The last few years, the post-Covid years, have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people willing to sweat for hours and hours of climbing to then enjoy a single descent on skis (or splitboards). One wonders why: I don’t think there is a single answer, but I’ll try to give mine.
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Ski mountaineering, what is it?
Let’s start with some definitions: ski mountaineering is a discipline in which skis are used to climb snowy slopes, with the help of sealskins, and then to descend the same or other slopes. It is a very broad sport, in its infinite declinations from touring to racing. It ranges from long crossings on any type of snow, where you go to have fun and enjoy the solitary views of the snow-capped mountains, to short race courses, where you use very light equipment to climb in the shortest time possible, without giving too much importance to the descent.
Between these two extremes are the majority of ski mountaineers who find themselves in the parking lots of Alpine valleys all winter, attaching skins to their skis with frozen hands until the sun comes out. There are those who climb the slopes with skins after work to train, those who load food into their backpacks to make multi-day crossings without ever taking their skis off their feet, those who endure the polar temperatures and go out under the snow to look for the best powder, those who wait for spring to ski high up on the firn, the die-hards who don’t resign themselves to putting their skis away even when people are thinking about putting on their swimsuits to go to the beach.
Just to name a few of the typical ski mountaineers you see around the Alps. A varied world, but one that maintains one principle: the use of skis as a means of transport, the fastest and most efficient when the mountains are covered with meters of fresh snow.
A little tamed nature
Whatever one may fall into the above-mentioned categories (and other existing ones), I believe that the boom in ski mountaineering that has taken place in recent years is due to the need for nature, in the most authentic state possible, which is increasingly stronger. Having to choose whether to spend a weekend stringing together dozens of descents on the slopes, with the music of the refuges blasting in your ears and people darting from one place to another, or to enjoy a single descent, after having sweated it out with hours of climbing in the middle of the snow, alone in a remote Alpine valley, more and more people are choosing the second option.
It is a completely different type of sport: everything is slower, more natural, it follows the rhythms of the mountain without taming it and allows each person to rely only on their own physical possibilities. Thinking about it, it seems like it is in the normal order of things: to go down, you must first go up. And doing it with your own legs gives a whole other value to those seconds savored while hurtling on the snow. If you know how much effort it takes to get to the top, you don’t take even a curve for granted. And then the silence, the one you only hear after a snowfall, alone in the middle of an alpine forest.
Ultimately, ski mountaineering represents a special way of experiencing the mountain in its white guise. And in an increasingly fast-paced world, made of concrete and appointments in the diary, it is also a way to give yourself the chance to do things as they once were, to explore valleys that have remained free from facilities and to get in touch with winter nature.
