Skiing

Backcountry skiing near Banner Ridge yurt, Boise National Forest, Idaho.

Growing Up On Skis: Two Families, Yurts, and Many Memories

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By Michael Lanza

As we slide uphill on skis, each of us carrying a full backpack, the three kids—two of them 14, one almost 12, but an advanced apprentice teenager—trail at least a tenth of a mile behind. If we parents slow down to let them catch up, they stop and tell us, “You can keep going.” So we do. Their audible, constant chatter and occasional screeches inform us that they remain within earshot—close enough that we’ll know if they need us, distant enough to not feel like we’re crowding their space with our oppressive adultness.

Yes, it has now come to this: They don’t want to ski with us anymore.

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Backcountry avalanche instructor Chago Rodriguez skiing in the shadow of Mount Heyburn in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains.

Ask Me: Where Should We Go Backcountry Skiing Around Sun Valley and Idaho’s Sawtooths?

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Hey Michael,

Nice Blog! Just spent a bit of time checking it out. So I have a question. My husband and I are heading north (we’re from Colorado) to do some backcountry skiing and mountain biking. Usually we end up in the Tetons. The couple times we have gone to Ketchum/Stanley, Idaho, zone we’ve been shut out though—once with bad weather and also lack of snow. I heard that the Sawtooths got a lot of snow, so once again we want to explore.

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Skiing south of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.

Ask Me: Advice on a Multi-Day Backcountry Ski Tour in Yellowstone

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Hi Michael,

I very much enjoy the stories posted on your website. My friend and I are planning a winter ski trip to Yellowstone in early March and your advice would be much appreciated. We’re looking for something in the 4-day, 3-night range that would be self-guided. We’re moderately experienced winter campers and have completed an 8-day backcountry ski trip in Denali together. Having read your post about the Bechler Canyon route, it reminded me of a similar storm experience in Denali and I can’t say I’m looking to repeat the experience of slogging through waste deep snow at less than 1/2 a mile per hour :-). It’s also a longer trip than our time allows.

Do you have any suggestions for a 4-day winter trip in Yellowstone?

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Backcountry skiing Winter Corner near Idaho's Mores Creek Summit.

An Ode to Favorite Spots Most People Don’t Know: Backcountry Skiing Idaho’s Boise Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

Fresh snow from the storm of the past couple of days blankets the ground, padding by inches a white comforter several feet thick. Ponderosa pine boughs sag under the weight of a substance equivalent to an awful lot of very tiny feathers. But that storm has passed like a dream you can’t quite recall. Now, the sun throws operating-room brilliance on every nook and cranny of a mountain I’ve come to know well enough to have a detailed map of its terrain in my head.

It’s the kind of winter day you want to put in a leftovers box, to save some of it for later.

Unfortunately, no one has yet invented a box like that. So two friends and I will cut laborious zigzags uphill and float downhill on our skis until our time limitations—and our legs—inform us it’s time to head home. And in the long stretches of silence, when we’re strung out in a line climbing uphill, or taking turns riding gravity like it was a galloping horse, I’ll find myself contemplating the curious intersection of chance, passion, and geography where we find ourselves falling in love with an obscure spot on the map.

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Cross-country skiing the Beaver Trail, Boise National Forest, Idaho.

5 Kids, 4 Days, No Wifi, Only Trees, Snow, and a Yurt

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By Michael Lanza

We pause at the top of a steep hill on the Elkhorn Loop Trail in Idaho’s Boise National Forest and contemplate where to go from here. My 17-year-old niece, Anna Garofalo, and I have cross-country skied for two hours to reach this quiet spot in the ponderosa pine forest, miles from the nearest road—and more than 2,000 miles and an experiential chasm from the only place she has ever known as home.

I lay out the choices to Anna: turn around and ski two more hours back to the Skyline yurt, where we’re spending three nights with my wife and kids and another family; or explore a trail I’ve never actually skied in the many trips I’ve made to this system of ski trails and yurts north of Idaho City. I’ve never skied it because, unlike most of the trails out here, it’s not groomed, and it lies out on the farthest perimeter of the trail system. Going that way would take us at least three more hours to reach the yurt. But I’ve long wanted to ski it, if for no other reason than its name: the Wayout Trail.

“Let’s do it,” Anna tells me. “After all, when am I going to be back here again?” God, I love that attitude. But I suppose that’s how you would look at something you’ve been literally waiting almost your entire life to do.

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