Skiing’s poster-children are the athletes who charge the hardest, from pros to your buddy who backflips in the backcountry. The rad folk. They power the adventure media machine, so naturally they ski in the coolest places. But what about\u00a0those of us who crave adventure skiing over resort hot laps\u00a0but lag on the skin track? Or get stuck in deep snow. Or struggle with kick-turns. Or\u00a0take it slow on rollers that friends launch off. Is there a niche between being a badass skier who goes places and a ‘regular’ skier who doesn’t?<\/p>\n Here’s the thing: snow and mountains don’t care if you’re the strongest, fastest, or raddest. You still get to ski down.<\/p>\n As a youngster, I skied mostly because my friends did, and definitely because my father did. But growing up in Colorado charged my passion for the sport. College eventually saw me spending more time in the mountains than in class. I slept on couches more nights than my mother would care to read about (friend of friend equals friend, right?). I saved money to explore new resorts by working as a ski instructor, slinging espresso at a coffee shop and recommending soft-shells at a gear store. Solitary Wednesday mornings in buttery back bowls fueled the addiction.<\/p>\n When I upgraded to a backcountry setup, I held those babies like a prom date, making my mother question my relationship goals.\u00a0<\/span>To my liftline-oriented friends, my life had skyrocketed into badassery.\u00a0<\/span>Appearances deceive, though, and when people expect you to ski a certain way, it’s a quick way to suffocate passion with self-induced pressure. All of a sudden I cared a bit too much about being impressive.<\/p>\n Humility hit, like when I battled to free myself from a thigh-deep post hole on my second ski tour, making my backcountry teacher laugh hard enough to pee herself. I realized why I ski. It’s the feeling of untouched snow\u2014floating, free, confident.<\/p>\n My first foray up north was in early May. We set off at 10 p.m. to a fading sunset in the boreal confluence of British Columbia, the Yukon, and Southeast Alaska. Jagged nunataks emerged from thick fog the next morning after we skinned for five hours past blue pools and scrambled over lichen-covered boulders. We descended a wide-open glacial bowl, avoiding steep, sketchy slopes. I could barely see the yellow jacket skiing in front of me through the mist, but the soul turns I arched back to base camp made me feel giddy.<\/p>\n I bounded back in November after deciding to brave a whole Alaskan winter. Then multiple times in December. Then every weekend in January until I\u2019d skied twice the number of backcountry days in the Great White North as in my home state.<\/p>\n![\"backcountry](\"http:\/\/www.powder7.com\/ski-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/whitepass2.StasiaCallghan.jpeg\")
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