Tag Archive for 'steep skiing'

Click & Chute – The Perils of Web Based Skiing

Published on August 27, 2008 in Commentary. 4 Comments Tags: .
When I published “The Chuting Gallery – A Guide to Steep Skiing in the Wasatch Mountains” in 1998, I was told by a few well meaning Pros that I was going to have the blood of countless sixteen year-old kids on my hands as they all rushed out to try skiing steep lines and died in avalanches or cartwheeling down slopes.  Thankfully, this hasn’t happened.  I think a major reason this hasn’t happened is that it is one thing to know where a steep line is, yet another to know when and how to actually ski it.  Skiing a steep avalanche prone slope always sounds better the night before over a few hot Postums (hey, this is Utah…) then it does when you are post-holing your way up deep snow, getting lost or carrying crusher loads.  In many ways, the difficulties of steep ski mountaineering make it self limiting and reduce many of the potential accidents.

But then came the internet.

Stan Brown goin' down "Roman's" in Wolverine Cirque. This used to get skied a few times per year and now gets skied multiple times per day when it is in shape.
Stan Brown goin’ down “Roman’s” in Wolverine Cirque. This used to get skied a few times per year and now gets skied multiple times per day when it is in shape.

Nowadays when a steep line is skied, it is often national knowledge within an hour of it being skied, and once “the booter is in” it may get skied many times in quick succession.  This phenomenon is becoming very common in Europe, and closer to home, a classic example is the East Face of Pyramid Peak which went unrepeated for 20+ years, then saw a rapid succession of descents last year once word got out that the booter was in and it was stable.

This is both good and bad.  Part of learning how to ski mountaineer is literally following in the footsteps of others, yet at the same time, conditions on steep slopes can radically change within just a few hours and what was safe yesterday might be dangerous today.  I’m a big proponent of self responsibility (and trip reports) and hope that people realize that a booter and ski tracks don’t necessarily mean a slope is good to go.

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