Tag: backcountry skiing
XGK Stove Tips & Tricks
I like MSR XGK EX Multi-Fuel stoves for the same reason military types prefer certain weapons over others – they can be dragged through the mud, stepped on, abused and still reliably fire. There are lighter, more fuel efficient stoves out there, but the XGK is a proven snow melting blowtorch, especially at higher altitudes. The […]
Super Stove Board Construction
It only takes getting three liters of boiling hot water spilled in your lap once to realize the importance of a good stove board for heavy winter camping. Boiling water and melting snow are major pastimes of winter camping and the hot little camp stoves need all the help they can get to keep from spilling […]
Winter Camping – 2016 Improvements
On my first winter camping trip we brought a gallon jug of water, which quickly froze and left us with no water and 9 pounds of dead weight. Things have improved slightly since then, but I’m still learning little tricks of the winter base-camping trade which make life warmer, drier and better fed. Here are a […]
2015 Antarctic Peninsula Trip Report
The 2015 Ice Axe Adventure Cruise is a wrap and I’m already excited to hear that they’ve already sold out the upper cabins for 2016 as well. Yippy! I love this trip for thousands of reasons, but from a mountain guide standpoint it is especially fun as I get to work with roughly 20 other […]
Tiny Packs –
The Law of Luggage states: “The amount of stuff you carry will expand to fit whatever size backpack you have.” For this reason and a few others, I use a tiny little 15 liter pack for backcountry skiing in the Wasatch. Between racing packs and mechanized skiing packs, there are quite a few small packs […]
State of the Wasatch – Jan 11, 2015
In the comments from my last post I was called out as “an elitist blowhard,” so I’ll try to live up to that reputation by now kvetching about the Wasatch snowpack. It is okay… but we really need more snow, especially as this is going on the fourth sub par year in a row. We’ve been robbed. Even […]
New Zealand 2006 – Trip Series
This trip came about in a serendipitous manner. In 2006 I wanted to see if I could ski all seven continents, and had just happened to meet Grant Guise through Ski Mountaineering racing, which Steve Romeo was also involved in. Grant lived/lives in New Zealand and so we decided that was a good enough of […]
2014 Ice Axe Expeditions Antarctic Ski Cruise Trip Report
Another Ice Axe Antarctic Ski Cruise has gone down in the history books, and like all those before it, this was yet another good one. I love how these trips start by collecting people from all over the world, squeezing them into South America, and then distilling all of that down to the very southern […]
Ski Touring Set Up For a Six Year-Old
After trying a few other approaches, I finally pieced together a touring set-up for our six year-old daughter, Mira. It turned out to be more complicated than I expected, but in the end it seems to work well and was cheap. We originally tried just having her “tour” in her alpine set-up with the buckles […]
Cook Tent Architecture
My first impression of pyramid style tarp tents was not good. After arriving at a barren, windy trailhead late at night, we set the tent up, stripped down and crawled into our sleeping bags. The next thing I knew, I felt a cool breeze on my face could see the stars. Realizing the tent had […]
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