From Beginner to Backcountry: The Memorable Moments of Our First Ski Touring Season

TLDR: my wife and I got into ski touring this season. It may have been a crummy snow year, but we sure made the most of it!

Shortly after getting hitched in September 2023, Jas and I decided to pull the trigger on a long time dream of mine to get into ski touring.

I had tried before, but it didn't go super well.

Long before I worked at an outdoor gear shop, I browsed Facebook marketplace for cheap touring gear to get my feet wet... er cold in the backcountry. My brief experience with a painfully heavy set-up of downhill boots, frame bindings, and 115mm-underfoot-skis left me with the harsh realization: cheap gear sucks. I soon sold my skis, wistfully longing for a future re-introduction to the winter backcountry, but next time with lightweight boots and pin bindings...

Fall, 2023

Finally, the timing was perfect, I had some helpful discounts from my job, and we had the money to afford the gear. There was just one hiccup.

Jas was a snowboarder. Emphasis on was!

Before we bought all the gear, we chatted about what she'd like to get, splitboard or skis. After some thought, Jas decided it would be quite fun to learn how to ski.

I was stoked! I hadn't told her, but I was secretly hoping she would choose skiing; as much for the ease of travel and transitions as to share in my enjoyment of the skiing. So, while I cannot profess to be an expert, I tried my best to teach Jas what I knew about skiing.

The Investment

Dec 31, 2023. Our first day backcountry skiing! Which also happened to be Jas' first day skiing ever. We did Zoa, a Coquihalla Classic, with my dad, uncle, and brother on snowshoes. It's a great place to go: safe and mellow terrain, with low avalanche risk and a cleared pipeline (basically a green run at a resort) all the way back to the car to get some good practice turns in. So, although it was a bit bold to ski for the first time in the backcountry, we set off up the skintrack!

Three on a couch

Ski Bench!

Happiest going uphill!

First few turns

Beauty day!

Getting the hang of it

While the first day was far from perfect (we ended up post-holing to our knees while we walked through some tight trees), it was a good first experience. We quickly put our skis back on after we realized how slow the walk was going to be to the pipeline.

One of Jas' first few turns, she picked it up pretty quickly. Pizza for the win!

Over the following weeks, we went with friends, or just the two of us as date outings. We skied Zoa a lot, working on transitioning from "pizza" to "french fry", and getting more comfortable with speed and steeper slopes. But most of all, we just enjoyed one another's company. It was so good to play in the mountains again, just like we did all summer! We had more than our fair share of crashes, face-fulls of snow, spectacular views, powder days, mashed potato snow, leg-burning descents, and belly laughs with friends.

Day out with Maddy

Starting to love skiing!

With Tanner, great views!

Here we Zo-a-gain!

Faceplant!

Zoa with Sam and Maddy

Jas' take on Arc'teryx logo

The Breakthrough

AST-1 in Whistler

What ended up taking skiing from a timid experience to a fully enjoyable one was our AST-1 course in Whistler. After a month of practicing on Zoa's easy terrain, Jas was ready to meet the challenge of skiing a big hill.

The Avalanche Safety Training Level 1 course was with Altus Mountain Guides. We went up the Whistler Gondola, then skied down to a solid place to dig out probes and search for buried beacons. The conditions were terrible; steep, icy slopes made it a more than a little spooky. Slowly but surely, Jas and I followed the group. After a few hours of practicing rescues, we yo-yo'd our way down with the class at re-group spots to the bottom of Whistler. Jas really started to "find her french fry" at the end of the day (see video). What a wonderful bit of progression!

Not much snow..

Big grins :)

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), once we got back to the parking lot, our Honda CRV (Franklin) wouldn't start. BCAA towed it to the nearest mechanic, but we were stranded from Saturday until Monday. We spent the next two nights in Whistler, thankful to have friends to host us. Sunday we enjoyed a short tour up a climbing trail to the main hill. Jas was really linking her turns, pulling the tails of her skis together with ease. I was so thrilled watching this unfold in front of me that I completely forgot to film any of it or take pictures. Oh well, I got to witness it with my own eyes! #proudhusband

The Payoff

In the weeks after Whistler, we continued to play in the backcountry. Late February and early March brought over metre of fresh snow. With our offset work schedules, I was able to get out a few more times that Jas, but we did enjoy a few great powder days together.

