What makes backcountry touring different from resort skiing? On this trip, Lulu and Evan will coach experienced resort skiers on gear, conditions, skinning, and terrain.

Gear: MITOC has a great rental fleet of AT (alpine touring) boots and skis. We’ll use skis with pin bindings and frame bindings and teach you how to adjust them to your boot size. We’ll also teach best practices for applying, removing, and storing skins.

Conditions: No one is making artificial snow for these slopes, so we rely on many resources to understand what conditions await us in the backcountry. Read Mt. Washington Avalanche Center advisories, Mt. Washington Weather Observatory Higher Summit forecasts, and Northeast Winter Weather and Ski Conditions community reports to get a sense of what conditions we’ll see this weekend.

Skinning: Get ready to #earnYourTurns! With climbing skins attached to our skis we’re able to ascend low angle hills without sliding backward. Skinning up is a continuous uphill climb with the extra weight of skis on your feet, so be prepared for a strenuous hike! We’ll hone our movements to travel as efficiently as possible (and use the skis’ heel risers to not burn out our calves).

Terrain: due to variable conditions on the trail, the terrain can be unpredictable and things like water, exposed rocks, and bushes may make the run more difficult than the slope indicates. We’ll practice skiing strategies to navigate these obstacles safely.

We’ll start with a morning briefing in the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center gear room. Once we’ve discussed our route and organized our gear, we’ll ascend via the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. At ~2.5 miles, the Tuckerman Ravine Trail comes to the Hermit Lake hut, where we will transition our equipment to downhill mode and ski down the ~2 mile John Sherburne Ski Trail--a wide backcountry trail with an average slope of 15°, similar to a resort blue run.

There will be a pre-trip meeting on Thursday (1/9) at 6 p.m. in the MITOC office to get everyone fitted with equipment.