it were proven (or at least extremely likely) that I was seriously negatively impacting a species. Here in France it is very hypocritical. I can think of one place that I go cross country skiing at, one of the most famous in France, where it is absolutely fine to have lots of people at (especially in these Covid-times). However, once the place shuts down in April, even with plenty of snow around, signs go up immediately about how one should not access the area (which is beautiful for crust cruising or easy Randonnée) because of the flora/fauna.
I don’t challenge that conventional ski waxes are not biodegradable, but I am strongly suspect of the mentioned product or other alternative products in other aspects of life being truly biodegradable (e.g. backpacking soaps).
Austria is as you say, officially, but it certainly possible to get and out, rent an apartment, ski, ski tour etc. Some of my German friends say that the real reason the border is closed with parts of Czech is because Bayern doesn’t want the Germans to go skiing there or in Austria. But like all borders, both are sieves. Not advocating (or not), just sayin’.
BTW, Switzerland’s health studies continue to show no covid health risks statistically from skiing at open Swiss resorts. By contrast here in Chamonix with lifts for adults closed, official hotel occupancy during the school holidays is almost normal despite theoretical restaurant and lift closures. As the British say, “It’s heaving.” There are tons of non-distance people everywhere.
Lastly, as I’m sure you know, like the U.S. there have been a plethora of avalanche deaths and injuries this season from ski tourers and snowshoers. The places people go some days, in some snow/weather conditions, even without training, is just incredibly….stupid.
Regarding backcountry.com, I really do prefer shopping locally for my gear, but honestly selection and/or availability is always going to be an issue, especially now with supply chain woes and such…if I need something critical it helps to check locally, but the ease of punching buttons on a computer and getting something the next day mostly wins…I wish local shops would build out their websites a bit better to see actual stock on hand and then I can make an informed decision…
re: Backcountry going into brick and mortar… I grew up (well, I still live, just in the mountains, not the farmlands) ‘rural’, where lots of things were procured by mail-order. Remember that quaint idea? All of the larger catalogue retailers had “stores” where you could go in, twist the dials, bounce on the mattress, even try on the clothes. Then you filled out the form, and waited for your goods to arrive. Backcountry.com sounds like they are reviving this model.
There are pros and cons, like a few new jobs, albeit not great pay. A chance to possibly look closely at hardware or softgoods before committing to purchase. Backcountry.com likely has the pockets to stock the miscellany of backcountry adventuring that smaller local shops can’t afford. I once worked for a multi discipline gear shop. The amount of backroom inventory was staggering. They could afford it because they were ‘big’ enough that people would drive for hundreds of kilometres to shop. Before internet shopping, this was the model, that made you the go to for purchasing. Backcountry.com is just evolving with the times. Brick and mortar in areas with high concentrations of clients makes sense. Even better if you warehousing is somewhere much cheaper and at a transport hub.
Ultimately the biggest cost is the rapid delivery. We have become inured to the damage of the instant gratification of this modality. As a culture, we backcountry enthusiasts should have the wherewithal to plan ahead. Order what you think you will need from your local shop before you it becomes ‘critical’, like when I skied G3 Targas, I just ordered extra cables for September, cause I knew I would need them.
No ‘local’ retailer is going to have in stock every little widget and wedge you think you need, that’s what being local vs international means. It doesn’t mean they can’t get it, we just have to be patient and put in the time to work with the smaller operators.
My two cents. (which in no penny Canada is rounded to the nearest 5, so zero?)
Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder is for sale. So will backcountry.com moving to Boulder lower or raise the selling price of a once upon time awesome outdoor store.
Interesting recommendation in the study Jon Canuk linked to for improved winter access helping disperse users beyond lynx habitat :
“Given that backcountry skiers, hybrid skiers, and off?trail snowmobilers generally selected higher elevations than lynx, efforts to encourage or direct dispersed winter recreation to high elevations (at or above tree line) through relaxed road and parking access, packed trail systems, and public outreach could be implemented with a low probability of impacting spatial?use patterns of Canada lynx. ”
Most winter closures start at relatively low elevations – this statement seems to support improving winter recreational access as a means of reducing wildlife impact at transition habitats.
To many humans seeking out beauty and excitement. To many people seeing opportunity to make money. Same thing is happening in the surfing world
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