"One line from the backcountry ski world is: April is the new May," Mr. Schendler said.
Renowned rock- and ice-climbing outfits call the nearby village of North Conway home; beautiful and challenging mountain passes attract mountain bikers and road cyclists; and the backcountry skiing is world-famous.
I was lucky that March day, but in the world of backcountry snow sports, where there is no ski patrol or avalanche control, luck can quickly run out.
"Sometimes the snowflakes here are large enough to cast shadows," said Pam Marks, a transplanted Canadian ski instructor who took me out on the mountain, adding that the skiing and snowboarding on even the regular slopes compare with world-class backcountry experiences she's had in North America.
As you might've guessed, Earl isn't your ordinary Android tablet — the team refers to it as the world's first "backcountry survival tablet," and it has a prospective spec sheet that certainly lives up to the name.
Seven backcountry skiers, including a retired world-champion snowboarder, were swept by an avalanche to their deaths while searching for the perfect run on the glaciers of the Selkirk Mountains of western Canada.
Re "Driving From Ucross to Sheridan in the Depths of an Owlish Darkness," by Verlyn Klinkenborg (Editorial Observer, Dec. 9): I've always wondered who in the world was out there driving our backcountry roads at 3 a.m. in a snowstorm.
Two worlds are colliding in this piney woods backcountry in southern Alabama: casual drug use and a local district attorney unsettled that children or fetuses might be affected by it.
Adams joins an Australian adventurer named John Leivers for a trek deep into the Peruvian backcountry, a journey that feels to Adams "like descending into a forgotten world..
If only there was a resort that had it all: endless backcountry plus baby slopes; unspoilt villages and the swankiest hotels in the world; history, cool après ski and silent nights.
