“This is the best night of the year,” second-time Grand Traverse racer Adam Ferrow yells. The bus from downtown Crested Butte, Colo. to the resort is equally packed with afroed and bedazzled Soul Train partygoers and softshell-clad, skinny-ski toting Elk Mountain Grand Traverse racers. And while this year’s race course, which typically runs 40 miles from Crested Butte to Aspen, has been altered due high avalanche danger, the energy in Crested Butte is electric.
The Grand Traverse: New Snow and Blisters
In a little more than 24 hours, a contingent of professional athletes, hobbyists and amateurs alike will converge upon Crested Butte, Colo., for the 17th Annual GORE-TEX Grand Traverse. Racers will test their mental and physical ability in the 40-mile race to Aspen, roughly retracing what was once a mailing route between the two towns. […]
The Yurt: Backcountry’s Basecamp
Would a yurt by any other name smell so…pungent? Maybe. The Turkish word, meaning homeland, is short and sweet, apropos of the squat shelters that the nomads of inner Asia called home for thousands of years. In ski culture, we know yurts as the perfect home base—somewhere to hang up our skins, crack open a […]
Shred Test 2015: Pow, Corduroy and Charging Through Chop
To Whom It May Concern, We speak on behalf of snowboarders everywhere when we say, “We shred and we have high standards.” We’re picky, well versed and eccentric. Twenty years of a pastime will do that to you. If it’s not our profession, it might as well be. For some of us, it is. Regardless, […]
Backcountry Magazine announces Basecamp lineup for Smugglers’ Notch, Vt
Smugglers’ Notch, Vt. (for immediate release) – On the third stop of its nationwide backcountry education tour the GORE-TEX Backcountry Magazine Basecamp will team up with Outdoor Gear Exchange and Vermont-based apparel brand Mammut at Smugglers’ Notch Resort this weekend, March 29-30, for a celebration of all things backcountry. The Basecamp opens its yurt-based event first […]
Back to the Butte: 2015 Board Test
Backcountry Magazine’s annual Board Test kicks off on Monday, attracting riders to Crested Butte, Colorado from across the country for a week of testing next year’s boards, boots and bindings. Fortunately, Mother Nature has favored Crested Butte this winter, and the mountain is open with wall-to-wall fun and technical terrain.
2015 GEAR TEST WEEK DAY 5 DISPATCH
A rough day skiing is better than no skiing at all. After the bleary eyes left behind from the “Progressive Party” finally subsided, testers hit the slopes once again and finished off the rest of the boots and skis, completing the 11th Annual Gear Test Week. The warmest day of the test made for perfect spring […]
2015 GEAR TEST WEEK DAY 4 DISPATCH
Day four of Gear Test Week was full-on spring skiing—hard corduroy groomers and chundery woods that softened to corny utopia in the afternoon. Testers continued to give a solid effort, some of whom busted out a dozen or more skis and tested a handful of boots. With three days of testing under everyone’s belts, the […]
2015 Gear Tester Profile: Jason Layh
With a thick Australian accent, Jason Layh is one of our most seasoned testers. He was recruited during the Couloir Magazine gear test days and carried over to our Gear Test Week when Couloir merged with Backcountry in 2007. Layh chased winter storms for most of his twenties before finally settling down in the Tahoe area. Name: Jason […]
2015 GEAR TESTER PROFILE: Richard “Woody” Wood
On the ride up Highway 158 to Utah’s Powder Mountain Resort, you pass a 1,200-acre skiing zone known as Powder Country. Skiers can ride from the top of the resort down to the road and get shuttled back up. That’s where veteran bus driver Richard “Woody” Wood comes in. Woody has been sitting in the […]
