It’s fun when a new backcountry skiing guidebook comes out. Your hot copy arrives, you flip the pages, and the world of mountain skiing opens up by another zillion acres or so. The Adirondack Slide Guide by Drew Haas is no exception. In the basic style of presenting a ton of oblique annotated aerial photos, the book shows how the legendary ‘dacks provide adventure skiers and riders with a unique playground.
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| Making do with timbered terrain, Adirondack backcountry skiers avoid dense vegitable matter by finding the “slides” and giving them good use — but I’ve heard they still get whipped in the face by a few branches now and than. The preface says life in the Adirondacks must have been tough for Indians who ate bark to make it though winter. Some things never change.
I enjoyed the photos in Drew’s book, but didn’t have to look inside to know how good it is. Right there on the cover, proof that this book is of an enlightened genre — a Dynafit binding peaking out from behind the cover jock’s backpack. |
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| Check out this sample page. Over 70 different slides, faces and gullies are named and labeled in similar shots. As Drew says in his cover letter for my review copy: Happy Exploring!
(Slide Guide is available at retailers in the northeast. |
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
