Member of the Month

JalmarKalmar
April, 2024

Online

Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!

Surface Backcountry Noise.

profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
StartFragment

Surface Backcountry Noise:

To us the term “newschooler” doesn’t only apply to park rats. There’s a whole new generation of skiers getting after it in the backcountry. The age of skier climbing and skiing off peaks is descending rapidly and we are well aware of it. Here in the Wasatch we have kids hammering out a dawn patrol ski tour before heading into their high school class. Its so badass and inspiring!

We wanted to dedicate this entire thread to backcountry travel, ski mountaineering, backcountry gear, inspiring photography, travel tips, safety and avalanche advice and more. Anything backcountry related drop it in here and we will do our best to give you answers and information to everything we can.

Cheers!

Click for larger image


EndFragment
Nov 1 2013 3:57PM
167 41
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Brody Leven ski testing in Patagonia. Photography by Adam Clark.
Nov 1 2013 4:06PM
3 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Classic Wasatch morning.
Nov 1 2013 4:08PM
3 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Early morning up in Stairs Gulch. Wasatch Range, Utah
Nov 1 2013 4:15PM
3 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Nov 1 2013 4:30PM
4 0
profile picture
Ghini
Posts: 2232 - Karma: 2,885
Yeah..well have fun in your own little Surface Backcountry thread..

Everyone else that wants to talk about backcountry skiing and touring will be in here:

https://www.newschoolers.com/ns/forums/readthread/thread_id/718600/

https://www.newschoolers.com/ns/cult/forum/cat_id/6414/


Sorry about my tone but I think this is BS..

I understand you want to get as much attention for your brands on this site as possible. Free attention through the Surface noise/Joystick/Causwell thread was accepted. (I still think Cults are for this but others are ok with it so lucky you..) But if you want more attention for your brands, be more creative, buy ads, set up fun contests idk..but creating a Surfacce Backcountry thread??
In your opening text you say this: 'We wanted to dedicate this entire thread to backcountry travel, ski mountaineering, backcountry gear, inspiring photography, travel tips, safety and avalanche advice and more. Anything backcountry related drop it in here and we will do our best to give you answers and information to everything we can.'
Why call it the 'Surface Backcountry' thread? Or is it just for Surface riders??
Why cant you just post in the cult or thread that is already there and alive?

I'll probably get a lot of hate and karma rapes for this but this thread and tittle is stupid..
Nov 1 2013 5:27PM
9 21
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
No way dude... That's OK man.. you are entitled to your opinion. No offense taken.

While being on this site (and internet) is most definitely to market our brand...I genuinely want to create to contribute to NS and help spread backcountry awareness throughout. There's a lot of kids on this site who are interested in getting into the backcountry and don't know where to turn. We at Surface have a wealth of knowledge in this arena and would love to share it with others, help educate and in turn, hopefully sell some skis to to those who like our brand. That's it.

Thanks for chiming in though... no harsh feelings.

- Mike




Nov 1 2013 5:35PM
10 1
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Five Star lodging w/ Brody Leven in Patagonia.
Nov 1 2013 5:44PM
6 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Beau Fredlund offers up a little advice for storing your climbing skins on those super cold days.


Nov 1 2013 6:21PM
4 0
profile picture
Z-Juice
Posts: 3151 - Karma: 1,504
threads
Nov 1 2013 8:19PM
0 0
profile picture
karky
Posts: 49 - Karma: 27
i'm into this thread


still living off week-old stoke from the first turns of the season.
october 27th is an earlybird treat for east coast, vt.

jay had the goods to satisfy.

Click for larger image
Click for larger image

i'll have a rip on whatever i can get for now.
Nov 1 2013 9:57PM
5 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Oh hell yah.. I was watching VT go off last week on the webs. Glad you got out and got some!!
Nov 2 2013 12:31AM
3 0
profile picture
Anti_Panda
Posts: 234 - Karma: 95
This is why your run my favorite ski company
Nov 2 2013 1:40AM
2 1
profile picture
LC.
Posts: 5952 - Karma: 2,423
Those ain't Surface skis pal. Make your own thread.
Nov 2 2013 4:39AM
13 3
profile picture
No.Quarter
Posts: 5257 - Karma: 16,956
Really I think this thread is just unnecessary. Any backcountry knowledge and helpfulness could be MUCH better spent in the actual backcountry thread. You guys would seem much more pert of the NS community if you had good contributions in threads other than the ones you start.

