Use these tips to keep her smiling.
During recent trips to a popular local backcountry skiing spot, I’ve been learning new tricks to help keep the gals around. Nice to have good role models — during nearly every trip I see a guy using these techniques to keep his girlfriend smiling.
1. Use tech bindings so uphill kickturns are easy and you can look good, but encourage her to use kick-turn-difficult telemark gear so her yoga classes have a purpose. Likewise, if she uses borrowed skins that don’t fit her skis, so much the better.
2. If breaking trail, set a skin track so steep that she falls backwards at least four times each lap, preferably just above a 200 foot cliff. This is a fantastic technique because adrenaline enhances sexuality.
3. When setting skin track, go as steep as possible for short sections, then compensate by leveling off or actually going slightly downhill. The idea here is to increase the calorie burn, something every girl appreciates.
4. Again, for the yoga effect, always make your kick turns somewhat steeper than the actual skin track. If you do this she might ski tour in yoga pants, and that would be good, very good.
5. Keep up a weight training program so you can push yourself up your steep skintrack with your arms. She’ll appreciate this to no end, since she feels her arms could always be larger and more manly.
6. Keep your girlfriend behind you on your death-wall skintrack, that way she’ll experience the the thrill of sliding down the mountain backwards, unimpeded by big strong guy who could stop her slide and thus humiliate her.
7. When breaking trail, wander out into any major avalanche path you can instead of using an obvious safe line through timbered ridges. Advantage here is she’ll be awed by your avy hazard evaluation skills. More, if finances are an issue in your relationship, she’ll be clear on why you buy a new shovel every season.
8. Likewise, never spread out in avalanche terrain as she might get chatted up by the competition.
9. Keep the availability of ski crampons a dark secret (and never give for birthday present), as her yoga prep could suffer due to easy climbing on icy skin tracks.
10. If other backcountry skiers show up, don’t say anything and don’t make eye contact. Instead, let her do the talking. Women have a need to verbalize, so she’ll love you for the manly grimness that gives her space for chat.
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.
