April 9-With a crashing roar, the ski lifts closed for the season. Folks walking down Elk Ave. might not have heard the cacophony, but it resonated to me, and for a few days threatened to send me into darkest despair. In retrospect and introspect, I have three words: Get a life.
To hell with that. I have a life, and at least for the cold months, my life and lifestyle involve skis and skiing. My transition to warm month activities is sometimes shaky. Most of the time I face it cold-turkey, but occasionally make attempts to taper off my gravity fix by spring skiing in the backcountry.
I threaten to do this every year, but in fact the last time I skied a spring peak was five or six years ago…give or take. It was as I remembered from my more active, youthful ascents, a bitch going up, but a hell of a lot of fun going down. Skiing down is the reward for the toil of climbing up. Practically very year, however, my effort-averse nature forestalls usually half-hearted attempts to earn my turns. This spring is different.
This spring, after the lifts closed I entertained my usual desire to keep skiing. My backcountry skiing experience includes using skins and telemark gear, or hiking up—kicking steps—in alpine boots carrying alpine skis. The former is nice and light while climbing, and affords almost all the control I want for the descent. The latter provides all the lock-down-heel control I could ask for but is heavy as all get out whilst climbing up.
Since the last time I skied the backcountry enough to leave tracks, great technological strides have been made in equipment. In addition to cross-country skis or skating skis or strictly alpine skis, we can now invest in alpine touring (AT) gear. I say “invest” advisedly because alpine touring gear is expensive. If I save up and lay down my shekels, I expect skis, boots and bindings to last the rest of my life and provide significant return on investment.
Skis are shorter and shapier. I used to call them geriatric skis; now I call them mine. Short skis make for lightweight hauling going up and easier, more controlled turning on the way down. Short with shape means we can maintain the same amount of edge on the snow as we did with long boards.
But the greatest advancements in alpine touring gear are found in boots and bindings. Thanks to advanced materials science and applied technology, boots are very lightweight and include whistles and bells like ergonomic buckles, waffle stomper soles and a ski-mode/walk-mode release. This allows the boots to flex as I hike, and then lock forward for skiing. They don’t quite lock me forward enough, but I can compensate by driving my knees more.
The bindings are the trick. The bindings I used are very much like regular, step-in alpine bindings, and calibrated to DIN so they can release in a fall. The trick is that they are hinged at the toe to allow hiking or walking, and provide a peg supporting the heel to make hiking up the fall line feel like walking up stairs.
“Let’s do it,” said Mark. “I have all this AT gear and the only place I’ve used it is in my backyard.”
Naturally, I kept putting it off in deference to going to Gunnison to bother my horses. But in the interests of becoming more multi-dimensional, I knew I’d have to commit, rent the gear and hike up a hill. I called Mark’s cell phone.
“Right now I’m hiking up Gold Link,” he told me, “but I’ll come around and we’ll hike up to go look for snow.”
Our original plan had been to ski Red Lady, but I was nervous about jumping into the bowl on untried equipment. Crested Butte Mountain seemed like a safe bet to provide a test run. Which is how I found myself hiking up International in AT gear.
At the Waterfall, my skins led me straight up the fall line, being careful not to stretch my calves and hams to the point of pain. As we started climbing the Rock Garden, I remembered my heel pegs; their mechanical advantage made hiking like riding an escalator…well, not quite.
And the ski down? It was as much fun as I’ve ever had skiing International…in May. It was a reward, like I said: a return on investment. We earned our turns the old-fashioned way, even if it was using new tricks.

Denis Hall works to raise awareness and funding for the fight against a major molybdenum mine proposed for Mount Emmons, Crested Butte, Colorado, USA. The mountain, which stands directly behind Crested Butte, is locally known as 'Red Lady'.

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