Observation #13

[Phil]

My belief, based on not much else except impressions gathered during my own evolution in skiing, is that, at least in the Northeastern U.S., backcountry travel on skis was preserved to a greater degree in the Adirondacks than in other areas. I say this, in part for the following reasons:

1. I never saw anyone using skins to ski on Mt. Washington in my youth. You strapped your skis, and boots, onto your back and walked up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail to reach the Bowl. You boot packed your way up the Headwall and skied back down on a separate trail that didn't allow any travel up.

2. In the Adirondacks you went up the Van Hovenberg Trail to the summit of Marcy on either snowshoes or skis* and the routes for those descending on one or the other criss-crossed each other with some overlap.

3. The Mountaineer, in Keene Valley, NY seemed to be the sole place that I was directed to, to find my first set of climbing skins.

4. *The DEC maintains, and enforces, the 8" policy for use of snowshoes or skis. Postholing is, and always has been, an anathema for the Adirondack crowd. While many hate seeing it done, there's no official policy discouraging it in New Hampshire.

5. Guy & Laura Waterman, in their compendium Forest & Crag, talk about the snowshoe vs. ski alternative foci of the two regions.

I guess, if true, this begs the question why the difference? My personal answer, for want of a better one, is Jackrabbit Johannsen's influence on the Adirondack region. The White Mts. lacked a similar inspirational figure of the Nordic variety.