You see the drone videos following a skier through a tight couloir. Or maybe it’s a GoPro on one of those sticks that erases itself like how you can’t see your nose. Or maybe it’s a professional skier following them WHILE FILMING because they can. Maybe there’s dubstep or reggae or even classical music in the background. The youtube compilations to music that makes you want to escape and hurt your heart when you’re sitting on the couch on a dreary Tuesday living the best life of a mushroom because that’s what living in Seattle is like, being a mushroom. The images in ads, in outdoor magazines, on the walls of REI and Patagonia and Arc’Teryx stores, and of course, all of the Facebook and Instagram posts that your friends are making with perfect snow conditions and great views and no suffering and no bails ever and it’s never rainy on their trips for some reason. Maybe your coworkers know when you’re stressed because they catch you staring forlornly at your desktop background, a rotating selection of the best shots of your top trips of all time. Maybe they think they’re default backgrounds or lock screens and that’s why they haven’t said anything (that’s what I tell myself).

Well let’s levelset here. Backcountry skiing is like 90% type II fun, 8% variable conditions, and 2% the best skiing and adventure you could possibly find. In fact, let me break that down into a more detailed visual based on the type of snow you can expect.

Okay, moving on to gear. Don’t pitch me on a she-wee, there are still many layers of harness/clothing to get through and nonzero risk involved. And if you’re a coffee aficionado, I wish you luck. You all know the feeling when you are finally geared up head to toe and NOW is when your body decides it actually does need to pee.

Now that you have your gear situated and are (proactively) entirely depleted of bodily fluids, let’s get to the trip.

No, wait. By “having your gear situated” I mean… how confident are you, really? What if your binding breaks? Did you forget skins? Your boot could snap at the top of a couloir leaving you in walk mode for the whole ski down. You could drop a pole in a river. Snow could be sticking to your skins or even your skis if you’re lazy about waxing either and/or both (guilty). Multiply those risks by however many people you’re with.

Ok, I think we’re clear on the gear issues and the fact your downhill ratio will be higher (but not in a good way) if you suck at skiing like I did for years. So what are you going to be thinking about during this trip? What other skills do you need to hone?

On a great trip, you’ll spent about 85% of the time going uphill and 15% of the time going downhill. This is why I’d generally recommend learning to ski at a resort, because if you go straight to the backcountry like some of us, you’ll spent more like 50% of your time going downhill, and not in the enjoyable way you want. But assuming the 85/15 up/down (which honestly might be generous on the down) here’s where you’ll probably expend your mental energy.

F-bombs per capita per hour is fascinating because it covers both extreme ends of the success spectrum, the “ah fuck we’re fucking fucked” but also “this is the freshest fucking powder I have ever fucked with fuck yeah and even the satisfied “fuck yeah” with a fist bump at the end. There aren’t many in between, though, so the more calm you are, the fewer f bombs.

Then you have the excuses to take breaks and try to cope. A few ideas, if you need something to say that isn’t “I need to catch my breath” or “I need to scream into a jacket for a sec:”

“I need a snack/water”
“I need to take a few pictures”
“I need to check the map”
“Oh shit I forgot to put my phone in airplane mode”
“Wow look at that ice formation, that’s cool”
“Wow weird how the snow changes right here”
“Did you hear that” “Hear what” “No nothing”

Speaking of map checks, this is a terrible habit I have when I start to drag. Checking the map over and over aka watching my own progress 2 meters at a time because I can’t figure out how to put alpine quest into freedom units.

Did you see the tumblr a decade ago called “reasons my son is crying”? It’s a stream of photos of some guy’s toddler crying about ridiculous things (ex. “I told him he couldn’t eat the dog treats.”) I thought I should include a list of reasons you might find yourself crying on an adventure.

