The Guidebook Guy: Fritz Sperry talks about a life spent documenting lines

In the September issue of Backcountry Magazine, Devon O’Neil wrote about the backcountry skiing guidebook scene in North America. One of the writers covered was Fritz Sperry, who has been writing guidebooks about the Front Range of Colorado and other surrounding areas for decades.

Sperry lives a relatively nomadic existence but has resided in the greater Denver area for many years. For part of the season he calls his car home so that he can get to the trailhead without hassle and bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sperry, 45, has lived through the transitions from paperback to blog and straight skis to twin tip. To learn more about how the guidebook process has evolved over the years, we caught up with Sperry before he hits the road for the upcoming season. Here’s what he had to say.

Backcountry Magazine: What is your underlying motivation for writing guidebooks?

Fritz Sperry: The reason I do it is because it is getting more crowded in the backcountry, and in places like Loveland Pass and Berthoud Pass, you see incidents of people interacting negatively with each other—people dropping in on each other. My whole goal is to reduce the density. That is why I am doing more than one guidebook.

But also, since there are so many newcomers to backcountry skiing, getting people to think about what is above them and beside them and below them is also really important. You wouldn’t see a climbing guidebook that omits the fact that there is a loose flake half way up the climb. It is the same thing to me with backcountry skiing. You should know, “At 1.2 miles in, you will be traveling under an avalanche slope.” Especially in Colorado where we have a lot of hard slab issues. Getting people to think about that is really important.

The year I wrote my first guidebook I lost 13 friends. Half of those were in the mountains and the others were in the music industry. That profoundly affects your life. I am always trying to get people to think about stuff.

BCM: How did you get into backcountry skiing?

FS: Backcountry skiing started with me learning to ski in the Catskills when I was four. There was fresh snow on the side of the trail, so I would go into the woods and play around. I attended the White Mountain School and skied Tucker Brook and Mittersill, which wasn’t open back then. It was really nice; I got my first big powder day there. Then I went on to do Tuckerman’s in the spring and summer once things got more stable. I moved out to Colorado after that.

It’s all about the Powder—finding those nice, fresh lines and getting away from the crowds. Things are crowded at resorts. You take one step into the woods, and you have solitude.

BCM: What started you on the path of writing guidebooks?

FS: Around 1999, I recovered from my second major tib-fib spiral fracture in my leg. I was back in Colorado, and during the recovery process I was going through a lot of my photos and thinking back to all of those great days, longing for skiing, because I couldn’t go. I was working in one of the restaurants down in Denver, and I was chatting with the chef who was an avid backcountry snowboarder. I was telling him that I had so much fun out there that I wanted to try and write a guidebook; to give back my knowledge to people and provide them with a few choices.

I also saw a lot of faults with the guidebooks at the time. I saw stuff omitted, and I thought I could write a better guidebook, more designed specifically for skiing.

BCM: What does the process of writing a guidebook look like?

FS: It basically starts with a hit list. You decide on the zone that you want to do. I like to do guidebooks that are very unabridged. You have as much content as possible. And then it is a matter of looking through maps and trying to figure out what the best access points are, and it turns in to this big hit list.

Over time I have developed a form for the information I need, but I also just go out and ski the lines, and I blog about my trips. That is the first step toward writing a route. Then, a few months later, I will reference pictures and the route in the blog and plug that into the route description.

BCM: What is the timeline for you writing the guidebooks? When did you start?

FS: My ex wife and I moved to St. Louis when she was finishing her residency there, so I basically started writing them there in 2001. I was using writing as an excuse to get back to Colorado. That first guidebook pretty much took 11 years to finish. The second guidebook, The Front Range South, took about three years. But the first skiing for that book was done 20 years before.

This most recent book took about three years to do, and the skiing for that was over the course of twenty years.

BCM: How has the content evolved over the years?

FS: I definitely include more hazard information now. I feel like that information is important for the newer skier getting involved. If you have the knowledge, you can gloss over that content, but if you don’t have that knowledge, you really need it. I think that that is part of protecting the community. People need to understand what they are getting involved in. Generally backcountry skiing is fun, but if you are not thinking about what you are doing then you might get hurt. Everyone needs reminders, whether you have been doing it for thirty years or you have been doing in for one.

BCM: How does writing these guidebooks influence how you are interacting with the mountains when you are out there?

FS: I try to make goals for myself, and when I go out there and try to get guidebook lines done, there is definitely a process of documenting the day, the experience, the route; it’s work. I have to get a picture of the line, the approach, the angle. I have to grab a shot of the trailhead. There is a lot more freedom when you don’t have to document it.

The mountains are everyone’s. Everybody should go to the mountains, because it’s like John Muir says: “Go to the mountains and receive their good tidings.” It is an unforgiving place where you have to make decisions, and they have to be right; you have to focus. Our whole world is set up in a grid, and there is no grid out there. The more people get out the better off they will be.

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To find out more about Fritz Sperry and his guidebooks, visit his blog at makingturns.com.