Snowboarding tips

Within the last decade, advancements in gear technology, a rising cost of lift tickets, and a desire to escape crowds have resulted in a boom in backcountry skiing. But as with other outdoor activities, an increase in people hitting the backcountry has resulted in a strain on our natural resources. As backcountry skiing continues to become more popular, as it inevitably will, it makes it that much more important to take care of each other and respect the land they’re recreating on.

On a Monday morning in early March, Reed Hastings, the billionaire co-founder and former chief executive of Netflix, clicked into the bindings on his snowboard and started off down one of the slopes at Powder Mountain, a ski area in Utah’s northeast corner. He quickly veered off the groomed trail into some well-spaced trees, and as he made turns over bumpy snow, you could hear his edges scratch against patches of ice.

For skiers and snowboarders, it’s hard to do better than a trip to Park City. Not just because it's home to Deer Valley and Park City Mountain, the largest ski and snowboard resort in the US with 7,300 skiable acres. Or because it’s got one of the most action-packed ski towns as well as hotels that span everything from the cozy Washington School House right by the town lift to the St. Regis Deer Valley with its new slopeside aprés spot, the Vintage Room. It’s also because of access and convenience. Park City is one of the easiest ski towns to get to from a major international airport—just a 35-minute drive from SLC and within an hour of four Salt Lake City-area ski resorts, including Alta and Snowbird—and packs a punch as a year-round destination for dining, the outdoors, and festivals, like Sundance and the Deer Valley Music Festival.

There’s nothing like scrambling along a jagged granite ridge resplendent in russet and lime-green lichen, when it should be covered in snow, to remind you that the climate crisis is in full swing. My guide, Maxant Danilo, and I are at an altitude of more than 2,500 metres in the Hautes-Alpes, but even though it’s late January, conditions on south-facing slopes such as these feel more like late spring. Our snowboards are strapped to our backpacks instead of our feet.

Before you board the chairlift at one of the continent’s most unusual ski areas, a sign tells you exactly what’s in store: “Steep Slopes. Cliff Bands. Exposed Rock Formations.”