Colorado Snowshoe Adventures

If you’ve ever spent a winter in the Colorado mountains, you know how much our state thrives on winter sports! We love skiing, snowboarding, backcountry touring, and cross-country skiing – but these aren’t the only ways to experience the same snow, scenery, and fresh air. If hiking and walking through a winter wonderland appeals to you, snowshoeing might be something to try this season.

What is Snowshoeing?

Snowshoeing is one of the most accessible winter sports to learn, whether you are looking to try something new for yourself or take your children on an adventure. When snowshoeing, you use snowshoes that buckle or strap on to waterproof boots. Snowshoes help distribute your weight across the snow so you don’t sink as deep and can move more easily across the surface. Other parts of the snowshoe help you do things like gain traction on icy terrain and ascend steeper slopes. Snowshoes enable you to go winter hiking both on snow-covered summer trails and explore untouched Colorado terrain by breaking new trail through deep snow.

Fun for the Whole Family

Like hiking, snowshoeing can vary in difficulty based on the length and elevation gain of your route. It’s a great sport to enjoy with the whole family because you can choose to take a wintry stroll through the pines for less than an hour or go on an all-day adventure to an alpine lake. Along the way, the minimal gear to manage allows you the space for more conversation, laughter, snow angels, and snowball fights. We often find that slowing down on snowshoes enables us to soak in more of the beauty around us!

However, snowshoeing is not a sport to be underestimated. There are snowshoe runners and snowshoe racers, like the Snowshoe Championships held in Leadville, Colorado last year! Even when moving slowly, snowshoers can work hard to break trail, travel uphill, and get some solid exercise. The beauty of snowshoeing is that with just a pair of snowshoes, you can find an adventure that’s just your speed.

Snowshoeing is Affordable & Accessible

Compared to many other winter sports, snowshoeing is relatively affordable and easy to enjoy on your own. Sports like skiing and snowboarding require a myriad of expensive gear, practiced skills, and technical terrain; these things can be challenging to come by, especially for the whole growing family! Since snowshoeing is essentially hiking in the snow, all you need are snowshoes, warm waterproof boots, and basic hiking essentials, including a sense of where to go. In addition, snowshoes are adjustable and strap on to your snow boots, and so within a certain range, snowshoes will grow with your child and can be shared between family members and friends.

Guided Backcountry Snowshoe Tours

Like any sport, snowshoeing comes with its own gear and skills for having the best experience in the snow! A guide can teach you how and when to utilize the different parts of the snowshoe and how to adjust the snowshoe for maximum comfort and traction. In addition, a guide offers valuable expertise on snow conditions and what local areas to enjoy or avoid.  By managing safety concerns such as avalanche terrain, trail difficulty, and weather conditions, going with a guide brings peace of mind so that you can focus on enjoying time outside with your friends and family. 

From Leadville to Salida, the Upper Arkansas River Valley is filled with amazing snowshoe trails. Buena Vista Mountain Adventure snowshoe guides would love to introduce you to some of our favorite spots. So if you’re interested in one of our guided snowshoe tours, please visitwww.bvmountainadventures.com/snowshoeing to learn more.

How My Day Job Affects My Decision Making in Avalanche Terrain

Hi My name is Devin,

and I am a part-time backcountry ski guide for BVMA. I love ski guiding.

Part of the reason is because I love backcountry skiing. Being a backcountry ski guide also gives me the chance to share the experience of backcountry skiing with others. Seeing smiles on our guests’ faces when they get to experience limitless powder skiing in the backcountry for the first time is the best. Thankfully, my day job also involves time in the snow. I am lucky enough to ski patrol at Copper Mountain. One of the most rewarding parts of ski patrolling to me is avalanche mitigation work. In this post, I will explain what we do at the resort to mitigate risk of avalanches, and share how that affects my decision making in avalanche terrain as your ski guide!

A ski resort is just a mountain.

Without the hard work of ski patrollers, resort terrain is just as susceptible to avalanches as any other mountain.

To keep Copper Mountain safe, ski patrollers do their best to take all of the instabilities in a snowpack and neutralize them. Avalanche mitigation is done in many ways. The most common (and popular) approach is to blow up these instabilities. Explosives are used to break up slabs and collapse any hidden weak layers that might cause an snow to slide. Other tools in a ski patroller’s tool box for avalanche mitigation are ski cutting, cornice kicking, and boot packing.  Everyday I show up to work and hang out in avalanche terrain so that skiers at Copper Mountain can have fun on the hill with reasonably low avalanche danger. This means that I spend a lot of time working in avalanche terrain in my day job. Sometimes it takes effort to switch my mind from being a ski patroller, where my job is to go into avalanche terrain, to guide mode, where my job is to avoid being in avalanche terrain.  

