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Secret stashes, exploration, solitude, and more
- AlpineRose
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- freshie
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<br><br>Apparently!Yeah, but pontificating is so much fun!
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- Lowell_Skoog
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- freshie
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<br><br>Always a pleasure to read your comments, Lowell.<br><br>However, I am sure you are not suggesting that just by expressing my opinion I was being less than gracious, this is a forum for discussion after all. I was nothing but pleasant ("cute and clever" as Gregg_C put it) so perhaps you mean something I am missing.<br><br>This thread has hardly gone downhill either. Instead it has turned into a fine discussion of issues we all care about, and to me has provided much better reading than the usual endless chain of posts about "Paradise was windblown last weekend" or "why does snow stick to my binding" chatter that this board often presents.<br><br>Also, if you look up the definition (and spelling) of coercion you will find that posting "criticism" in an Internet chat room is not coercion, I am not going to coerce anyone into doing anything. Coercion involves force, and I have none of that here. And anyway, if a community's spirit were to be threatened by criticism then it is on the downslope to insignificance in my book. A community's spirit should be strengthened by criticism, at least one I want to be a part of. I am guessing no one thinks the Washington BC skiing crowd's spirit is threatened. Instead this thread has given many people a chance to weigh in on the topics that affect us all, and by getting to see other members opinions each of us will (hopefully) be more conscious about the effects of their words each time they post.<br><br>That said I agree I may have stepped on a few toes with my original post but I stand by my opinion: There is no effective difference between including explicit route descriptions in an Internet TR for a "secret" place and including vague-yet-easily-decipherable route descriptions for the same place. In the end the result is the same: everyone quickly knows where the tour is. When any motivated powder-lover with 2 minutes and a web browser can figure it out (which describes about 99% of the readership of this group) then you have to have your head in the sand to believe you have not completely disseminated your (and the people you share it with) tour. I am glad to see that my small point (on the spectrum of the secret stash discussion) has been mostly lost in this thread, since it means everyone has ended up talking about the big picture.<br><br>See you on the slopes!<br><br><br>If you go back to the beginning of this thread, it all got started because ski_photomatt asked for trip ideas, but added: "I'm not asking for anyone's secret stash as I know these things are carefully guarded." In my view, Matt's request was most gracious. Things went downhill when freshie (apparently) criticized another skier for posting a certain trip report. That was not gracious.<br><br>There's a difference between refraining from posting a report for your own reasons and criticizing somebody else in public for posting a report. The former is self-restraint; the latter is coersion. The former does not threaten our community spirit; the latter does.
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>Thanks freshie. I agree with pretty much everything you said. You're right that I missed the mark on some of my comments. This thread is interesting precisely because it has generated some controversy.<br><br>In my experience, nearly every avid backcountry skier has some places they're happy to talk about and other places they are more reserved about. It's like anglers and their fishing holes, I suppose. The people I've known who dismiss this issue entirely typically have some other agenda, like being a guide, a publisher, or an aspiring writer.<br><br>Controversy arises because we don't all agree on which places should be left to individual discovery. After all, if you're reluctant to talk about these places, it's pretty hard to come to any agreement!<br><br>As for myself, I keep in the back of my mind The Guidebook I Hope Will Never Be Written. That would be a guidebook to backcountry skiing along the North Cascades Highway. For me, this is a perfect zone for personal discovery. By mentioning it, I could be waving a flag in front of some aspiring author or guide. Or, I might raise awareness that here is a Discovery Zone worth keeping that way.<br>This thread has hardly gone downhill either. Instead it has turned into a fine discussion of issues we all care about...
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- curmudgeon
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>In an earlier post, I said I don't mind publishing trip reports for destinations that are either already well known or challenging enough that they won't get overcrowded. The trips you're describing fall into the latter category. So, in my view, the fact that you're eager to publicize everything you do adds little to this discussion.<br><br>This discussion is about the "middle trips" that are neither way out there nor well known already. They are accessible, but for some reason little known. In my experience (and apparently the experience of a few others who've posted here) discovering such tours on one's own is enjoyable and rewarding. The question is whether there is any value in exercising restraint to preserve these opportunities a while longer.<br><br>You're entitled to consider this a "silly game." I suggest, however, that you don't understand where the other people in this discussion are coming from and don't seem to want to understand.<br>To sum it up, this sounds like a silly game of cops and robbers to me.
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- Jim Oker
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>Ten years ago, who'd have thought anyone could (or would want to) write an entire guidebook about backcountry skiing near Snoqualmie Pass? Fred Beckey didn't do it, and yet it changed the landscape. Imagine a similar treatment for the North Cascades highway.<br><br>Well after the guide book of backcounty skiing along the NC highway is written, this will still be a perfect zone for personal growth. Unless done by an encyclopediest like Beckey, I suspect it will include mostly the places that are already well known. It is a big country out there.
