The Cognitive Dissonance of Resort Touring

Our skis skidded and chattered as we descended each artificial snow mound, a series of off-white heaps dotting the entire run that seemed more like a series of whale’s bodies than a surface made for skiing.

Up and down, we made our way over these piles of human-made snow that were soon to be groomed over the entire slope, all in the name of fitness, boredom, and–perhaps more than anything–a burning desire simply to ski. 

We had ascended the ski area in the way many now do, with skins affixed to skis, and we climbed uphill, under our own power. In that manner, we made our way to the top of an unopened run, a higher piste the resort had begun preparing for the busy holiday crush amidst a slow start to winter. There, a steady blast of crystals poured out from the dozen or so nozzled snowmaking guns that stood guard on the side of the slope, an untold volume of frozen water spraying into the ether, bringing forth those icy whales.

Descending the mountain, we made mediocre turns on the firm snow. But as we linked hundreds of sputtering arcs, we noticed something near the terminus of the run. Several red-clad skiers made their way off the lower mountain lift, down to the saddle we were unavoidably entering, where they grouped up near a red rope denoting open versus closed terrain. There, they waited for us.

At our welcoming party, we were lectured by the head of ski patrol in a manner that left us chastised, perhaps more than anything we had experienced as adults. For skiing a technically closed run, regardless of how we attained it, we received threats of fines and jail time, delivered with an almost fatherly disappointment that stung surprisingly deeply.

We were reminded of the hazards, of the snowmakers trying desperately to get the mountain ready despite our selfish distraction, and that if we continued to behave like this, the privilege to hike and ski the mountain on our own volition would be taken away. Perhaps from everyone. 

Let off with just that embarrassment, we hurried off the ski area, happy to still have our season passes.

My friend and I had taken part in one of modern skiing’s emerging disciplines: a resort tour.

Colloquially known as skinning, this ski-area-bound, fitness-first form of skiing has seen a meteoric rise over the past few decades as the equipment for the practice has modernized, buttressed by the rising popularity of endurance sports. But while this fresher take on the sport is simple in its climb-then-ski mentality, its marriage of a turn-earning ideal with a resort setting has created an at times paradoxical mix of principles, introducing a complicated juncture for one of skiing’s newest evolutions.

Our ski tour that morning, not dissimilar to many we had undertaken over the years at our home ski area, had all the hallmarks of human-powered skiing, both in a positive sense and, especially in a resort setting, perhaps not. Using our trusty touring rigs and arriving ready for the elements, we earned our own turns, made our own way, and were rewarded with a unique skiing adventure.

But our approach—incorporating both the backcountry and frontcountry versions of our sport—also brought an independent, make-our-own-rules mindset that in the midst of a complicated resort setting could just as easily have been painted as selfish, misguided, or even entitled. 

It all mirrored the paradoxical nature of the growing sport of resort touring, borrowing heavily from diametrically opposing forms of skiing. And although resorts have codified a sort of functional set of rules for the growing sport, dictating the relationship between operator and skier, an authoritative, agreed-upon philosophy amongst resort tourers themselves is as yet unestablished; it seems largely due to the opposing forces that birthed the movement.

For years, my ski partner and I had been taking part in—maybe more aptly getting away with—these early-season tours while ski area employees prepared the mountain for the coming winter. In the late Fall, we would routinely meander around snow-making equipment standing ready for cooler weather; we skinned past silent lifts yet to be opened, and hiked over scraggly meadows all in the search of a few early-season turns.

Diligently avoiding any employees on the resort and doing everything we could to stay safe and out of the way, we traveled in a manner not unlike the way we did in the backcountry. And like the philosophy we adhered to skiing the wilds, and whether we realized it or not, our actions ascending the resort spoke to a feeling that, due to our self-sufficiency, we had earned the right to ski in the manner we chose.

But while that simplistic mindset can be paired seamlessly with the wilderness, where self-reliance is met with solitude and space from a litigious and busy regular world, the clash of a backcountry-derived ethos on a ski area brings into focus a certain dissonance endemic to touring at a downhill resort.

Some notions that may be natural in the backcountry — like giving other groups space and expecting the same in return — can be lost in a resort that allows uphill travel. Moreover, backcountry skiing, dangerous as it is, has a set of protocols designed to keep people safe and, in part, to create a fair experience.

Where avoiding skiing over the skin track may be partly an etiquette, it at times is more than that, just like dropping below and in front of a descending party isn’t only possibly dangerous, it unfairly takes priority over a line that another party already earned the right to.   

While these guidelines are far from universally adhered to in the backcountry, a loose credo does exist there. But touring on the closed resort, a newer take on skiing in the grand history of the sport, has at best a nascent decorum, only slightly molded by resort protocol, and occasionally proving prone to friction, even contradiction.

Everything from entitled ascenders like ourselves to those adamant that public lands should remain unfettered, even fellow tourers entering the path of those descending, contributes to friction. Whether between users and operators, or amongst tourers themselves. Or even in the mind of a singular uphiller.

Integral to the unique frame of mind is that uphillers are not only earning their turns, but are doing so in a tamed and safer setting, one that does not exist in the backcountry.

