The More People Outside the Better?
Dots of light bob through the pitch black. There’s no moon in sight. Headlamps take the place of stars, tracing a switchbacked constellation along contour lines and up ridges to the top of the mountain. Whispers of conversation drift like a light breeze through fragile, autumnal leaves, cascading down thousands of feet to the valley floor.
It’s 3 a.m. The night is quiet. But the mountain is very alive.
We parked on the road half an hour ago and added some miles to our hike. The lot was full. Apparently, a sunrise summit was not an original idea. I don’t see much for the six-hour trudge to the peak. Sometimes speakers clipped to backpacks overtake the rush of a thousand soft words in the windless night. While I’m slightly annoyed by their music, it’s not a fight I’m looking to start right now.
By 6 a.m., I learn it’s National Public Lands Day. Parking is free today. No need for the national park pass typically required to access the wilderness area or this trail, which is managed by the local forest service.
Atop the ridge, a conga line of people marching towards the summit is illuminated by equal parts city light and alpenglow. The movement is slow, and the experience isn’t what I typically look for when I venture outdoors. The mountain will surely show the wear of overuse: side trails and wrappers and wildlife that seem to look for human attention.
Despite it all, I find myself inspired, more than anything, that this many people would sacrifice a good night’s sleep for a summit sunrise. We protect what we love, and we can only love what we know.
—Liam
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Winter is coming and so is the 2026 Gear Guide.
Subscribe now to make sure a copy is coming your way 📬, do it by 10/8 and we’ll throw in a FREE Backcountry Voilé Strap 🙌.
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Stories |Backcountry Skiing Basics: Choosing the right gear
Choosing the right gear for backcountry skiing can make or break the sport. Brett St. Clair shares tips for purchasing your first setup.
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Backcountry Skiing Basics: Getting Started
Brett St. Clair shares tips for getting into backcountry skiing in the first of six columns.
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AIARE Expands Professional Growth Network Offerings
AIARE rebranded its Women’s Mentorship Program to the Professional Growth Network in 2024. This year the program expands to be more accessible.
Gear
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Summer Gear Roundup: Backpacking
Dialing in your setup is essential to any backcountry mission. While most of this gear tested by our staff is designed for warmer seasons, plenty of it can, and will, double as essentials on winter hut trips, spring traverses and other cold-weather adventures.
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Gearbox: 2025 Packs
The best ski touring packs of 2025, reviewed.
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Gearbox: 2025 Ultralight Packs
In a year where ultralight packs exploded in popularity, we’ve reviewed some of the best option for your long distance, lightweight tours.
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Gearbox: 2025 Sunglasses
Whether summer or winter, sunglasses are essential for backcountry sports. Here’s a few of the best shades from this year, reviewed.
MORE GEAR
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Gearbox: 2025 Camera Gear
With these packs, storage options and drones, capturing your adventures in the mountains has never been easier.
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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.
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 2026 Gear Guide
Subscribe now to get our latest issue, do it by 10/8 and we’ll throw in a FREE Backcountry Voilé Strap!
Mountain Skills
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Mountain Skills: Planning a trip to an offbeat location requires more than Google
Chamonix. Hokkaido. Portillo. Certain locations are synonymous with international ski travel, meaning resources for trip planning are as plentiful as some places can be crowded. But what about planning a trip to Kosciusko, Aoraki, Vielha or some other little-spoken-of locale with limited beta, few available maps or no guidebooks? Where do you start?
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.
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Mountain Skills: Set a Plan and Stick to It
Sticking to your plan is easier said than done. But, it’s one of the best ways to stay safe in the backcountry.
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Mountain Skills: Professional vs. Recreational Avalanche Training…what’s in it for me?
This winter, avalanche education in the U.S. will be evolving. The old system of Level 1, 2, 3 will be replaced with two options: a recreational track and one geared toward professionals. The goal of the split is to deliver better, more focused courses to each user group. So how do you know which one’s…
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Mountain Skills: Hydrate or Die
We lose fluids through perspiration (sweating) and respiration (breathing). While ski touring, high elevation and drier air make this even more dramatic. And during the spring, warm weather further exaggerates the amount of fluid lost. Dehydration leads to a drop of performance—in stages from slowing down to bonking to needing medical attention.
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Mountain Skills: Anticipating Point Release Avalanches
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 throughout the winter begin to gain strength and the avalanche problem is less complicated—it’s ski mountaineering season! But as the temperatures climb, wet avalanches become a more regular, primary concern.
