Background, Clients and New Gear

Tom:  Welcome, Christian. Thanks a lot for taking part.

Christian:  Sure.

Tom: If you can just tell us a little bit about your guiding and your ski background.

Christian:   Well, I've been guiding now for a little over 20 years, and most of that has been in the Sierra and the Tetons and then quite a bit in Patagonia. I also do a fair bit of guiding in the Alps. And then as a skier and ski mountaineer, I started out as a snowboarder in the early ‘90s and did that for quite a long time. Then when I started wanting to guide, I realized that the snowboard was a rather limiting tool for getting around in the backcountry and taking care of folks, so my wife gave me a pair of skis and said, "Dude, you got to learn how to ski."

Tom:  [laughs]

Christian:  So, that's when I started telemark skiing and eventually went to alpine touring just as a more solid, easier to use tool that is more versatile. So, I've been skiing for about nine years now. I've been guiding for a good part of that time, guided a lot here in the Tetons, and that's kind of my primary location. I'm still working into trying to find some clients to go to the Alps to do some of the amazing tours there. And I'm also putting together a trip to Chilean volcanoes in the Lake District. So that should be a really fantastic trip.

But, here in the Tetons, we have such amazing ski mountaineering terrain. We get to do all sorts of deep powder winter skiing, as well as spring corn snow and peak climbing in the winter, and that's kind of… that's what I get to do.

Tom:  So, with clients, do you take people who are on snowboards themselves?

Christian:  Yeah, I take everybody. I haven't had a lot of snowboard clients. I have had some. The most important thing with snowboard clients is really choosing appropriate terrain, where it's not going to flatten out and they get stuck in a section, and then making sure they have a good, efficient uphill system, whether it's a splitboard or short skis. I have guided folks on snowshoes. Really, whenever I guide, my goal is to not only show them around the backcountry and show them a good time, but teach them some new skills to make them more efficient in the backcountry so their time spent climbing, in particular, is as effortless as possible, although, the effort's part of the fun.

Tom:  Yeah, I was going to say, I like the climbing part.

Christian: I like the climbing part, too. I mean, you do a lot of backcountry skiing, you gotta enjoy the uphill, because it's probably three quarters uphill, one quarter downhill.

Tom:   When people tell me, "It's too much work for the fun part," I just look at them and ask, "Which is the fun part?"

Christian:  Yep, exactly. Backcountry skiing is about a lot of different things. The downhill is really fun, and backcountry skiing has become one of my favorite things to do, because you get to go fast downhill and swish around in the powder, and so forth. But, it's also a really amazing way to travel, and it's an amazing way to see the mountains in the winter, and travel places that you might know in the summer, but have a totally different character in wintertime.

It's a totally different game now and especially in the last couple years as you've got rocker tip skis and really fat [skis], 115 millimeters under foot. The backcountry scene has totally changed, and it's encompassing much more of the downhill. Black Diamond talks about "it's all about the downhill." Again, it's super fun. It's amazing to watch the skis change to such a degree that, they're so much easier to turn. They allow you to get to so many more places. One of the things that is really driving backcountry skiing right now is that the equipment is so good, it makes it so much easier….