Songs For The Uphill

Devil’s Dance Floor, by Flogging Molly

On the road again, Going up the country and Poor Moon all by Canned Heat.

Good for climbing AND a drive in the country.

Marcin in Poland

Hi Lisa,

I can relate to using music as a tool while working out in a gym. The indoor experience can reduce itself to drudgery.

For the gym? Little Feat, The Grateful Dead, Talking Heads, Bob Marley, whatever …

I would argue however that playing tunes while trail running and skinning is not only counterproductive but potentially dangerous. If you’re blasting Megadeath (not my favorite, to say the least) and there’s a sudden “whumpf”, will you hear it?

If you play music that gets you too “fired up”, you could easily tweak something. I think it’s best to monitor your body a bit more closely and not distract yourself with music that can get you going too hard. We’re probably close to the same age, but even when I was in my thirties, I had a tendency to get a bit over-enthused.

Outdoors, we all need our wits about us, and equally important (to me) are the aesthetics of the situation. Is skiing that unpleasurable that you need music to enhance the experience?

I write this as a guy who runs a small audio business as a night job, so I’m very hip to and appreciate music. I fear however, that music “consumption” is becoming like the fast food experience. We are more and more becoming a culture of quantity over quality. How much vertical did you ski today? What’s your 10K PR? That sort of thing.

I would suggest that you look into your motivations a bit more closely. For me, (and I’d hope for everyone), the outdoors experience is all about dialing into yourself, your rhythms, the wind, weather, and everything else that makes the outdoor experience so special.

Call me an old fogie, but that’s my opinion.

Cheers,
Thom (galibier_numero_un on the Couloir Forum)

Beastie Boyz – You got to fight for the right to part. + She’s Crafty

Nirvana- Dive (Album Incesticide)
NOFX- Kill All the White Men
Ween- Don’t S**t Where You Eat
A-Team theme song from TV

I must agree with Thom – I’d suggest simply leaving the music at home. For me, much of the value of winter backcountry skiing is so closely tied to nature’s delicacy i.e. quite thump of snow falling off trees, birds chirping, (or, in the Front Range, wind howling,) that music simply lessens the experience. And, there are minor safety implications with blasting music, namely listening to what the snowpack is saying. Don’t get me wrong – as a semi-professional musician, I love music. I just prefer to keep it in the urban setting.
cheers, Brian