About the Author

I began my backcountry skiing career at 18 and have been obsessed since. I modeled this blog after a Missoula-based blog called MT-adventures, written by Brian Story, that details incredible feats of physical endurance, daring first ascents, and excellent route descriptions in the Missoula area. Reading his posts fills me with uncontrollable excitement, and I daydream of camping in the wilderness to ski distant couloirs and imagine the steep lines I would discover.

I returned from a year abroad with wild ambitions and began college raring to go! What I failed to fully understand was that Brian Story runs ultramarathons and wins SkiMo races. When I got back to Montana, I was full of ideas and completely lacking in physical shape. I sold my splitboard and relearned to ski on a touring setup that weighed about 15 lbs. per foot.

The 2013-14 ski season was one to remember. I started college at the University of Montana and couldn’t wait to match the feats I had read about. The season started strong, with more than enough snow to ski in the Pintlers by mid-October and great high-elevation snow by mid-November. My friend Sam and I cut our teeth on some exploratory tours in the Pintlers and Hoodoo Pass and often had our asses handed to us. We frequently spent all day on the approach and were too tired to hike up the slope we intended to ski. One particular outing we forgot that it gets dark at 5 in November and were log-hopping well into the night on a 1 ft. base. We took my cheap summer tent to Heart Lake and the Rattlesnake Wilderness for some frigid nights and minimal skiing. It’s a miracle we managed to escape hypothermia or injury. The snow stopped in January and returned in February with a vengeance. We continued to explore, often exhausting ourselves and rarely skiing something worth writing about. It became abundantly clear that we were a long way from skiing traverses of the Missions or Tobacco Roots but were full of fire and couldn’t stay away!

Over the next seven years, Sam and I grew as backcountry skiers. We slowly bought lighter equipment and began the ski season in better shape. We are no badasses, but hopefully that will make this blog more accessible to the average or beginner backcountry skier.

After 16 winters in Montana, I moved to Fort Collins, CO to pursue a PhD in Chemistry. I miss the snow and terrain most familiar to me but love exploring the legendary skiing northern Colorado has to offer. This blog serves to document my exploration of Colorado’s exemplary backcountry skiing and a guide to anyone hoping to learn more about CO and MT skiing locations. I’m also a total snow nerd and spent some time researching SNOTEL trends to enhance my backcountry experiences, expectations, and safety.

I’m no beast in the backcountry. I’ve skied more than 5,000 vertical ft. only a handful of times. I hate flat-skinning and try to keep my mileage down. What I lack in physical prowess I make up for in ambition, hunger for adventure, and love for the sport. I hope some might find inspiration from my blog like I found from MT-adventures!