Eastside Ski Notes -- 1/25/11

[Mohonk and the skinny ski set]

Let’s face it: if you ski enough, you’ll eventually reach the point where the resort just won’t satisfy your powder jones anymore. Even on the deepest days, runs get tracked out too fast, and you find yourself venturing into the slackcountry. You duck the rope, traverse for 15 minutes, drop in on the 400 feet of untracked snow that you find, and then traverse back at the bottom. So, what do you do when those few hundred feet of fresh are no longer enough? You leave the lifts and crowds behind and get into the backcountry.
So begins an excellent article in Backcountry.com describing the process of going from the in-bounds to the out-of-bounds ski lifestyle.
Read more at:
http://www.backcountry.com/store/newsletter/a1141/Slackcountry-to-Backcountry.html?cmp_id=EM_SAL1290a4&mv_pc=r105&rmid=BC_01_11_Newsletter&rrid=74960826
Or just go to Backcountry.com and click on the article "Slackcountry to Backcountry."  And be sure to take note of the other great articles, gear reports, and links.
Relocated for the short term to New York and Vermont, my "backcountry skiing" has been limited to track skiing in Vermont and the Mohonk Preserve.  I've been a long time away from the skinny ski culture, but once you get your stride back, "skating" is a great conditioner and a skill-set all its own. 

Day 14 -- 1/11/11

MATISSE AND RED BLOOD CELLS may seem like an odd mash up, but I will try to make my point.  After a month at sea level in Pasadena and Las Vegas, I found myself growing somewhat ambivalent in my usual passion for being in the mountains.  But then finally back in Utah, we started from our familiar staging point at Alta Lodge and began our well-traveled Powerline route to the ridgeline.

High altitude medical studies seem pretty uniform in the idea that red blood cells – the couriers of oxygen – tend to decrease to normal levels after a couple weeks away from high altitude environment.  Which means that returning to the mountains after a few weeks means that you have to reboot your red cell build-up from scratch and suffer the effects of acclimatization like regular sea-level folks.  However, in my own experience, I have found that after year’s-long exertion at altitude, my ability to function well in thin air seems to rebound pretty quickly.  So after an hour or so in the skin track, I realized I was moving well and sustaining a credible cadence.  (Brad said we were climbing at about 1,000 feet per hour; not at peak pace, but respectable, given my month-long glut of sea-level oxygen.)

[reaping the rewards]

The air was exceptionally clear.  The view from near 11,000 feet was spectral, with infinity only impaired by the natural bend of the earth.  The climb to Heart of Darkness pass was burly, especially the last 300 feet of boot-packing to the ridge through 60 degree junk-pile lee deposit.  But then, standing at the divide between two vast basins, barely a ski track in sight, that ambivalence vanished.  The arctic wind was gusting, turning our exposed skin to crystal; the footing was fractured and unstable and a false step could mean a 500-foot ass luge to the emergency room.  What most reasonably minded people would call misery.

But standing atop a summit, every step earned equity, is something I call humble superiority.  The ambivalence was supplanted by the kind of exalted tinyness I feel in the mountains.  This was a brief layover in Utah and two days later I am in Manhattan, back at sea level, restoring my red blood cell count to consumer level metabolism.  But I travel back to the summit for a moment and think of the Matisse caption that accompanies one of his late-in-life construction paper pieces.  It goes something like: "Elle vit apparaître le matin. Elle se tut discrètement" .  Which I believe crudely translates to: she saw the beauty of the morning; she shut the fuck up.

Day’s Vertical: 4,400.  Season to Date: 48,400.

Day 13 -- 12/15/10

DAWN PATROL is an age old tradition in Wasatch backcountry – provided your age old is something like 32 years old.  But a tradition has to start somewhere and local folklore has it that Black Diamond Equipment employees, going back to Alex Lowe’s days in retail, initiated the idea of rising at four a.m., driving up the canyons to start climbing by headlamp by five, with the idea of reaching to top at sunbreak for a couple of quick runs, completed in time to get back down the canyon and punch in for a 9 a.m. start time at work.

So my durable ski partner, Brad Carroll, and I decided to take up the condition, though it is well known that for me, rising at any hour before nine is grounds for a grievance with Amnesty International.  But thank God Brad is a cheerful and functioning early riser.  And with coffee brewing, sandwiches Zip-locked, and skis on the car, my sole responsibility.

In my complete robotic state, I somehow managed to shoot enough video to create a movie of the experience, linked here.  As for future Dawn Patrol outings, I recall the Japanese aphorism: “Only a fool fails to climb Mt. Fuji; only a fool climbs it more than once.”  Though, I must say that arriving at the summit as the sun broke over the southern ridgeline was transcendent and I realized that I am an incorrigible fool for the undisturbed beauty of fresh light on fresh snow.

Go to the link and watch the movie:

http://www.vimeo.com/17912001

Day’s Vertical: 4,100.  Season to Date: 44,000.

Days 11,12 - 12/9-12/12

AVALANCHE HAZARD evaluation and safe travel are critical elements to a successful return from a visit to the backcountry.  I have been skiing out of bounds since about 1988.  And with the introduction of high-quality, lightweight touring equipment, the number of wilderness skiers and riders has increased tenfold since those days of Ramer lobster trap bindings and purple Ascension skins that only came in a maximum width of 55cm.

Since about that time, I have participated in dozens of hours of avalanche awareness seminars, field trips, and beacon search drills.  I have accumulated my avalanche awareness skills in a rather haphazard blend of this informal training and practical field experience.  During this time, new avalanche methodology, language, and practices have evolved and I thought it was time to aggregate and expand my knowledge of backcountry travel.
I participated in Level 1 training, sponsored by the American Avalanche Institute.  This is the first of three levels and was held over the weekend of 12/9 to 12/12/2010, with two evening classroom sessions and two days of field training.  To many, it probably sounds like boring stuff.  But avalanche awareness is not about just personal safety.  It is about the safety of your touring partners and others who use the skiing wilderness and depend upon shared information and hazard recognition, as posted in online sites such as the Utah Avalanche Center.  It follows a doctrine of mutual assistance.  For instance, BC skiers carry a beacon, not just to be located in the event of burial, but also to use in receive mode to locate others who may have been trapped in a release.
Speaking from personal experience, AAI offers a great program at all levels.  But a number of organizations provide equally top-rate instruction.  The courses are very reasonably priced and must be considered essential to anyone who wants to travel on the snow safely and better understand the truly complex nature of the landscape we tread lightly upon.

To illustrate that it's not all science and observation, I include the attached video that demonstrates that class time includes recess in one of the vastest playgrounds you can imagine.

Two Days Vertical: 4,200.  Season to Date: 39,900.