Gearing Up for Winter
AORE professionals discuss trends in winter
outdoor activities and share their experiences
Allison Torres Burtka, Editor, Outdoor Insider
Although different winter landscapes lend themselves to vastly
different snow and ice activities,
backcountry skiing and alpine
touring (AT) seem to be gaining
popularity across the board. In
some places, this means less
interest in telemark skiing.
However, “it’s important to
understand regional trends,” said
Bruce Saxman, a clinical assistant professor at the University of
Idaho who has directed the outdoor programs at the University
of Wisconsin—Stout and Green
Mountain College in Vermont. For
example, he said, splitboarding
is popular in some areas but not
others because of the terrain—
what makes sense in one region
might not make sense in another.
The University of Utah’s Outdoor Adventures rents a variety
of equipment, and it programs
trips to introduce participants
to various sports, said Outdoor
Adventures Manager Robert
Jones. The program averages two
to three trips per month, and it is
seeing increased interest in yurt
trips. “We are currently programming for two trips with emphasis
on backcountry skiing/splitboarding and one for snowshoe
hiking,” Jones said.
Backcountry Skiing
“We are seeing a huge increase
in interest with alpine touring,”
Jones said. “We currently stock
30 pairs of AT skis and 24 splitboards to accommodate this
demand.” With the rise of AT,
the program has seen a corresponding decline in demand for
telemark ski equipment, although
Photo by Whitman College Outdoor Program
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it maintains 10 pairs of telemark
with skins for backcountry use
and 10 pairs without skins for
resort use. “I personally believe
telemark will see a resurgence,”
he added. Jones noted that the
expense skiing requires “may be
a factor driving the increase in
backcountry (AT) skiing or splitboarding, as you don’t have to
buy a lift ticket.”
Whitman College in Walla Walla,
Wash., has also experienced more
interest in alpine touring. “As telemark skiing has been declining
in popularity at roughly the same
rate AT skiing has been growing,
we have tried to evolve with this
trend,” said Brien Sheedy, director
of Whitman’s outdoor programs.
They have not purchased any new
telemark skis in about 4 years;
they purchased eight new pairs of
G3 skis with alpine touring bindings in the fall of 2014.
Whitman has 15 pairs of downhill
skis with alpine touring bindings on them. They include three
pairs of Black Diamond Ethics
and Mystics with Fritschi freeride
bindings on them (which Sheedy
says “are now considered ‘skinny’
by today’s standards, and usually
only get used at the ski area or
side country”); four pairs of wider
Black Diamond skis; and eight
pairs of G3 skis with Ruby and
Onyx bindings on them. “Students love the wider skis, and the
AORE Outdoor Insider | Winter 2015-2016