Frozen Water Rights: Backcountry Skiing Goes Full-Contact

By Jason Blevins

Back in 1859, a wave of farmers stormed Colorado, giddy with gold fever. They didn’t know how to mine, camp or really even navigate. But with a little luck, they were plucking nuggets from the steep peaks. Feverish with aspirations of becoming gilded millionaires, they swarmed the state and built remote towns and impossible roads in their fervent search. Today the gold may be gone, but the communities remain, catering to another wave of treasure hunters. Only this time they are mining fresh powder, the newest of the West’s precious natural resources.

In-bounds, first-chair melees on not-even the deepest days leave everyone breathless before the first turn. Paying $80-plus a day for lift rides to ever shrinking pillows of powder seems laughable to anyone with a strong set of lungs. And racing hordes of fresh-faced newcomers aiming to wedge-turn pillage the pow — their pow — is a reality that 10 years ago was unthinkable. So the hardcore, the midcore and even some of the softcore have started hiking more and more for turns. The burgeoning backcountry population has created some very nasty turf wars as hikers start to think they own what they’ve earned.

“It’s gotten so much worse in the last five years. People yelling at each other to get out of their way; shoving, pushing, screaming,” says Jared Mazlish, a pro-level skier from Breckenridge. “It has to do with the numbers. Any time you squeeze someone’s personal space, they get agro. And that agro-ness flows all over town.”

Once-lonely backcountry escapes have become as frenetic as the rope-lined groomscapes of the resort as a new kind of water war has erupted in the West. The results are clustered parking atop mountain passes, acres of powder vanquished by 9 a.m., arguments about skintrack etiquette, roaming dogs and dangerous behavior in unpaved yet well-littered parking lots. In Jackson Hole, a “fast-track only” express trail was built beside the heavily bootpacked path up Teton Pass. A backcountry snowboarder — irked by what he calls “self-righteous tele-nazi attitude” — penned a petulant manifesto promising to bring hordes of boarders into Steamboat’s most secret stashes with his own posthole-friendly guidebook. One online author was bombarded with locals-only hate mail after he outlined access to the fluffy lines up Wolf Creek Pass. In fact, “This-is-my-stash territorialism” is flaring up every day just a short walk beyond the ropes of the busiest hills in the West.

“You used to be able to find your escape on the hill, but now, with those high-speed lifts going everywhere, anyone can roll into the deepest stashes; intermediates, beginners even,” says skier Andy McLandrich, who regularly builds kickers on Vail Pass.

“Now it’s hard to escape anywhere,” he says above the cacophonic soundtrack of a hundred flatulent snowmobiles in the distance. “We try to stay away from people and this is where we end up.”

The anger between slednecks and quiet-use folks grows with each snowfall, the strolling boarders harvest glares from the skinning skiers, and everyone disses the sledders, easily forgetting that’s where most of them got their snow-sliding start. The agro attitudes fuel agro behavior in what has become a downward spiral for snowbound civility.

“There will always be a baseline tension that we will not be able to affect,” says Don Dressler, the Forest Service snow ranger charged with keeping the delicate peace atop Vail Pass. Dressler is in charge of an 11-year-old program where people pay to play, providing dollars that create groomed trails for the thumb-throttlers and quiet pastures for the thigh burners.

“I think because of the success of our program up there and the enforcement up there, people have learned where to draw the lines,” Dressler says. “We don’t see the aggressiveness I hear about from other areas.”

But just a short stroll from the pavement or chairlifts, Colorado’s not-so-secret sidecountry scene has devolved into something resembling southern California’s fabled surf wars, where tribes of locals have long hazed newbies with harsh words, sliced tires and the occasional round of between-sets fisticuffs.

“It’s not hard to find yourself in increasingly challenging decision-making positions because there is always someone who pushes past your acceptable level of risk,” says Jamie Drewett, a longtime Berthoud Pass skier from the Fraser Valley. “If you can’t enjoy yourself just being outside with your pals in the mountains — which is what it used to be all about — then you are going to get hurt.”

There are ways to beat back the bad scene lingering at the most accessible steeps.Try skinning on a weekday. Heck, ski at a resort on a weekday and you’ll likely be as lonely as Neil Armstrong playing moon golf. Drive farther than Teton, Loveland, Berthoud or Vail or start hiking early, like dawn-patrol early, skinning by headlamp. Definitely hike farther, delving into spots you — and most other people — have never been.

“The more effort you expend, the less people you find,” says Bruce Edgerly of Backcountry Access. “People who work a little harder to get their turns respect other people who are just as dedicated.”