Entitlement borne from self-powered skiing is thus multiplied by feelings of complacency. Common are the uphillers ascending invisibly in the dark without headlamps, as are groups that climb four or five abreast, taking much of the slope away from those descending. An internal priority on one’s own experience often comes to the fore as the resort removes the necessary focus on safety and decorum that the backcountry naturally engenders and mixes it with a laissez-faire, resort-bound ideal.

This busier, less decorous setting often results in a go-your-own-way approach. Here, skiers yelling at those in the middle of the run as they whizz by may not be a regular occurrence at any one ski area, but these interactions are far from unheard of.

Awkward and unsatisfying as those interactions can be, they speak to how the outcome of a resort tour disagreement is often vastly different from that of one in the backcountry.

Mistakes of etiquette in the backcountry are often plainly pointed out either by other party members or offended groups. The safety and sanctity of the experience are such that these missteps are necessarily broached. And novices on the receiving end of a well-pointed-out criticism, already in a vulnerable state as learners in an unforgiving environment, quickly engage in a steep learning curve.

While the backcountry sees its own frictions, a resort touring breach in etiquette is far more nebulous. Rare are dangers on a morning skin like those inherent in backcountry skiing, and feelings of “what’s-the-big-deal” are often the first thought of those called out for supposed offenses. It’s the resort, after all, not the sanctified space of the backcountry. 

An agreement on etiquette in the realm of resort touring has yet to be defined. Resorts often eschew setting the tone on decorum and protocol and instead push safety between users and operator; an ideal that rightly prioritizes the ski area, their heavy equipment, and mandate to run the resort, but perhaps leaves the topic of safety and expectations between users as picked up by no one.

Steamboat Ski Area, like many ski areas that allow uphill skiing, has reacted to the huge increase in participation by codifying resort touring. The resort now allows turn-earning only outside of regular operating hours and requires users to watch an informational video on the resort’s uphill policy.

That video, while heavy on protocol like waiver requirements, the necessity of skiers being visible in dark conditions to snowmakers and snowcats, and more, all of which are productive and necessary topics, interestingly makes no mention of actual decorum between users.

Even as resorts have systemized the uphill touring experience, making it less freeform from a functional standpoint, they have interestingly left the mantle of etiquette amongst tourers uncarried, regardless that they have long set that tone for downhill skiers, like in the ubiquitous ‘Know The Code’ protocol posted at resorts worldwide. The ideals, ethos, and expectations of interactions amongst resort tourers themselves remain rarely broached.

Moreover, resort touring prior to the revolution in uberlight bindings first marketed under the Dynafit banner — often more mellow, and taken to by many on frame bindings, snowshoes, and even by bootpackers — had a looser, more modest vibe. The ascendence of two-pin touring bindings and local skimo race series has marked a meaningful evolution in local ski culture, but has made resort touring more of a training ground, adding a competitive, individualistic moor that is perhaps not as focused on camaraderie as the pastime may have once been.

This world of wilderness-lite, even competitive-adjacent skiing, brings together aspects of both resort and backcountry skiing: little oversight but avalanche-less conditions; groomed runs skied via human power; corporate rules but a lifts-be-damned, often training-based philosophy. And it has created a cognitive dissonance, a mixed philosophy of rugged individualism and earned entitlement clashing with a ski experience that not only sits adjacent to the rule-heavy, well-traveled world of resorts, but it also occurs on one, thus this experience at times incorporates what can seem like mutually exclusive ideals.

And with no defined leader or leading group in the loosely bound culture, a slew of questions confronts the resort tourer, often with no clear answer: How do we interact with other skiers when we feel entitled to what we’ve earned? Do we owe other users in a resort touring situation as much as those we find in the backcountry? Does resort touring even have its own singular ethos to build decorum off of?

In 2019, as uphill skiing was growing strongly enough to attract the attention of the New York Times, the eminent outdoor print leader Adventure Journal wondered in response on their online blog, “How should uphill access at ski resorts be managed?” the post’s title read.

But while questions of how resort touring fits into the framework of ski area operations were easily broached in the post, just like in the Times article, broader notions of what exactly resort touring means as a wider movement remain elusive. Besides those articles from 2019, and more recent pieces essentially marketing the practice, there has been very little discourse on the approach, style, and decorum of resort touring. I have leaned heavily on anecdote in this article, largely because there is so little scholarship on the topic.

Still, the question remains whether resort touring needs more cultural structure than simply resorts providing users with a functional framework for the activity. Perhaps resort touring does long for an established etiquette that is unique to the practice, not the strange mix of backcountry and resort ideals it now awkwardly holds.

All told, a wider adoption of protocols and etiquette at times seems to be missing in uphill resort skiing, itself with a developing and difficult-to-place ethos.

Who leads that push is itself difficult to pin down. It could come from any number of sources, including the resorts or even a touring advocacy group.

But until then, and perhaps even after, resort touring and its philosophy will remain trapped in the push-pull between the backcountry and resort disciplines, two vastly different schools of skiing it borrows almost equally from.

About The Brave New World of Skiing Column

This article was written by POWDER writer Jack O’Brien for his bi-weekly ‘Brave New World of Skiing’ column. Click below to read the previous column, ‘The Death of the Ski Bum, And Imagining Their Return‘.

Related: The Death of the Ski Bum, And Imagining Their Return