Certainly the highlight of the season was in early March, after a week of snowfall. Sunday, we had a wonderful ski date on Zoa (yes, again), where Jas gained a lot of confidence in the steeper bowl. She started to enjoy the open slopes a bit more.

This set us up for Monday. My friend Ben took the day off, and we all boogied up to the Coquihalla.

Nak in the clouds

Kick turnin

Pretty radical terrain

We decided to explore a new-to-us area adjacent to Zoa, a bowl between Nak and Thar. Decidedly, "Thar West Bowl".

Ben's friend had been there the day before, and it was completely empty. Meanwhile, Zoa had been packed to the brim while Jas and I were there, just one valley over. Funny how most people (like us) stick to familiar spots!

Our level of suspicion for avalanche potential was higher due to recent snowfall, but we didn't hear any whoomfs, nor see shooting cracks, nor spot signs of recent slide activity. The cloud cover was overcast, and it was a cold day. Even so, we stuck to low angle trees just to be safe.

The skintrack from Ben's friend on Sunday had plentiful switchbacks, so we had ample practice for our kick-turns.

Some epic powder skiing down a 350m run ensued. We spent the next few hours lapping the bowl, making sick video edits hucking big drops off snow-covered rocks. While video evidence cannot corroborate my claims, you should just take my word for it. If we caught it on camera, we'd for sure be in the next big ski film... ;)

Jas was timid at first, this wasn't Zoa afterall! Soon, she started making smooth, arcing turns. Ben commented that she was looking super solid, and making impressive progress in such a short time! This bolstered Jas' confidence. After a few tips from Ben about arm position, she leaned into the leg burn. Jas started to enjoy the imposing new terrain more with each lap.

Here are a few highlight video clips of the day. First of Jas shredding buttery turns. Second video: shortly after Ben had an epic tomahawk crash, we regrouped and I followed him over a roll. Hitting the bottom of a dip with my ski tips, I had a double-ejection front-flip out of my skis! We all guffawed as Ben sped towards the next feature to launch off. Too much fun.

On the way back to the car, we detoured down two small bowls before traversing back to meet the skintrack to the pipeline. As Jas and I watched Ben disappear over a roll, Jas got nervous - wide open steeper snow, intimidating! But, after a few turns, Jas quickly realized that she was in control and began to giggle. It was actually super fun to ski steeper snow, she realized! I was elated, to say the least. What a progression the last few months had been. From timid first turns on Zoa, pizza-ing down to the car, to linking turns down the pipeline with friends, to pulling skis together for the first time in Whistler, to making turns in the Zoa bowl, to exploring a totally new area like Thar Bowl and enjoying a snowy adventure.

Bottom bowl

Nak-Thar Notch

Happy skier!

What a ride. What started with an investment of time and energy teaching Jas to ski, reassuring her that I wanted to ski with her and not with other ski partners, turned into a major pay-off. My favourite person in the world, and now I get to backcountry ski with her! I legitimately couldn't stop smiling as I watched Jas ski each outing. This process has been rewarding in more ways than I expected.

As you will find with many of my blog posts, I'm a big fan of metaphors. One metaphor in particular comes to mind.

The whole season has been like gardening: the investment of time and energy in tilling soil, sowing seeds, watering, and pulling weeds as we work hard together to learn a new skill. After some time, we get to harvest our investment, the fruit of our labour. In this case, we reaped the benefit of learning how to ski tour in the backcountry and now get to enjoy a new hobby together.

This has even greater applications for marriage: seasons of tilling, of sowing, of watering, of weeding, and of reaping a harvest. Being newlyweds, we will venture through many seasons of investment and payoff, of sowing and reaping. From this experience skiing together, I'll be sure to remember how rewarding this process has been.

The next time we are faced with the hard work of learning something new together, whether that be kids, a new job, or a challenging hobby, we can remember how we sowed the seeds of time and energy into this season, and how it brought us closer together.

We didn't just sow seeds into a skill like skiing, but also into our relationship as we learned together. And if I know one thing for sure, the relational payoff is far better than anything else, even skiing fresh powder!