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It’s just been one of those winters. A dry December. A wet, warm January. It’s still low tide, avy danger is high, and yurt trips are yielding shorter runs and longer game nights. Maybe it’s a little more backwoods than we’d all like. But sometimes you just have to embrace the schwack.

Meet No. 156, 112 pages of just that.

Shining light on the mountain ranges hidden in the shadows, The Backwoods Issue covers peaks from New Hampshire’s Sandwich Range to Nevada’s Ruby Mountains—whose solitude and skiable lines, guarded by rugged bushwhacks and minimal beta, call to only the dedicated, hardy adventurer.

It brings forth the people. Queen of Corbet’s Caite Zeliff and whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking, heavy-metal fan Asit Rathod, who’ve both seen the darker side of life and found their way back to the light; the young Shames Mountain ski patrol director, Adrien Grabinski, who sought epic backcountry and close community instead of fame; Indigenous communities leading the fight to preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; the Montana State University professor using his research to help us become the most efficient backcountry skiers we can be; and a guide offering an antidote to rainy days: backyard crevasse rescue training.

Not all days are bluebird and blower. There’s land to be battled for, lines to be bushwhacked toward. As Associate Editor Greta Close writes in the Editor’s Note: “Sometimes you drive 3,000 miles for a supposed pillowy, powder-filled promised land only to be met with dry skies. Other times you climb for hours, just to find a field of alders.”

We believe that just makes the good days sweeter. In the meantime, we’ll be embracing the schwack.

Backcountry Magazine Description:

Backcountry Magazine isn’t about defining boundaries, it’s about blowing them wide open. More people than ever are redefining their ideas of skiing and snowboarding, and Backcountry is their tool; a conduit and catalyst of the backcountry revolution. Each issue of Backcountry is packed with high-definition photography and stories, trusted avalanche safety skills and reliable, unbiased gear reviews. From freeskiing to touring, exotic destinations to backyard zones, the history of skiing to the cutting edge, we cover it all. In Backcountry, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Join us and imagine your Untracked Experience.