11 Tips for Successful Springtime Backcountry Ski Touring (So You Don’t Have to Learn the Hard Way)

My first real ski tour was a miserable experience.  I was spring in the Tetons and I was using an outdated POS splitboard.  It was dust on crust that never really warmed so conditions were miserable.  On top of that, I managed to put my skins on backwards and  neither my "experienced" partner or I could comprehend why I was slipping backwards on even minor slopes.

Five frustrating hours later we reached the top of 25 Short where gathering clouds hid views of the high peaks I had been very much looking forward too.  A few minutes later we begun an chattery, hard-to-enjoy descent which climaxed booting through knee deep slush amidst fallen trees and boulders to access the valley floor

After that day I swore off splitboards and almost turned away from skinning entirely.  Fortunately, the frustration faded and the call of the mountains brought me back out into the backcountry hundreds of times over the last eight years.  I'm not quite as green as I was.

In hope of sharing the tips and tricks I learned the hard way, I recently wrote "11 Tips for Successful Springtime Backcountry Skiing" for the folks at Clean Snipe's The Deal Blog.

11 Tips for Successful Springtime Backcountry Skiing

(so you don't have to learn the hard way)