Understanding Beartooth Highway: Conversations on springtime-user conflict along the Montana/Wyoming border
It was Memorial Day weekend. 2018, but the road barricade still blocked Highway 212 just past the Montana/Wyoming state line. The Beartooth Highway, one of the highest paved roads in the country, was my access point to the spring skiing that still existed above 10,000 feet.
Skintrack Sketches: Artist Emma Longcope paints the public lands she protects by day
Colorado-based artist Emma Longcope, 25, sees art and journaling as a way to slow down and better appreciate her surroundings on the skintrack. And although she considers her art a hobby, Longcope … [Read More...]
Fruits of the Sea
Two crullers and a large coffee from Tim Horton’s isn’t the best fuel for a day spent climbing couloirs, and my growling stomach echoes that notion as I dangle from a temporary ice-axe anchor. My … [Read More...]
Backstory: Turning Back
An overhanging rock face looms to our left, and I can see the Coleman Glacier sprawling far below my feet. Kyle and I are on the Hourglass, a 50-degree ramp that gains Mt. Baker, Wash.’s North Ridge. … [Read More...]
Skintrack Sketches: ACMG guide Aaron Enns zooms in on geometry to paint a bigger picture
Artist and ACMG-certified guide, Aaron Enns, 40, hails from Golden, B.C., where he looks to his skintrack-based work in the winter and tree-planting vocation in the summer as fuel for his creative … [Read More...]
Backstory: Rising Up
It’s early morning and unusually cold, the kind of dawn that nips at your heels and prompts you to get going, to get skins on, to unsnag your hair from your zipper. To just move. It’s dark, but the … [Read More...]
Gearbox: With their Procline and X-Alp boots, Arc’teryx and Salomon rethink walk-mode mobility
Certain technologies have a way of interrupting the status quo. Such disrupters are often so simple that consumers wonder why nothing like it existed earlier. They change the way we work and play, … [Read More...]
Gearbox: An Editors’ Choice powder setup
For many, sliding through endless, untouched slopes of powder is the ultimate motivation behind ski touring. It’s what fills our autumn dreams and validates any amount of sweat, distance or effort. … [Read More...]
Gearbox: Four poles that balance avy safety and skinning comfort
Small as they are, pole straps can be a divisive piece of gear. Anti-strap advocates know that they’re overwhelmingly dangerous as anchors in avalanches or tree wells and as shoulder-separating … [Read More...]
Gearbox: An Editors’ Choice steep-skiing setup
Creating the ideal steep-skiing setup isn’t an easy feat. The gear, after all, must offer specialized and polarized traits to handle the ascent and descent with equal aplomb. Skis and boots shouldn’t … [Read More...]
Mountain Skills: Looking beyond instability
If you’ve taken an avalanche safety course—and if you haven’t, you should consider it—then you likely have it hammered into you’re brain that you must be constantly vigilant to changing conditions, … [Read More...]
Mountain Skills: Anticipating Point Release Avalanches
This article was originally publish in April, 2015. As the spring approaches, many of us turn our attention to steeper, more technical lines higher in the mountains. The layers of snow that formed … [Read More...]
2018 Testers’ Choice: Dana Allen’s picks
Testing skis for the Backcountry Magazine Gear Guide can be a grueling endeavor—with hours upon hours of hot powder laps, edge-to-edge action on groomers, the occasional crud-busting run, and of … [Read More...]
2018 Testers’ Choice: Gavin Cooper’s picks
Testing skis for the Backcountry Magazine Gear Guide can be a grueling endeavor—with hours upon hours of hot powder laps, edge-to-edge action on groomers, the occasional crud-busting run, and of … [Read More...]
2018 Testers’ Choice: Becca Cooper’s Picks
Testing skis for the Backcountry Magazine Gear Guide can be a grueling endeavor—with hours upon hours of hot powder laps, edge-to-edge action on groomers, the occasional crud-busting run, and of … [Read More...]
2018 Testers’ Choice: Matteo Campbell’s picks
Testing skis for the Backcountry Magazine Gear Guide can be a grueling endeavor—with hours upon hours of hot powder laps, edge-to-edge action on groomers, the occasional crud-busting run, and of … [Read More...]
2018 Testers’ Choice: Cat Ambrose’s Picks
Testing skis for the Backcountry Magazine Gear Guide can be a grueling endeavor—with hours upon hours of hot powder laps, edge-to-edge action on groomers, the occasional crud-busting run, and of … [Read More...]
It’s what’s on the inside that counts: A Master Bootfitter’s guide to footbeds and liners
We last chatted with Board-certified pedorthist Bob Egeland just before the 2018 Powder Mountain Gear Test Week to hear about the ABCs of bootfitting. In our conversation, he elaborated on the three … [Read More...]
Board Test Week wraps up in Colorado
Sitting in the Monarch Cat Skiing yurt, seven testers laced up boots and turned on beacons when first-year tester Alex Spectorsky spoke up. “So, how’s the snow?” he asked the Monarch … [Read More...]
Board Test Week’s Peaks and Valleys
Despite the early wake up after three full days of testing boards, rumors of snowfall and significant amounts of cold-brew coffee fueled Monday morning’s stoke on the fourth day of Board Test Week. … [Read More...]
Gallery: Gear Test Week 2018
A few short weeks ago, more than 40 testers converged on the sunny slopes of Powder Mountain, Utah for Gear Test Week 2018. Along for the ride was photographer Matt Kiedaisch, who documented each day, … [Read More...]
How Romp Skis crafted the ultimate one-quiver backcountry tool
At 2018 Gear Test Week, 40 testers put more than 200 pairs of skis, 70 pairs of boots and every pair of backcountry bindings through the ringer. But one particular product stood above all the rest—and … [Read More...]
