Cheers for Rising Tides: January SWE

I’m of the school that, as a backcountry tourist, we must embrace what some might call the dark side—mid-winter high pressure. In this high-pressure, sunshiny darkness, there is light. First, since, at least out West, not much recent powder has fallen (I hear you in the Tetons saying, “That’s not true. Winter is here”), a few things are making the backcountry kinda sweet.

Recently, on weekends, after a certain time, the local backcountry has seemed desolate. Thank you, NFL and NCAA football. Timing tours around playoff football is a great strategy. On Monday, the timing was perfect—I hit my line on the local volcanic crater around 3 pm, just in time for some solitude and peak soft snow. I saw a splitboarder and a skier slide toward some old-growth firs—other than that, the aforementioned solitude. The setting was the reward; the excellent corn snow on the south-facing slope I skied was the bonus for clinging to hope.