Living in Milan for the past year plus, I had the opportunity to travel across Europe on a dime. Flights to Barcelona for only 30 Euros. Bouncing between towns along the Istrian peninsula for pennies. Trains to Verbier, Innsbruck, the Czech Republic, and more for under 50 Euros. 

However, life in Europe made me miss home, namely the intermountain west: the half-dozen or so states in the western region of the US, enchained by the Rocky Mountains. Growing up in Utah, and living in Colorado I spent a lot of time bouncing between the two. I climbed and skied everything between, from ice in Ouray, Colorado, to frigid bluebird ski days at Big Sky, Montana. It was time to revisit those places. 

We landed first in New Jersey, for some time with Niki’s family. After a few days relaxing, nursing jetlag, exchanging gifts, and playing with her parents new dog, Niki and I snuck out for a session of climbing on a warm winter afternoon in New York. We drove to “Powerlinez”, a predominantly trad zone of the east coast, and took shots at a few different routes. I pulled through a few 5.10s bolted with sketchy, possibly rusted-out bolts, and Niki followed effortlessly on toprope. 

Before long, we were in Park City. We spent Christmas with my parents, and some old friends from Utah. Grace, my sister, and her partner, Jimmy, joined us for a few days, and we all got some resort laps in at Deer Valley (you don’t want to know what they’re charging for a day ticket these days). It was Jimmy’s first time on skis, and he did damn well. 

Somehow, I managed to talk both my dad and Niki into a mellow afternoon of ski touring. I’d been out with Shawn and Wrigley (the dog) earlier on the trip. The three of us got a few laps in at Guardsman Pass. It was Niki’s first time ski touring. 

Through the New Year, we spent our time with Grace and her friends, and had a quite New Year’s Eve celebration. Out time was split between downtown and the dog park, skiing and some indoor climbing. We got Grace and Jimmy to come climbing with us, another new sport for Jimmy. 

Niki left first, flying back to Paris with Moose a few days before I was set to leave for Milan. Grace and Jimmy were set to leave a few days later. I said my goodbyes, then bolted for Jackson Hole to meet up with some of my best friends. 

I rolled into Grand Teton National Park at about 1, changed hurriedly in the front seat of my dad’s truck, and started running up the trailhead. Over a few phone calls with Andrey and Max, they’d told me they were somewhere on 25 Short, and roughly how to find them. “It’s like 15 minutes from the parking lot to where we are” according to Andrey. Over an hour later, covered in sweat and exhausted, I ran into Andrey and his girlfriend Kerry. We ripped low angle powder back down to the base, and met up with Max and Lily in town for dinner.

After burgers, beer, and a little post-dinner mezcal, I crashed at Max and Lily’s place. The next day, we set out for an ambitious tour link-up off Teton Pass. We were joined by Andrey and Charlotte, a Jackson Hole local and friend of Max and Lily. She had the exact same setup as me: Candide 3.0 mounted with a Marker Kingpin paired with the Dalbello Lupo boot. After leaving a car at the bottom of the pass and hitching to the top, we skinned for a few minutes and dropped into our first, of many, powdery tree-skiing laps of the day. 

At the end of the day, we were stacked some several thousand feet of vertical over numerous laps. Cold beers and hot ramen was our reward for dinner that night. The next morning, I was set to leave Jackson. Before I took off, Max and I made a plan to sneak in a lap on Teton Pass for dawn patrol with Jack. 

We were on the road early, around 6, and hiking by 7. Jack and his girlfriend Perrin were a bit late to the top of the pass, and we had to run up the bootpack to get up with enough time to ski back down. We clicked into our skis and rolled into the ‘Idaho’ side from the Glory bootpack. It had snowed non-stop since I’d arrived, and Jackson was hit especially hard the night before. Waist deep snow slowed our path as we traversed into the trees. A few wind-storm slabs broke at our feet, but didn’t run or propagate much. Wind drifts between the trees in the forest were especially prone to triggering small slabs. We were cautious with our terrain choices up top, but once we escaped the wind and got deeper into the trees, we let ourselves have a bit of fun. I stopped halfway down an open shot as Max, Jack, and Perrin scored face shots from blower pow. Once they were safe, I ripped the remainder of the slope down the fall line. A small slab kicked off underneath my feet, but without enough energy to move, or even for me to notice. “I’m not comfortable with how much fun that was” said Jack near the bottom. It was the best turns any of us had had all season. 

Given the snowpack, our terrain choices could have been a little more cautious. It’s easy to look back now and say: ‘well, we made it and had a great time, so we must have made the right choices’. But I’m not convinced. There were sections in the trees a bit too open and steep for the conditions. Did we nail it, and ski right, perfectly within the limits of what the new snowfall would allow? Or did we just get extremely lucky, and miraculously miss the one trigger point that would have caused a slide with enough energy to carry someone into the trees, or bury them? 

This is the agonizing and wonderful thing about ski touring: every decision has weight. If you score a beautiful powder day in the resort, that’s the end of it - there’s no growth, no learning to be had. However, in the backcountry, every ‘good day’ should be put under a microscope, to learn, and to prevent the reinforcement of bad decisions that lead to accidents. You can only get lucky skiing blower pow on an open 45 degree slope for so long; just because you’ve done it once, does not mean that you’ll get to do it again. Yet, a safe, “good” result would only reinforce the decisions that led to it - I skied the 45 degree slope in blower pow and didn’t get swept, so I must be doing something right. It can start a positive feedback loop that spirals out of control and into horrible decision making. 

That morning on Teton Pass was my best turns of the season to date. I’m not sure if we nailed it out there, or got away with it. Either way, the scrutinizing and analyzing of our decision making is the more important factor - How did we arrive at this result? What did we do right? What did we do wrong? What can we do next time to travel safer? Every day in the backcountry can be a learning experience.  I left Jackson that morning. 

Back in Utah, I squeezed one last tour in, the day before my flight. I met with Jess, a friend from my ski racing days, who’d become a hell of a backcountry skier and rock climber in the meantime. We met at 5 am in the Big Cottonwood Canyon Park n Ride for a quick lap. We beat the sun to the top, and waited for the golden orb to illuminate our descent. We swapped stories about our racing days, and our adventures since. Finally, once the sun was up, we ripped soft snow through the trees back to our car. 

I packed up, and flew back to Europe the next day. I spent the next month neck-deep in text books and somehow, miraculously, not only passed, but did extremely well on my physiology exam. 

You can have it both ways, fuck anyone who says you can’t.