The Backcountry Blog

Last Gaspé: Return to the Chic Chocs

Posted on by ml242

I pointed my car east to save the season. To be fair, we booked the cabin in the National Parc of the Gaspé more than a year ago, but I started really looking forward to it only a couple of weeks ago when I finally gave up on the “Big One.”

chic-chocs-couloir

I wasn’t travelling with the crazed giddiness of a Weather Channel stormchaser out to find a town-swallowing tornado. Instead my car ate the clicks of the empty roads like an albatross on the thermals just ahead of the summer temps that were working their way up from the US.

Arriving to some semblance of winter, it was clear that the skiing would probably be very good, if thinner than on my previous trip four years ago. However, under the circumstances of the season this one had the opportunity to be even more memorable.

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Tagged: Backcountry, Quebec13 Comments

Mount Washington Season Ender

Posted on by jjp24

As the days of spring grow longer and the valleys turn green, east coast skiers are left with two options: ski the man-made glacier on Superstar at Killington, or head to the high alpine terrain of the Presidential Range in New Hampshire.

Great Gulf

My plan was to backpack into the Great Gulf, a huge cirque cut by glaciers on the northeast side of Mount Washington. From there I’d set up a base camp which would allow me to access the snow-filled gullies spilling off the flank of the northeast’s highest peak.

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Tagged: Backcountry, Mt Washington, NH6 Comments

Spring Slides: Wright On!

Posted on by ml242

The Adirondack High Peaks are a mystery to me. Seen from afar, they are both vast and tiny, occupying a fraction of the otherwise enormous park. Even with the stunning density of 4000 footers accessible from the Adirondack Loj, they’re both in your face and utterly inaccessible.

Adirondack slide skiing

I know this well as many of my backcountry trips to the park end with epic workouts and fantastic stories, that often don’t have much to do with the skiing. This day on the Wright Peak Slides was no different.

Last Sunday I had a bag packed with technical gear for my first ski descent down the Trap Dyke, but my body hardly felt up for the task and a familiar sense of a mission unaccomplished set in its place. Rather than continuing up from the Marcy Dam to pursue Colden, our group allowed me to present a case to try the Angel Slides on Wright Peak instead.

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Tagged: Adirondacks, Backcountry, Earning Turns, High Peaks4 Comments