FEATURES

How Backcountry Changed the Ski Bum Forever
If you put any stock in popular media, the ski bum has been dying for just as long as he's been alive. In fact, ski film legend Dick Barrymore proclaimed The Last of the Ski Bums way back in 1967, meaning we're in the middle of the longest death throe on record. But ski bums aren't a dying breed. Not even close. To make the case, Dick Dorworth, Peter Kray and Drew Pogge investigate the evolution of the ski bum, and how the backcountry has forever changed this not-so-endangered species.

Mind Over Mountain
Andreas Fransson is defining the limit of what's possible in steep skiing, pointing it down unthinkable descents from the Alps to Denali to Patagonia. But Fransson isn't some loose cannon on skis. His style on full-value routes bleeds with mountain savvy, and his nerves are as cold as the ice over which he skis. Managing Editor Tyler Cohen traveled to Chamonix, France last April to ski for three days in the shadow of skiing's biggest risk taker, who, as it turns out, might be the wisest extreme skier alive.

CONTENTS

Contributors

Beautiful Nightmare
A note from the editor in chief.

Letters

Cashed Out
The cost of bumming it

Backstory
Forty Tribes

Scotty's Corner Six
The tragedy and lessons of the Sheep Creek, Colo. Avalanche

Tunnel Creek Chronicle
The New York Times' own avalanche

Lake Effect
Going deep at Oregon's off-the-radar national park

That Guy
On one leg, Vasu Sojitra rips the backcountry harder than you

Lance's Lab
Carbon-fiber applications—from typical to absurd

Mountain Skills
How to assess slope stability from above: Ski and cornice cuts

Mountian Account
KC Deane dodges the beast

Spectacle

Tried and New
One editor's watch. Used and abused, and the fresh altimeters he'd replace it with

Biff America
On his life as a bum….

Last Col
Remembering Patrick Orton