What is ski touring?
In its most basic form, ski touring is when skiers use specialized snow skiing equipment to travel up a mountain under their own power and then ski back down. In the past, one of the biggest appeals of ski touring is that it most often takes place in the backcountry, outside of ski resort boundaries and away from civilization. In this way, ski tourers benefit from a deep dive into big nature and a more complete wilderness experience.
What’s not to love, right? In fact, ski touring has become so popular there are now four distinct categories that will be useful to know as you learn more about the sport:
- Mountain touring
- Race touring
- Resort touring
- Freetouring
What are the different types of ski touring?
It’s important to point out that there are as many different types of backcountry skiers as there are lines on the mountain. Having acknowledged that, it’s helpful to identify a few different categories so people can more easily understand the opportunities that ski touring provides. These include mountain touring, race touring, resort touring and freetouring.
Mountain touring
This category is for skiers who want to connect with nature by getting away from the resort and experience the unique beauty and adventure of the mountains in winter. The skiers in this group cover a wide range of ability levels, enjoy the ‘up’ as much as they do the ‘down,’ and are usually more geared towards sharing a magical experience in the mountains with their ski buddies than they are with how steep the lines are or how deep the powder.
Race touring
This group is made up of endurance athletes who get off on the immense challenges that the mountains in winter provide. Because the goal of these ski mountaineers (aka “skimo”) is to cover mountain terrain as quickly as possible, they’re hyper-focused on squeezing the best performance out of the lightest gear possible. You’ll often see hardcore ski mountaineers with thin, featherweight skis, cross-country ski poles and speed suits and it’s absolutely extraordinary to see these athletes in action.
Resort touring
While at first it seems that ski touring might be a threat to traditional ski areas, many forward-thinking resorts have embraced the trend and carved out their own niche by providing uphill “skin tracks” within the boundaries of the resort where touring skiers can go uphill without using the lifts. This provides an excellent service to two distinct groups: 1) beginner touring skiers who want to learn the skills in a controlled environment, and 2) endurance athletes who want to get a fun winter workout in the great outdoors.
Freetouring
Freetouring skiers are driven by their insatiable hunger to ski deep, untracked powder and/or steep, difficult lines. Their focus is primarily on downhill performance, so their gear is usually heavier than race touring and mountain touring setups, however the need to get to the top of a line without torching their legs in the process means their equipment is nevertheless lighter than what most skiers use in the resort.
What skills do I need for ski touring?
Ski touring is not something that is the exclusive domain of expert skiers only. It is open to a wide variety of skiers, especially resort touring which, depending on where the skin track leads, may allow relative beginners the ability to skin up and ski down on a groomed beginner or intermediate slope.
However, if you’re heading into the backcountry – and this is a very important ‘if’ – you need to nail down some essential backcountry skills like:
- Avalanche safety – ski resorts invest a massive amount of money and effort into making the area within their boundaries as safe as possible. Outside those boundaries is a wilderness environment that requires proper training to be appreciated to its fullest. Part of the appeal of backcountry skiing is gaining the knowledge required to be able to enjoy wilderness terrain as safely as possible. This means taking avalanche training courses that will teach you how to identify dangerous terrain, as well as how to efficiently locate and rescue victims that have been caught in an avalanche.
- First aid – if/when things go awry in the backcountry, outside help is not always available. The best insurance against good days turning really, really bad is to get trained in backcountry first aid and learn how to make a rescue sled out of the materials you have with you.
- Kick turns – when the terrain gets too steep for backcountry skiers to efficiently skin straight up, they start using a zig zag pattern to proceed upward. Once a skier gets to the end of his zig and it’s time to zag, a special maneuver called a kick turn is used. And while your first few attempts at this move may seem incredibly awkward, keep telling yourself that the more you practice, the easier and smoother it will become. Ski resorts with skin tracks are a great way to get up to speed with your kick turns so take advantage of them and dial in this basic skill before you head into the backcountry.
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