A Beginner's Guide To The Backcountry

  Deep powder riding is the most sought after experience for snowboarders and skiers but many people really never get a chance to do it; mostly due to a lack of information on how to start and where to go.  Hoping for a good snowfall at a resort will not give you this opportunity even if you're lucky enough to have your schedule and mother nature's coincide.  Resort trails get tracked out quickly and even ten inches of new snow on a resort trail is merely new snow on a packed, compressed surface.  It'll make for wonderful, soft conditions of course but essentially you are still riding/skiing on a solid surface.  The blissful sensation of true powder comes from literally floating in snow so deep that you never come close to touching anything solid.  Indeed the most tiring thing about falling in powder isn't the fall but attempting to get up as you literally have nothing to push against to leverage yourself up, often only going deeper the more you try.  I actually had a panic moment this past season where I was almost chest deep and didn't know what to do - a deep breath and digging out my board to unstrap solved that problem although getting back on the board was a whole different problem to be solved (imagine treading water then trying to stand up on a small raft floating in front of you).  That's another nice thing about the backcountry, every day is some kind of lesson.

  So where to start?  A resort is out, unless you go off trail which in most places in the US will get your lift pass taken in a hurry.  Some resorts overseas are much more lenient in this regard (yes, we love those places) but generally speaking it isn't happening here in the States.  Some resorts have T-bar accessed or foot accessed bowls but the crowd factor gets those tracked out by 10am.  The other concern of course is safety; the huge accumulations of snow that provide true powder experiences can also be unstable and deadly in the form of avalanches and heavy slough.  The good news is that many companies offer backcountry tours for about the same price as a lift ticket, or backcountry vacations that cost about the same as a week in a commercial resort and give a much, much better snow sports experience.

  The first thing to do is learn to ride powder.  Getting into fantastic, waist deep conditions doesn't do a whole lot of good when you can't stay upright.  Many resorts will offer powder lessons and give their instructors permission to take students to the off-piste areas where real, deep pow can be found.  Make no mistake, it is a different skill set; almost the opposite of what most people learn on a snowboard.  Weight is more to the back than to the front, using your edges will usually result in a quick flop, and you need to be prepared for steepness on the level of a black diamond or double black diamond - which can be very intimidating when your path is littered with trees every few feet.

  You'll also need the proper equipment to ride/ski terrain like that.  A powder specific board or pair of skis is virtually a necessity, unless you want to work much harder than necessary and get tired much more quickly.  Generally speaking you'll go longer than what you're used to.  Remember, you're not on a solid surface so the extra length (and width) will help the board/skis in planing through the powder much like the hull of a boat does in water and give more stability so that the board or skis aren't pitching and rolling as you go.

  Once you're comfortable, you'll be itching for more; truly, nothing compares to it.  Search for companies giving backcountry tours, paying special attention to their emphasis on safety and the experience and qualifications of their guides.  You can go the very expensive route and do a helicopter accessed tour, scale down the cost to a snow cat accessed tour, or go a much more cost effective tour (and much more satisfying in its' way) involving snowshoeing or skinning.  Snowshoeing is nice if you have a one piece board (as opposed to a splitboard) and want to strap that to your backpack to ride; the downside being that snowshoeing is much more physically strenuous than skinning.  Skinning is merely two pieces of material that adhere to the bottom of your skis or splitboard (in skinning mode of course) that give you traction and let you travel on top of the powder itself.  It is much less tiring and you may get to enjoy the experience of traveling up the mountain a bit more; and with a good guide the journey up is just as fulfilling and interesting as the ride down.  Every tour should be an education in safely navigating the terrain, no matter what skill or experience level you're at.

  Notice that none of those options involves going alone or with a group of your buddies with no guide.  Without proper education at no point should anyone enter the backcountry without a professional guide who can competently evaluate the terrain and mitigate the inherent danger of being there.

  When it all comes together you may need the smile surgically removed from your face.  It really is that good and most of my interest in resorts now is what kind of off piste access is offered.  Get the right equipment, learn how ride/ski powder, then find a good professional organization to guide you to the best experiences you can have in the mountains; you'll never look a resort trail the same way again.