2026 Backcountry Editors’ Choice Awards

DOUG STOUP: THE ICEMAN
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.
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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.
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ERIC BLEHM: MEET YOUR HEROES
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.
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