Skintrack Pondering: How to Pick Your People
By Carolyn Highland, FOW
New ski partners on a cold day in the Chugach Front Range, AK. Photo: Carolyn Highland (@c_highland)
“We should get out sometime!”
We’ve all been there–chatting with someone you’ve just met at a potluck or out at a brewery who also loves ski touring. You swap a few quick anecdotes, trade remarks about current conditions, and drop a couple of hints as to the flavor of skiing you might be into. It’s easy to extend or receive an invitation to ski together after this level of discourse–it feels chummy and full of possibility.
But simply knowing someone else also skis is really just skimming the surface of backcountry compatibility. If we leave the bar that low when we’re considering new partners, we sometimes end up with a totally different dynamic than we bargained for.
Friends on a powder day at the Peter Grubb Hut in Truckee, CA. Photo: Caroline Miller
I lived in the Lake Tahoe area for five years, and was fortunate enough to ski primarily with my closest friends. These were not just touring partners–they were the people I processed all of life’s biggest and toughest moments with, people that I could rely on in a pinch in and out of the mountains, people with whom I could be my fullest, most vulnerable self. These people and I knew each other so well, that we could often anticipate what would make each other uncomfortable on bigger days, and had no hesitation jumping into difficult conversations about travel plans and risk management. I knew exactly what kind of day each of these friends was down for, and therefore who to call depending on what I had in mind.
When I moved to Alaska, I had to start fresh. Besides my life partner Andy and my cousins, all new partners were relative unknowns. Up here, you can get as gnarly as you want to, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t ending up in uncomfortable situations because of lack of alignment in terms of risk, safety, and style.
One Saturday, Andy and I were moving our way up the skintrack at Tincan, one of the mellow zones at Turnagain Pass on the Kenai Peninsula. I lamented that there wasn’t a dating-app style platform where you could be super clear and upfront about the type of skier you were to make sure a partnership would be a good fit. And not just the obvious things like your level of education or years of experience–but also all the nuanced but crucial details that make a skier who they are.
“You know, like ‘loves ridiculous off-season slogs’ and ‘gets full body anxiety on exposed kick turns after a bad fall a few years ago’ and ‘into deep meaningful conversations on the skintrack and ‘always carries a monocular for scopin’,’” I told him.
Scopin' Desolation Wilderness. Lake Tahoe, CA Photo: Caroline Miller
Andy and Carolyn on the approach, Hatcher Pass, AK. Photo: Nicki Naylor
A few months into winter, Andy and I went touring with our new friend Nicki. We had a mutual friend back in Tahoe, so she wasn’t a total wildcard, but we still weren’t sure where she stood. Was she a Go Big or Go Home Cowboy? Was she into snack breaks? Was she a one-lap wonder?
As we started ascending, Nicki and I talked about a book we had both recently read and the challenges of building community from scratch (green flag). We checked in frequently about observations we were making and how we wanted to descend (green flag). She brought a bag of Trader Joe’s Scandinavian Swimmers she’d smuggled up from the Lower 48 to share (mega green flag).
Quickly though, the skintrack left the lower part of the drainage and gained the ridge. Kick turns had been placed in what in my mind felt dangerously close to the precipice, making my legs start to tingle with nervous energy. Despite all my ideas about being upfront about our strengths and weaknesses with new partners, I hadn’t told Nicki that while I feel super comfortable when I’m clicked into my skis, skinning up slick and exposed terrain makes me want to puke. I had slid out of a kickturn on a narrow ridge 8 years before and fallen, having to self arrest with my bare hands. I had fortunately avoided injury and managed to pin my ski to the snow with the toe of my boot after it popped off, but my body still remembered the feeling of starting to fall every time I even looked at a sketchy kickturn.
Nicki and Andy started gradually outpacing me as I made each turn with exceptional care and overexaggerated testing of each point of contact. Andy paused to check in, knowing what was going on in my head, and when we reached a flatter, wider spot on the ridge after making our way up a steep knoll, I knew I had to walk the talk.
Brief blue skies. Hatcher Pass, AK. Photo: Carolyn Highland (@c_highland)
Despite feeling a little embarrassed and unsure, wishing I just felt at ease with all situations in the mountains, I recounted to Nicki my history with exposed skin tracks. I told her that I knew I could physically make the turns, but my body and mind were still filled with fear after the incident all those years ago.
“Thanks so much for sharing that with me,” she responded graciously. “That’s really helpful to know.”
And it was. Our fears, our weaknesses, our lapses in judgment–they may not be our favorite parts of ourselves– they may feel more difficult to share with others than our former-racer GS turns or our killer heading-to-the-trailhead playlist, but they’re just as (if not more) important for our ski partners to know about. We’re trusting these people with our lives–we should probably be able to trust them with our insecurities.
By the time we made it to our drop-in point, I felt some of the stress I’d been carrying release. There was more trust between us now than there had been when we started. Allowing ourselves to be known can be as scary as an icy, blown-out kick turn, but what awaits us on the other side is the foundation of all truly great days in the mountains–strong connections with the people we choose to share them with.
Because the truth is, there’s lots of people who like to ski out there–but that doesn’t mean all of us would enjoy skiing with each other. The better we know ourselves as skiers, the more upfront we are with what we’re about–the fewer of our precious ski days in this life we’ll waste on people who don’t align with us. If you want a 6am start time and quick transitions and a steep booter– don’t be shy. If you want hippie pow laps and tailgate beers– let ‘em know. If you want pocket cheese sticks and complex terrain and transcendent nature moments–shout it from the rooftops.
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful ski partnership. Hatcher Pass, AK. Photo: Carolyn Highland (@c_highland)