The 2021-2022 Ski Season in Review

Foreword: Recently the on top of my mind has been a climbing accident on Mt. Shasta in June 2022 which claimed the life of guide Jillian Webster. My condolences are with her family, and all other climbers injured. The outdoors can bring memories to keep for a lifetime --both good and bad --and it's always important to respect the mountain and stay safe.

All things come to an end, and here is my wrap up post for the 2021-2022 Ski Season!

Summary

Days Overall I completed 31 days on the mountain, a personal record for me (beating my 2014-15 season consisting of 30 days on the mountain). This was my first year owning a touring setup, and my skiing days were split as follows: 1 day of XC skiing, 20 days in-resort, 12 days backcountry, with 2 days of both backcountry and in-resort.

Turns All Year Originally I wanted to go for Turns All Year, the idea of skiing every month of the year. I got a head start on this project kicking off the season in late October in British Columbia. However, it ended up being a dry winter in California and I threw in the towel in late May, realizing that I had other priorities for the summer months. Nonetheless my ski season spanned 8 months, definitely a new record for me!

up the Hogsback on Mt. Hood

Backcountry Skiing Through 11 tours, I covered 81 miles and 38,000 vertical feet in four states (CA, NV, OR, WA) and one Canadian province (BC). Skiing the Ski Dreams line off of Matterhorn Peak (11mi, 5100ft) was a huge challenge for me, and I'm thankful that Rory, Kyle, and others showed me around that day. The hardest day for me was Shasta C2C (12mi, 7200ft) representing the high water mark in both elevation and elevation gain --the epitome of type II fun. Following Shasta, touring Helens and Hood in May were much more pleasant and in my fitness range. See my trip reports for more details on tours!

Analyzing my Strava data and plotting my elevation gain vs distance

Alpine Skiing For the 2021-22 season, I had an Epic Pass. I took a couple of trips this winter: December to Stowe, January to Colorado (Beaver Creek, Vail, Keystone), January to Utah (Park City, Snowbasin), and weekend trips to Tahoe (Heavenly, Kirkwood) for the rest of the season. I had a couple of solid powder days in Colorado but otherwise the snow was mostly underwhelming in California. That said, for me it's more about the social experience of traveling with friends and making new ones that count.

Skiing Culture

I've been reading maybe too much about skiing; below are some blogs and channels that I have been following, in addition to some resources for trip planning and meeting the general backcountry skiing community:

Alpine Skiing Media

• Storm Skiing
• Unofficial Networks
• Snowbrains

Backcountry Skiing Media

• Video: Mediocre Amateur --highly underrated youtube channel with great adventures and even better editing and storytelling. Cody Townsend's The Fifty Project is also very inspirational.
• Trip Reports: Turns All Year
• Blogs: Blogs are very helpful to get beta on lines and conditions, here are some I've found helpful: Climber Kyle, Engineered for Adventure
• Books: Guide books are also great for knowing where to go, for example you can find information about lines in the Eastern Sierras, Washington, and other places.

Communities

Backcountry skiing is a relatively niche community, so meeting people can be a challenge. With that said, there are also certain dynamics (incentivized to go in trips in groups for safety) that make the sport quite sociable; here are some ways through which I have met people:

• Facebook Groups: San Francisco Backcountry Skiers, TAY, PNW Peak Baggers to name a few. There should be groups in every region (Colorado, Alaska, NE etc) where you can meet people wiht simliar interests!
• Outdoors Clubs: BCMC in Vancouver, The Mountaineers in Seattle, Mazamas in Portland, MITOC in Boston to name a few.
• Strava: I've definitely reached out to people who I follow :)

Resources

• Getting into backcountry skiing: ski touring is a pretty niche sport but for me it feels like the culmination of many things I love: snow, skiing, mountaineering, and exploration. I'd recommend checking out some other blog posts on getting into ski touring, and feel free to message me if you have any questions.
• Avalanche Centers: Sierra Avalanche Center, Shasta Avalanche Center etc, depending on your region. Consider donating to these organizations as they provide amazing forecasting and resources.
• Resources for Avalanche Education: take an AIARE class! After you have taken a class, I'd also recommend checking out avalanche.org and getting the book Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain.
• Weather: NWS, Mountain Forecast. Also see this blog series on understanding weather. I do want to write up more about this topic also...

Takeaways

• Turns All Year is not worth it in California in a low-tide year. If you live in San Francisco, the ~4 hour drive up to Tahoe is quite costly and tiring. Maybe I'll need to wait for El Nino sometime.
• Car Camping is underrated. For my May ski adventures in the PNW, most of them were done by sleeping in the trailhead the night before. I felt much more energetic during the day compared to my Tahoe trips where some days began at 5am and involved driving for 4 hours before starting the tour. Driving is surprisingly tiring, which is both a blessing (if you drive the night before, it'll help you sleep better) and a curse (if you drive the day of, your tour will be tiring).
• Backcountry Skiing is a great way to meet new people and make friends! I met some people on the Facebook groups and really got along with people.
• What's next? For next ski season, I would love to do a ski traverse (Tahoe, Spearhead, etc). A Rainier C2C would be the dream, though weather will be harder to time as I do not live in the PNW.