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Tyler Cohen mixes work and play while on assignment in the Three Sisters Wilderness in 2011. Garrett Grove

Retirement Goals

As we celebrate 30 years of magazines with Issue 161, editors, both past and present, offer personal reflections on their time at Backcountry Magazine. In this note, former Editorial Director Tyler Cohen contemplates some chairlift wisdom he recieved as an intern from tele icon Dickie Hall.

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Get THE Outliers ISSUE

There’s a reason we keep coming back to the skintrack. Why we eagerly load skis into the car before the sun rises; why we diligently study avalanche danger and snow conditions; why we walk uphill for hours or fly across the world. It turns out there’s a lot we’re willing to do for a few (hopefully) good turns. Some are willing to do far more.

Meet The Outliers, the folks Issue 162 is dedicated to. Christina Lustenberger, Jim Morrison and Chantel Astorga: The athletes putting a first descent on one of the world’s most famous climbing walls. There’s Seth Beck, a splitboarder traversing the remnants of an ancient continent’s mountain range. And don’t forget Stratton Matteson: The man who spent five years forsaking gas-guzzling vehicles to make a statement about fighting climate change and kept logging epic lines in the Cascades anyways.

Of course, we’re still suckers for good ‘ole fresh pow and a touch of history. Editor in Chief Betsy Manero dives into the origins of skiing, snow science and mountaineering in Japan’s northernmost prefecture and global powder capital, Hokkaido, and investigates the ramen and onsen-nurtured backcountry ski scene.

The rest? Well, you’ll just have to grab a copy to find out. And take your time, this issue will last through the corn, the mud and the sun.

The Backcountry Team

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  • Look Back, Rise Up
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    Look Back, Rise Up

    As we celebrate 30 years of magazines with Issue 161, editors, both past and present, offer personal reflections on their time at Backcountry Magazine. In this note, sometimes editor and always janitor Adam Howard considers the legacy of Shane McConkey and his enduring influence on ski culture and ski design, while acknowledging a personal editorial…

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  • Wisdom: Sandy Ward

    Wisdom: Sandy Ward

    Almost two decades ago, Sandy Ward found splitboarding connected her to her Indigenous culture. In this Wisdom piece from The 30th Anniversary Issue, she talks about creating opportunities for Indigenous women and youth to experience the backcountry.

  • Arctic Addictions: How I Became Obsessed with Scandinavian Splitboarding

    Arctic Addictions: How I Became Obsessed with Scandinavian Splitboarding

    Splitboarding in the Arctic might as well be a Schedule II drug—highly addictive, potentially dangerous, with a severe risk of psychological and neurological dependance.

Gear

  • The Scarpa TX Pro: Reviewed

    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.

MORE GEAR

The Backcountry Podcast

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

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Latest Podcast Episodes

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.

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: 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.

The Outliers Issue

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Mountain Skills

Uphill Travel Guide

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.

View our resort skinning policies guide »

  • Mountain Skills: Professional vs. Recreational Avalanche Training…what’s in it for me?

    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…

  • Mountain Skills: Hydrate or Die

    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.

  • Mountain Skills: Anticipating Point Release Avalanches

    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.

  • Mountain Skills: Take the time to be prepared for early season turns

    Mountain Skills: Take the time to be prepared for early season turns

    It’s late fall and many mountains throughout the U.S. have seen some decent early season snow. As a result, stoke is high and people are itching to ski. Guide Steve Banks shares his thoughts on how to capitalize on the early bounty.

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