1. You postholed hip deep/fell into a tree well for the 3758295th time
2. You are still. so. far. away.
3. Your bougie gifted chocolate-bar-on-a-stick is actually a block of hot chocolate powder encased in chocolate and not the delicious consolidated chocolate snack that you expected
4. You forgot a key piece of gear (crampons? skins? ski strap? water?)
5. The pass is snow and ice and driving sucks and you’re 15mi but somehow still 2hrs away from Taco Time

These are suspiciously similar to the list of reasons to laugh:

1. Your friend postholed hip deep/fell into a tree well for the 3758295th time
2. You’re so far away that it’s actually hilarious you ever thought this was possible
3. Your friend is in tears over their unexpected hot chocolate powder (not the pow we were hoping for, right?)
4. Your friend was a dumbass and didn’t bring skins or water
5. I’m sorry but Taco Time desperation is never funny. Get out.

If you have good friends, they’re going to do their best to interfere too. Sneaking rocks in your pack. Poking you while you try to do the rip-skin-without-removing-ski trick to knock you over. Telling you yeah you should totally ski that way only to watch you crash land off a surprise jump. Slowly undoing the straps on your pack. Seeing how long until you notice there’s a bonus branch hanging from your pack. Reminding you of your freshly ripped pants as you ski past the children sledding at Paradise and a mother gasps at your boldness.

And then there are the things folks don’t glorify on social media: The pine needles that cascade from your body when you finally get home and clog the shower. Starting at 1am. Sleeping in a Winco parking lot on the way back, or spooning their car tire next to the highway. The rainy days where you get soaked to the bone. The days where something spooks everyone (rockfall, avalanches, lizard brain protesting, ghost stories, fearless goats, aggressive mice). The days where someone (never me, no, never) fucked up navigation and you get off route and ran out of time, bonus points if other groups follow your tracks. Being told you totally have alpine cider at the tent so you stay mentally strong, only for your friend to confess at the tent that there is, in fact, no apple cider to be made. Sunburns. Disgusting clothing. Nosebleeds. Injuries. Mystery bruises. Blisters. Heat rashes. Dehydration. Resisting dropping that obnoxious guy in a crevasse and leaving him behind. Climbing hangovers!! I bet everyone who does this has been hungover because of dehydration on a Monday. Don’t ask me hard questions on Mondays, folks.

Despite all of that, this helpful graphic from semi-rad keeps me motivated:

Amount of woo could be broken down further based on location, expectations, snowpack, number of people that I don’t want to hang out with taking all the lines, level of social starvation over the past 4 weeks, and whether my employer’s stock is doing anything interesting. But in general, skiing ice/scoured tree runs/luge tracks in the rain sure beats sitting at a desk, and usuallyl beats sitting at home wondering if you should have gone skiing, which, coincidentally, is what I’m doing right now. I hope it’s terrible out there.

*I’m waiting until I’m senior enough at my job to have the balls to just set the semi-rad graph to my out-of-office auto response in outlook. I’m not there yet but someday. Mark my words.

It used to be a running joke that if you weren’t getting shut down 30% of the time in the Cascades you weren’t trying hard enough or chasing the right objectives. I realized a few years ago I never saw inversions anymore, and it’s probably because I didn’t attempt anything with a forecast of “partly sunny” aka socked in, but possible to get above the clouds (rare). The element of surprise is half of the reward of a trip. Surprise pow is always better than expected pow. Surprise views are always better than expected views. Surprise inversions are a freaking dream. You’ll never get them if you stop trying. Easy to say from the comfort of my couch.

At the end of the day, the suffering just makes those amazing days that much better. You pay your dues with some slogging in questionable conditions, rack up some karma, get really good at skiing crappy conditions, and eventually you really do land that waist deep powder day or that bluebird spring corn and raging endorphins oversaturate your vision and the views knock you over as soon as you crest the final ridge or the summit and then you get to giggle like kids the whole way down. And that’s what we’re chasing.

p.s. thank you to everyone who let me use pics of them wallowing and eating shit as part of this post. I am fortunate to have friends who still hang out with me despite me spending years saving up albums of wipeouts and misery and I expect nothing less in return.