
Oh, How Far We’ve Come
My first time backcountry skiing was a college outing club trip to New Hampshire’s scrappy Mount Cardigan. The primary goal: use the alpine touring gear burning a hole in the club’s gear closet. Secondary goal: ski. We didn’t know the conditions, we didn’t have any knowledge of hazards, and we didn’t know how to use the gear. The trip ran on hormones, Cumberland Farms coffee and stoke.
Not wanting to feel like a gumby when the trip leader asked if I needed poles, I said, “no, I have my own,” accepting the risk that my non-adjustable, $20 Swix poles would make the day marginally worse.
We booted up, figured out how to click our toe inserts into the skis and started skinning. Shouts of “We’re really doing it!” and “These skis are so light!” and “I feel like a ski mountaineer!” rose from the group.
We pulled the plug 1.5 miles in. A few of us were sodden with sweat, the upper mountain looked icy and every single person had blisters. We clicked our heels in, looked down the tunnel-like trail we’d skinned up and felt every limb in our bodies tense. “We have to ski that?” I pushed off first and gained confidence with some quick turns. “It’s just like resort skiing!” I called back.
Right then, the new-to-me flimsy touring ski bucked. Hard. I’m talking thrown up off a bump, headed straight off-trail into thick woods. Luckily, my ski caught on bramble and yanked me down into the snow before I decked a tree. I fell but without injury. The one casualty? My pole was bent like I raced Super-G.
This past weekend, I bought adjustable poles for the first time. Now an intern with Backcountry, I guess it was about time.
-Ethan Daly
Get THE 3oth ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

Back in 1994, David and Betsy Harrower were exploring the backcountry on long, narrow, tele skis and having a grand old time. The only problem? “I realized there was no magazine to gain information about what had become the most fun part of my life,” writes David in his Editor’s Note in Issue 161. And so, as the story goes, David and Betsy, along with Brian Litz, started Backcountry.
In the following 30 years, the publication and the sport have both grown and evolved. Today, alpine touring setups reign, film cameras have been replaced by their digital brethren and many editors and photographers have come and gone on our hallowed masthead. In Issue 161, The 30th Anniversary Issue, we highlight three decades of people who’ve made this publication what it is, both in editorial and art, and the backcountry skiing community that’s developed alongside us.
In the next 132 pages coming your way, we look to the past and the present. We remember late telemark big mountain skier Kasha Rigby; dive into the heli-skiing pioneers who drove the development of avalanche safety; and recognize Paul Parker’s lifetime of contributions to the sport. And we report on efforts to make avalanche education more accessible; the apps offering better tour planning; and the Italian splitboarder dedicated to uniting his backcountry community.
As headlines fly, take a moment to recall all the things our favorite sport—and the publication dedicated to it—has been and continues to be. Then take a victory lap at your favorite zone on us.
To 30 more!
The Backcountry Team
Subscribe now to make sure a copy is coming your way 📬.
Gear
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The Scarpa TX Pro: Reviewed
The debut of the new Scarpa TX Pro, our 2025 Editors’ Choice telemark boot, marks an exciting, and long awaited, development in telemark gear.
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2025 Editors’ Choice Ski Reviews
From powder skis to quiver-killers to skimo options, check out this year’s Editors’ Choice backcountry skis reviews.
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2025 Editors’ Choice Apparel Reviews
Our 2025 Editors’ Choice apparel includes an assortment of layers, from hard- and soft-shells to puffies to baselayers.
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2025 Editors’ Choice Ski Boot Reviews
The best backcountry ski boots of 2025, from 130 flex to the skimo-inspired, reviewed.
MORE GEAR
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2025 Editors’ Choice Splitboard Boot And Binding Reviews
Our 2025 Editors’ Choice boot and bindings picks feature both soft- and hard-boot setups.
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2025 Editors’ Choice Ski Binding Reviews
From techincal ascents to powder-filled descents, our 2025 Editors’ Choice ski bindings offer a seamless blend of durability and versatility.
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2025 Editors’ Choice Splitboard Reviews
Our selection of 2025 Editors’ Choice splitboards surf, charge and ollie while still delivering on the up.
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Summer Gear Roundup: Camping
Regardless of the mode of backcountry travel, a good camp setup is essential to multiday exploration. While most of the gear tested by our staff is designed for warmer seasons, plenty of it can, and will, double as essentials on hut trips and spring overnight adventures.

The Backcountry Podcast
From legendary athletes to iconic product designers, activists to guides, our world is filled with new views, wisdom, determination and crustiness.
Latest Podcast Episodes

From playing NCAA soccer to a successful modeling and acting career to being the top polar explorer of his time, Doug Stoup is an enigma. Host Adam Howard recently journeyed to Antarctica with Stoup and their conversation ranges from Doug’s personal training of A-list Hollywood actors to near death experiences; adventures with Doug Coombs; and taking novice skiers to the South Pole.

Tele Mike Russell: Turns for All
Tele Mike Russell grew up as a sharecropper’s son in Delaware before attending college and becoming an executive in the pharmaceutical industry. Then he watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center and decided he’d better follow another path, this one to skiing in Colorado, where he’d go on to find a family in the National Brotherhood of Skiers and help found its backcountry program.

Eric Blehm’s roots in snowboarding run deep. He started riding during the sport’s infancy, and after college became an editor at Transworld SNOWboarding Magazine. Years later, he was in a lift line when a fellow rider saw the “Craig Kelly is my Co-Pilot” sticker on his board, and asked Blehm: “Who is Craig Kelly?” He was floored by the notion that there were snowboarders out there who didn’t know who Craig was. And this inspired him to write The Darkest White.

The Photo Annual
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Mountain Skills

Resort Skinning Policies
We’ve compiled a database of U.S. resorts with a little about each individual policy—where and when skinning is allowed, whether or not it’s free during operating hours and the link directly to the resort’s guidelines.
