Tag Archives: Backcountry Skiing

The Ortler Group

For the 9th straight year, we are about to begin a month long, non-stop ski tour.

Even with a proposal from Janine to head south to Sicily in late April for a few days to tan the body and not just the face, we are still looking forward to at least 30 more days of skiing in the backcountry. This with 70 already on the books, the usual… With the massive amount of snow in the Dolomites and Alps, we have tours planned for May as well, a ski ascent/descent of Mont Blanc and a Berner Oberland Tour to end the season. I guess a few days eating seafood instead of hut food will be appreciated come late April.

And YES it is work… Fun work, but work nevertheless, we (especially “I”) love it. Euro hut living is an odd thing. We travel/ski as a small group of friends but live in these mountain huts dorm style. Often we have massive sleeping rooms where 40 or more skiers are packed in like sardines, many of whom may not have showered in days and ALL of whom have been eating volatile food for dinner. You get my point. Thankfully there are ear plugs, unfortunately there are no nose plugs.

If we are lucky, there is cell and data service at the huts and the iPhone allows our “office” to remain open. But more often than not, I have to go out at night to check in for the American work day, ski up onto

some windswept ridge and wander around looking for data packets. It is absurd, but part of the job. Emails must be kept brief to prevent frostbite.

Dinner is at 6:30 sharp each night, breakfast is served depending on your itinerary, anywhere from 5-7 a.m. We are always at the mercy of the weather.

Our schedule changes daily, we are photographers, we need blue sky and powder. For work, white skies are deadly and make our moods foul. The grass is always greener concept haunts us. Sunny days are treasured and full of action. But for every bluebird day there seems to be a day spent with the GPS in hand, blindly following and praying that the waypoints are accurate and wishing we didn’t have to travel in such horrid and dangerous weather.

All of this fill our memories and our stock library. It’s not just about turns, it is the whole package and it is an odd way to live yet it is my favorite time of the year. I never tire of traveling on skis in massive, glaciated alpine terrain. It is a perfect experience.

And so it begins this week, hut reservations have been made, we check into the Alps fulltime come Friday morning. We’ll do our best to update the blog with fun tales and photos.

Ski touring in the Berner Oberland

Skier beneath the north wall of the Aletschorn, Berner Oberland

Touring

Dan & Janine inside their snowcave for the night

Poor eating conditions make life difficult

Morning departure from the Chanrion Hut, The Haute Route

Janine impressing the Italians with Swiss building skills

Quaint European mountain shelter, the Jamtal Hut

The Ortler Tour

The Pizzini Hut, Ortler Tour

Glacier touring

The impressively situated Vignette Hut, Haute Route

The drying/dining/sleeping room