<br><br>If that were the only consequence, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But I doubt it. I remember the days before Silver Star was a war horse. The first few years I skied it (starting in 1979) it was not a popular tour. That was before Rainer Burgdorfer's first edition. I doubt that a more comprehensive book would affect only the war horses.<br><br>I can forsee some possible consequences of this guidebook from Hell:<br><br>1) The war horses will be more crowded... You will have to be really early to get first tracks on centeral stripe of the Birthday tour or Silver Star. The edges and alternatives will still be good.
<br><br>Again, I'm skeptical. The highway department would have to modify their procedure considerably, I think, to accommodate what you're suggesting. It's hard for me to imagine them doing it. I think they would consider recreational traffic during the clearing process a big headache. <br><br>3) Maybe, with a constituency, the N Cascade highway will no longer gated at Ross Dam...
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- skykilo
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- ski_photomatt
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<br><br>As usual, Lowell nails it squarely on the head. It's hard to have a discussion about whether publicizing ski routes and writing guidebooks is "good" or "bad" without first defining what we mean by "good" and "bad." This in turn asks backcountry skiers what they value and deem important. We are making value judgments here - once these are laid out, the rest will fall into place.<br><br>So, why do you go skiing? Do you go for exercise, to get out with your friends in the clear air, find an untracked line and indulge? Is day of 6000 ft of yo-yo powder skiing heaven? Sure, who doesn't love this. But is there something more? Something deeper? I have a pass at Alpental - out the backcountry gate, ski one line over, point-em straight down and whoop and holler all the way to the valley floor. But, for me, there is something missing here. These days are grand, but they are not the ones that occupy the treasured memory spots, the ones that are remembered as the "best day of the season." Sometimes it's about more than finding fresh lines. There needs to be, as Lowell puts it, a personal discovery zone. This isn't possible if an area is popular.<br><br>Backcountry skiing is growing ever more popular, the city every day encroaches on the dwindling wilderness. Do we throw up our hands, accept it and give up? No, we don't have to. Mother Nature smiles broadly on backcountry skiers - she every week wipes the slate clean. The bowls and ridges are remade pristine until they are tracked again. It doesn't matter whether a thousand have skied there before, it looks the same to us as it did the pioneers. We can have a similar experience. As others have pointed out, other parties don't ruin the experience, they just change it. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes they enhance it too. (And as others have also pointed out, I've yet to meet another backcountry skier I didn't like, in fact I've met partners in the backcountry, as recently as a few weeks ago).<br><br>Guidebooks certainly have their place and I use them all the time when I visit new places. But just the same, I feel some areas should be set aside. Others disagree. Some feel anywhere is fair game to publicize. That's fine, everyone is free to do as they please. Everyone likes to share stories and photos from trips, myself included. I post trip reports. It builds a sense of community that can be easily lost. But, if appropriate, I first decide if there is something innate in the experience I just had that would be compromised if there were several other parties or sets of tracks around.<br><br>Ironically, Beckey's encyclopedic description of the Cascades has preserved the out of the way places. It's very hard to pick up the three volumes and find a hidden gem if you don't already have an idea of where to look. The all inclusiveness also means each route is sketched, not detailed, and phrases like "obvious descent gully" become legendary. I don't think it would be the same with the guidebook from Hell.This discussion is about the "middle trips" that are neither way out there nor well known already. The question is whether there is any value in exercising restraint to preserve these opportunities a while longer.
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- David_Lowry
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>Good point. The challenge in a discussion like this is to keep straight the arguments of different people with slightly different points of view. It's easy to get their motivations mixed up. I've done it in this very thread. However, I never used the word "stash" to describe what I'm talking about.<br><br>I thought the question was whether to exercise restraint in order to preserve these opportunities for yourself. Why else would it be repeatedly referred to as a "stash"?
<br><br>Maybe you cannot conjure up the illusion. Or maybe you haven't really tried.<br><br>I've done many trips--inspired by topo maps--where I eagerly anticipated what a particular basin or viewpoint or passage would be like. The great trips were characterized by delight in what I discovered.<br><br>If that's still not good enough, you could burn all your guidebooks and topo maps. People have suggested this to me in past discussions on this topic. But this suggestion overlooks the "Rue Rick Steves" effect.<br><br>You know Rick Steves--the famous travel author. There is a charming street in Paris that has been so popularized by his books and videos that it has been nicknamed "Rue Rick Steves". An adventurous traveller could, of course, studiously avoid all information produced by Rick Steves. The traveller could, on their own, rediscover this charming French street. But when they arrive, and find dozens of American tourists packing the cafes and shops, all leafing through dog-eared copies of Steves' books, it kinda spoils the illusion of discovery. The same is true of backcountry skiing. <br>For me, since the whole place is mapped, I cannot conjure up the illusion of exploration. I guess I could leave the topos at home.
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- David_Lowry
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