My day job as a ski patroller affects my ski guiding and decision making in avalanche terrain in multiple ways

I’m woking in the snow almost everyday

I get an in depth history of the snowpack and the work done to prevent avalanches it in any given area on the mountain.This gives me confidence to move in avalanche terrain at work.  When it comes time to move around the backcountry, I remind myself that I’m working on a different snowpack with a different history, so I need to change the way I make decisions. The solution is to make very conservative decisions when guiding.

I’m familiar with how an avalanche looks and feels

An advantage to doing all of this work is knowing what an avalanche looks like and what it feels like.  As a ski patroller I have intentionally started hundreds of avalanches. I know what it feels like when a weak layer collapses.  I know what serious wind loading looks like. I can look at a slope and use my experience to judge what might happen if I ski a slope. I can bring this knowledge to ski guiding.

I get to work with people who have been in the industry for years.

Some of them have been patrolling for a long time.  Some have been guides themselves. It is a huge advantage to be able to look at conditions with a 25 year snow worker and get their opinion. The people I patrol with are always ready to share knowledge and experience with me.  I can ask questions on anything from snowpack observations to how weather will affect the snowpack, to safe travel practices, and their near miss experiences. I can take their knowledge and experiences and use those things to help me be an even better guide.

I’d love to share more about avalanche terrain and decision making in it, so if I’m your guide with BVMA, be sure to ask! There is always more to learn, and endless powder to ski!

Get into the backcountry with BVMA

#BVMA #BVbackcountry #SkiBV #GoThereStartHere #BuenaVistaCO

Why You Need a Pre-game Routine for Backcountry Skiing

Having a pre-game routine gets you ready for what you’re about to do.

When I played basketball, I got made fun of for being superstitious. I always got ready the same way. I put different parts of my uniform in the same order. Then I put my left sock on, my right sock on, my left shoe, and finally my right shoe. I always started with the left first. Looking back on it, there was no superstition, I just enjoyed a routine. This was my basketball pre-game routine. I do the exact same thing for backcountry skiing.

I have a routine. I have a certain way to start the day in order to set myself up for success.

1. I like to gather my gear together the night before, so I don’t worry about it in the morning.

2. I make sure my skis and poles are strapped together, so I don’t forget one or the other.

3. I always put my skins in my pack. Some people like to put them on the skis before you leave the house. It is very convenient, but I’ve been told that it’s bad for both the bases of skis and the glue of your skins to be on skis for an extended period of time. So, I make sure to wait for the trailhead to put them on.  

4. I gather my pack and gear. Checking to make sure I have my three kits: first aid kit, repair kit, and rescue kit.  

5. I set out my shell and whatever extra insulation I may need, depending on conditions. I like to leave all of this in a big pile by the door. I actually pack it all in the morning to be sure I have everything.

6. I always make sure my boots are in the house so they aren’t frozen the next morning from sitting in the cold.

7. The next day (day of skiing), I like to wake up in time to eat a nice breakfast.  It’s good to remember that food is fuel. What you put in your body at the start of the day is what gets you to the top.  

8. While I’m eating, I check the CAIC forecast, and look at a map of the area I’m going to ski.

9. Before getting in the car, I always run through a checklist with the group I am skiing with. Does everybody have a beacon, shovel, probe? What about skis and skins? It is always a bummer if somebody forgets boots too.  

10. On the way to the trailhead, I like to mentally prepare for skiing - thinking about the uphill and the challenge that it will be. I consider the weather conditions and mentally prepare for them. I talk through the group dynamics in my head. I also set goals for the day.

Now, when I get to the trailhead, I am ready to ski!

If you have a good routine you can improve your chances of having a great day in the backcountry. It can help you not forget an essential piece of gear, and get your mind ready for the challenge that awaits. It doesn’t need to be as detailed as my routine, but I highly suggest setting a standard in place for yourself! Every time I ski, I still have a routine. I start with the left boot first...

Get into the backcountry with BVMA

#BVMA #BVbackcountry #SkiBV #GoThereStartHere #BuenaVistaCO