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Colorado backcountry skiing guidebookGET YOUR SIGNED COPY! After 2 seasons of research, and one year of a lot of writing and editing, Backcountry Ski & Snowboard Routes: Colorado, was released in October, 2017! Published by Mountaineers Books, a foreward by Chris Davenport, and featuring 102 routes, we think you're sure to enjoy it. Buy your copy here and we'll personally sign it for you!


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Latest Posts

Backcountry SkiingMiscellaneous
Brittany Walker Konsella

5 Things I’d Wished I’d Known Before I Started Backcountry Skiing

Backcountry skiing can be a difficult sport for a beginner to understand, as there are multiple levels of complexities. And once they dive in, beginners quickly realize the deep dimensionality of this sport. I remember easing my way into backcountry skiing over a decade ago – something I dabbled in for years before actually taking the full plunge. I remember being a beginner and being in awe of nearly everything. But there are certain things that beginner backcountry skiers should know that will help make their transition into the sport a little easier. Here’s a list of five things I’d wished I’d known before I started backcountry skiing:

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MiscellaneousMountain LessonsRespect the Snow
Brittany Walker Konsella

Mountain Lessons: Helping an Injured Skier on Fletcher Mountain

We decided to continue to approach them, and see if they needed help. There were two skiers, one injured and one not. They explained that they had approached from the other side and that their first skier to drop in to the line, Josh Barilar, had gotten caught up on some wet slough which had steered him into the rock wall that lined the side of the chute. He then fell into the moat, the deep gap that forms between snow and rock walls. His ski was broken and he had a severe laceration on his leg which squirted blood out every time they tried to move him. In fact I could see the splatter of blood on the rock wall.

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Gimps
Brittany Walker Konsella

How to heal from ACL knee surgery

As it turns out, some of the best advice you can get about healing from an injury comes from those who have been through it themselves. If you’ve been following this blog you know that I am once again recovering from ACL knee surgery – my third one, in fact. Over the last two decades, I’ve gathered some pretty good experience with ACL surgeries and recoveries. While all of my recoveries have been different, there are underlying themes that remain the same. I’ve had to console dozens of people recovering from ACL reconstruction themselves, and have been thanked many times after. Unfortunately, it happens I know a thing or two about this stuff. And, I guess it’s time I start sharing it more.

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Backcountry SkiingFront Range
Brittany Walker Konsella

TBT: Skiing Tenmile Canyon (Feb 2006)

I’ll be honest, it was one of my first true ski mountaineering lines. This line in Tenmile Canyon – a line I don’t even know the name of and still have trouble trying to find exactly which one it was as I pass by it on I-70 – it was this line that gave me the thirst. This line gave me the craving. It was this line that started love for ski mountaineering. It was this line that brought me to where I am today.

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BikingFront RangeGimps
Brittany Walker Konsella

ACL Recovery Update: 3 months post-op

I always say that healing, just like climbing mountains, is as much a mental battle as it is a physical one. I’m not going to lie, I’ve had a few mental demons over the last three months. But, if any of them remained, I shooed their remnants away during my three hour bike ride. My pale exposed skin absorbed enough Vitamin D to last for weeks. The radiating smile on my face was proof that the ride was good for my soul.

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