No hate, just my opinion.
Nov 2 2013 11:34AM
11 0
profile picture
No.Quarter
Posts: 5257 - Karma: 16,956
And the thread is actually called "Touring/AT NSers..." by member Huck_Norris
Nov 2 2013 11:40AM
2 1
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Cool thanks for your opinion too Jake!
Nov 2 2013 11:44AM
6 2
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Beau Fredlund in Kamchatka, Russia - a trip loaded with first descents and big bears!
Nov 2 2013 11:45AM
2 1
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Beau Fredlund headed towards his objective for the day... the boys were able to ski off the top of that peak in the distance that day after three attempts. So many epic photos from this trip to Mt. Cook NP in New Zealand.
Nov 2 2013 11:48AM
3 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Attention Utah locs:

Winter in the Wasatch is just about here and to kick things off we are stoked to partner up with the Utah Avalanche Center (UAC) to host an evening of avalanche and backcountry safety tips from some of Utah's finest avalanche forecasters. The avalanche discussion starts promptly at 7:00pm and lasts about an hour. After the discussion we will offer all those who attend a chance to purchase 13/14 skis, poles, apparel for 50% off regular price and we are donating proceeds directly back to the Utah Avalanche Center to help finance their non-profit organization and to ensure someone is watching over that snowpack for us... the event will be hosted at the Momentum Indoor Climbing Gym so bring your climbing shoes and stick around afterwards for a climbing session. See you there!

Click for larger image
Nov 2 2013 12:15PM
3 0
profile picture
last_tango
Posts: 2635 - Karma: 2,665
I should be going to this. I'm from the east and have no avalanche knowledge what so evah. If it said moderate danger on the bowl to tuckermans ravine you turned around and got wicked shamerd over at north conway.

I also find it wicked awesome the ski companies put on events out here. The bluehouse street party was awesome and we don't get any thing like that out in maine.
Nov 2 2013 1:17PM
2 2
profile picture
karky
Posts: 49 - Karma: 27
easy slayer. i'm just trying to share some stoke. i thought this was a place for that.

i rock some one life's as well, but pre-season vermont isn't quite the place for those sticks.
Nov 2 2013 2:05PM
0 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
It doesn't matter what kind of skis you ride to comment and be involved in this thread. If people don't like this thread nobody is forcing them to follow or read. But its going to be a damn good thread loaded with good content... and good vibes. Fuck those people who are so miserable with their own lives they have nothing better to do than create hate on the internet.

Keep them comments, posts, photos, questions coming!!
Nov 2 2013 2:51PM
5 0
profile picture
MothaHucker
Posts: 4678 - Karma: 2,589
I don't understand why everyone is shitting on this thread so much... who the fuck cares if there is more than one backcountry thread
Nov 2 2013 3:16PM
14 0
profile picture
.[sanhedrin].
Posts: 1649 - Karma: 917
Stopped by the Albion Basin yesterday for a minute with my little guys in tote. Had a little snowball fight and watched as backcountry skiers came down from Grizzly Gultch. Two of 'em had Surfaces. Keep up the good vibes in this thread.
Nov 2 2013 4:01PM
0 0
profile picture
Bagina
Posts: 849 - Karma: 2,888
Currently getting my One Life's mounted then going to skip school friday to go hunting for powder!
Nov 2 2013 6:13PM
1 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Right? Well we will make sure to fill this thing up with useful content. No bullshit stuff. We wanna do some live Q&A's with a couple of our skiers like Brody Leven... stuff like that.

Thanks for comment!
Nov 2 2013 6:58PM
3 0
profile picture
methscratchface
Posts: 1201 - Karma: 4,433
This season I purchased a pair of drifters and mounted them with a pair of dynafit radical st's. I am so fucking stoked. If you guys are ever cruising through western montana and want to check out some zones hit me up!!!
Nov 2 2013 8:11PM
0 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Dude hell yeah! Our boy Beau Fredlund is posted up in Cooke City. We plan on going there 2-3 times this winter... can't wait. His zones looks insane.

How close are you to Cooke?
Nov 2 2013 8:13PM
0 0
profile picture
tomahawk
Posts: 2006 - Karma: 53
http://thomastytran.com/mt-baker--july

If anyone cares, the story was all shot on one roll of fuji 400h out of an olympus XA rangefinder. Got tired of the park at hood so I took a weekend off.
Nov 2 2013 11:22PM
0 0
profile picture
karky
Posts: 49 - Karma: 27
skol.

the photos have got me jazzed, keep dropping 'em.
Nov 3 2013 12:20AM
0 0
profile picture
NinetyFour
Posts: 8650 - Karma: 13,409

En Route Camp BC from NIMBUS INDEPENDENT on Vimeo.



