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Secret stashes, exploration, solitude, and more
- ski_photomatt
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- ski_photomatt
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<br><br>I think this is what separates backcountry ski exploring from other types - if anyone has been there since the last significant snowfall, there will be tracks. Their existance leading the way can be enough to disrupt the experience for someone who doesn't know the area. The Slot Couloir is a good example of what I'm talking about. Check out www.mtnphil.com and read the trip reports from years past about the Slot Couloir (Enigma Gully). They discovered it, climbed it, scoped it out and finally went back and skied it. They had little knowledge about it before exploring as this was before a guide book or it became popular. There is a reason it was dubbed 'Enigma Gully'. Contrast this with the scene a few weeks ago - it had been talked about on this board a few times, there is a step by step account of the tour in a guidebook and it was downright crowded. Regardless of whether someone had read the guidebook or not, they couldn't have had the same experience. I'm making a value judgement here that this is worthwhile and should be protected where appropiate; your opinion may differ. I'm arguing that the 'secret stashes' should be protected, not for those who already know and ski them, but rather for those who have yet to discover them.And no matter what, there are alwasy the tracks you leave, which can be followed...
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- Jim Oker
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>Matt is onto something subtle and, to my thinking, important. There is something special about backcountry skiing. Anyone who has done a tour, even a popular tour, when there are no tracks in sight has experienced the feeling of being really alone in the mountains. This feeling is even more intense if, as far as you know, you're the first person to ever visit a place on skis.<br><br>In summer, climbers leave no tracks--at least no tracks you can see more than a few feet away. So in summer you can stand on a summit and not know whether anyone else is nearby. In winter, on the other hand, when skiers leave tracks visible a mile away, you can have proof you're alone. That's a powerful experience and, as Matt points out, a valuable one.<br><br><br>I think this is what separates backcountry ski exploring from other types - if anyone has been there since the last significant snowfall, there will be tracks. Their existance leading the way can be enough to disrupt the experience for someone who doesn't know the area....<br><br>Regardless of whether someone had read the guidebook or not, they couldn't have had the same experience. I'm making a value judgement here that this is worthwhile and should be protected where appropiate; your opinion may differ.
<br><br>I've thought about the impact that my historical work has on awareness of obscure routes in the Cascades. I don't put a lot of route directions in my notes--I focus on people, dates and stories. I find that history enriches my experience in the mountains more than diminishing it, but that may not be true for everyone. I'm not as enthusiastic about guidebooks, which is why I haven't written one. Writing a guidebook would be ten times easier than writing a history.<br><br><br>But a simple cure to being devalued by information is to simply not pay attention to the information. Anyone who wants to figure out their own Ptarmigan Traverse has all the opportunity they need - just don't read all the Alpenglow history reports and it's all new to you!
<br><br>I'm not so confident about that. To my thinking, powder skiing in Washington is way underrated in the press. I can easily imagine that changing. In a few years, we Washington skiers may find ourselves in the same situation David Laskin describes regarding Northwest weather in his book "Rains All the Time":<br><br>I hate to put it to you, but this is Washington State. The word will never get out about powder skiing here (thankfully).
So we've come full circle: from pioneers in the 1840s and 1850s earnestly trying (and failing) to persuade the folks back East that the Northwest has 'the most equable and healthful climate on the globe' to their descendants in the 1990s earnestly insisting that the rumors are true--it's every bit as bad as you always heard it was. And then some.
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- Paul Belitz
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<br>Shhhhhhh!!!<br><br> <br><br>I'm not so confident about that. To my thinking, powder skiing in Washington is way underrated in the press. I can easily imagine that changing. In a few years, we Washington skiers may find ourselves in the same situation David Laskin describes regarding Northwest weather in his book "Rains All the Time":<br><br>"So we've come full circle: from pioneers in the 1840s and 1850s earnestly trying (and failing) to persuade the folks back East that the Northwest has 'the most equable and healthful climate on the globe' to their descendants in the 1990s earnestly insisting that the rumors are true--it's every bit as bad as you always heard it was. And then some."
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