This belongs in here.

Eliel. Firstly, why don't we see more of him? Secondly, he goes big, how big will he go with his Movember stache?

I'll also give it to ya, just the look of all your pow skis shapes is probably my favorite of anything on the market, especially the Lab 001's and New Lifes. And this year's One Life is definitely my favorite topsheet of anything this year.
Nov 3 2013 12:27AM
3 0
profile picture
Ghini
Posts: 2232 - Karma: 2,885
Haha I love the fact that this really happend, all just for sharing my opinion and asking questions..

Thank you all for the confirmation that I can predict the future, I've always know it, now I have proof and I am ready to do future spins in the backcountry..
Nov 3 2013 8:53AM
0 8
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Nah, there's no hate here....

Click for larger image

Brody Leven scrambling around Patagonia last month (photo by Adam Clark)
Nov 3 2013 11:54AM
2 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image

"Giant cornice eh! I'd have gone closer to the edge, but there was a big crevasse where it had started to peel away from the cliff wall. We were in New Zealand, and had just skied Mt. Aspiring the day before, in exquisite conditions (very rare to find!). Here we are traveling from the Collin Todd Hut, across the valley, to the Liverpool Bivy. I am taking a bonus lap before dropping in on the French Ridge and down into the rain forest/ jungle. Mt. Aspiring National Park is one of the more sacred places I have found (Middle Earth if you will)." - Beau Fredlund
Nov 3 2013 5:06PM
2 0
profile picture
.squirrely.
Posts: 7563 - Karma: 7,540
would love to get into more bc skiing, touring looks like a lot of fun

but wait, i live in massachusetts
Nov 3 2013 5:07PM
3 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Last summer Beau Fredlund and Adam Clark spent a handful of months ski touring in the Mt. Cook Nat'l Park in New Zealand. The imagery and video that AC captured on this expedition was some of the most inspiring to date. Almost a year later, Adam put together a beautiful edit showcasing the terrain that he and Beau moved through while in the Southern Alps. Take some time and watch the short video above, Blowing in the Wind.

Nov 3 2013 5:09PM
0 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends of family of Swedish ski mountaineer, Magnus Kastengren who fell 600m to his death while climbing and skiing Aoraki-Mount Cook New Zealand yesterday. Such a sad deal in the ski mountaineering community.

A full account HERE.
Nov 4 2013 12:34PM
0 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
After hearing the tragic news today about Swede, Magnus Kastengren falling to his death while ski mountaineering in the Mt. Cook NP of New Zealand, it was quite a relief to get an update from Beau Fredlund who is climbing and skiing in the same region:


We were kicking hacky sack in the hut, on day 10 of an ski trip up the Tasman- New Zealand's largest and most notorious glacier. We made the hacky sack out of cous cous, raisins, rice and and an old ski sock (sewn up with a needle and thread). The previous 4 days we had been confined to a 100 meter radius around the Kelman Hut, while a severe storm cauterized the rugged alpine landscape all around. (there's little you can do safely in 100 km/ hr. winds)


All was well though. I being accustomed to the patience and perseverance of expedition skiing (and NZ weather), and my ski partner- assured minutes before with a radio weather update, from the DOC base in Mt. Cook village, that the storm was forecasted to clear by the morrow (and allow our escape from the sea of snow and exposure)


It's all part of the experience.. Sure we all love blue sky, calm winds and powder skiing off the summit. But it's the: heated game of late night candle lit Monopoly, methodically sharpening your crampons with a 1" Leatherman fingernail-file, rappelling off an ice bollard high on exposed ridgeline- as a storm intensifies, eatin' rice and oatmeal for three days straight, jerry rigging your Goal Zero and splicing it to the solar light fixture to keep your MP3 player charged in the blizzard, doin' chin ups, squats and burpees to stay warm, the process of tunneling out the hut door (a couple times a day!) to empty the piss bucket, reading a dozen old Nat Geos- cover to cover… It's all part of the process. These things are what give the experience depth. They may not be the obvious reasons for investing in a trip to New Zealand, but they surely contribute to the essence of skiing in the Southern Alps..

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Nov 4 2013 6:40PM
2 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Snapshot from last month ski mountaineering in Patagonia.
Nov 7 2013 11:24PM
0 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Another exploratory ski trip to New Zealand…in the books. The process of growing a beard, then shaving it off. On the Surface, everything seems the same, both over there and back here, but inevitably things change, however subtle. Priority number 1: come back home safe and sound, check. Put the new backcountry ski design through the wringer, check. Climb and ski some wild, remote and beautiful new mountains/ lines, check. Document/ photograph, live In and appreciate the present, check.
Click for larger image
You live and you learn. You come to a fork in the road, and yep, you take it. You deal with the unavoidable good and bad times, the star-light and the storm, the powder turns and the unrelenting moraine, the sweat and the tears, the uncertain and the epiphany. It's all there. Whether you like it or not, whether it matters much, or even if you make sense of it, you made your decisions and gave them your honest and wholehearted effort.
Click for larger image
Still, of course, there are always the what ifs, the if onlys, and so forth, but that's human nature. You want to learn more, make the best calls, travel in the finest style, and hold the highest ethic. And that's why you keen going back, making sacrifices, yearning for more. Striving for the ideal. Always aspiring...
Click for larger image
(radio edit)
Click for larger image
Nov 11 2013 12:52PM
4 0
profile picture
Mama.
Posts: 3066 - Karma: 2,605
This thread is cool and I like it. Therefore I am threadsing.
Nov 11 2013 10:58PM
1 0
profile picture
.MASSHOLE.
Posts: 7408 - Karma: 11,040
Love the thread.

Ive been following Brody on Instagram, but does he have a blog or anything as well with all the stories?
Nov 12 2013 12:12AM
0 0
profile picture
HWW
Posts: 3084 - Karma: 3,436
I love this thread.
Nov 12 2013 4:20AM
0 0
profile picture
.[sanhedrin].
Posts: 1649 - Karma: 917
http://surfaceskis.squarespace.com/notes-from-the-field/
Nov 12 2013 11:20AM
1 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger image
Brody has taken the same pair of Walk Frees to some pretty amazing places this year. From the Transylvanian Alps, climbing and skiing off the summit of Denali, topping out on some of the most rugged peaks in Patagonia, first descents in Iceland, and hundreds of outings in the Wasatch, Tetons, Cascades, and many more. His Walk Frees have seen better days but they were for him day in and day out when he depended on them for safe backcountry travel in the harshest conditions. Its been a pleausre watching him put them through the ringer.
Nov 17 2013 9:07PM
2 0
profile picture
malonius_funk
Posts: 2249 - Karma: 1,500
threads. i don't see the problem with having another backcountry/touring thread. if anything, it will provide this site with more knowledge that could be quite valuable.

anways, with a sketchy snowpack here in southwestern Montana my partners and i been sticking close to the resort (Bridger Bowl) and skiing the lines we are familiar with. it's been unreal so far...lots of pow! we're hoping to make it to Cooke City once the season really kicks in and explore there; it looks freaking unreal!

i'm really digging how you guys have picked up on the mountaineering/backcountry side of skiing, not a lot of companies seem to be doing what you're doing. keep it up, peace!

Nov 17 2013 11:52PM
0 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Great early season snowpack evaluation by the Utah Avalanche Center...
Nov 20 2013 11:21AM
2 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Been getting after it on the fat-bikes here in Utah this early season. Anyone else hopping on the fat-bike train to access new terrain?
Click for larger image
Dec 4 2013 10:55PM
1 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Click for larger imageClick for larger imageClick for larger image
Lit out on a solo dawnie this morning to poke around and look at snow pack. On the contrary to the epic faceshot pics the kids are posting on their social media feeds, the snow is shallow and sharkie. Travel lightly out there. - Schneider
Dec 5 2013 2:19PM
1 0
profile picture
*SURFACE
Posts: 1248 - Karma: 5,764
Notes From the Field update from Beau Fredlund in Cooke City, Montana:
Click for larger image
Easing into winter.. Planning trips, stretching the legs, soaking up the sunshine, enjoying the arctic air. Brushing up on avalanche awareness, slowly 'opening' routes..
Click for larger image
We've had a fair bit of snow here in SW Montana. (good outlook for the season ;) But we've also had a number of humblingly large slab avalanches.. These events are a nice poignant reminder to have early in the season. Stay safe out there. And have fun.!
Dec 7 2013 10:29AM
2 0
All times are Eastern (-4)