Skiing a Peak: What it takes

[BillMiddlebrook]

How do you ski off the summit of Sunlight?

The accepted ski start for past finishers is "at" the summit block but sometimes people get closer if snow permits. I'm guessing there's a skier or two out there that were able to get even closer than the photo below.

Eric S.

[supranihilest]

Gatekeeper-steigen, until these people make some kind of claim of being a finisher, I wouldn't let other people's checklists on a public website make you feel like you need to lecture them about what they're allowed to check as skied or climbed or anything else. I think we'll all just continue to mark whatever f***ing peaks off our lists that we want to, if that's okay with you. Or not.

A 14ers.com checklist is not some kind of official finisher list writ in stone. There are no "rules" that dictate what peaks others are allowed to mark off their personal lists or whether to keep them public or private. "But I DID ski 58 peaks and they DIDNT but they marked that they DID and that's not FAIR!" Guess what, you're about the only person on the planet who gives a f**k.

The absolute pettiness and hilarity of someone looking at that list and caring enough to pre-emptively encourage random users not to claim finisher status, to self-importantly remind them of "THE RULES", and to suggest that maybe they should keep their dinky little lists private while the real bergsteigens keep theirs public, as if yours are somehow more valid or important in any way, is just fantastic.

Yeah well I skied all the 14ers using my YUGE cock as a monoski and because nobody can tell me what rules to follow that means I absolutely 100% did it and f**k all the naysayers! Who needs rules and definitions? Not this Frozen Fourteener El Capitan K2 Ski Finisher Megacool Dude, I did it y'all and don't you dare suggest I didn't!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Honesty and integrity are huge in self-reported sports like climbing and skiing. If you don't want to play by the rules set forth by your predecessors that's fine, but don't expect those who have done the hard work to sit idly by while you claim your half-assedness is the same as their whole-assedness. You're going to hear about it as your list and reputation grow and you'd better be able to prove it. Feel free to one-up your predecessors but don't water down their accomplishments if you can't personally cut it. Just my 2¢.

That said, someone random claiming to have skied Square Top when they didn't follow the rules to a T is a total non-event and calling them out is overkill IMO. That makes 4¢.

[9patrickmurphy]

This all seems to me just as pedantic as the 3,000-ft rule: perfectly useful and necessary if we're talking about records, FKTs, and lists that ask for recognition, but by and large most people ignore the rule and climb for the fun of it anyway. Isn't it the same deal for skiing?

Otina, you yourself don't seem to subscribe to the 3,000-ft rule (skimming through your TRs I see Gilpin was way under the mark). Is it that you're more interested in recognition for skiing the 58 so you care more about the 1,000-ft descent rule than the 3,000-ft ascent rule, or is this more of a 14ers/13ers list discrepancy? I'm really not meaning to sound accusatory, I'm just curious why one would push one rule but not the other. Apologies if I got something wrong and the 3,000-ft rule is just a red herring entirely (count me as a member of the "younger generation" trying to learn ).

[docinco]

How do you ski off the summit of Sunlight?

carefully.

[bergsteigen]

I thought this was about Snowmass, not Square Top. How come one TR got called out and not the other? Is Snowmass one that is not skiable from the summit? Not trying to throw shade, just genuinely curious.

Contrary to popular belief, I’m not gate keeping every bloody TR. I just happened to see the Squaretop one, when I knew damn well from skiing Bierstadt that it was NOT IN. So I looked. Then I happened to click on the peak list and noticed it was counted. So figuring this guy and others could become prolific skiers, I figured some education on the community standard was needed (and who the community that decides is - Ie I just follow what has been done before me).

Kind of like how every winter we have the winter snowflake debate.

[Aphelion]

... What's lacking in integrity is to ask for people's opinions but then supplant "blahs" when they express an opinion you don't like. If you were genuinely looking for community input you would have a discourse
...

I don't think this was a request for input. There is a specific set of standards maintained by the CO skimo community regarding what they consider 'skiing a peak' to mean, and this is a PSA on what those standards are.

[bergsteigen]

This all seems to me just as pedantic as the 3,000-ft rule: perfectly useful and necessary if we're talking about records, FKTs, and lists that ask for recognition, but by and large most people ignore the rule and climb for the fun of it anyway. Isn't it the same deal for skiing?

Otina, you yourself don't seem to subscribe to the 3,000-ft rule (skimming through your TRs I see Gilpin was way under the mark). Is it that you're more interested in recognition for skiing the 58 so you care more about the 1,000-ft descent rule than the 3,000-ft ascent rule, or is this more of a 14ers/13ers list discrepancy? I'm really not meaning to sound accusatory, I'm just curious why one would push one rule but not the other. Apologies if I got something wrong and the 3,000-ft rule is just a red herring entirely (count me as a member of the "younger generation" trying to learn ).

It is pedantic in some respects. I don’t subscribe to the 3k to count a summit rule. Vast majority of 13er hikers do not. I’ve ended up doing 3k on all the 14ers over time, so I’ve made note. I say 1k for a descent because of the double peaks, since to me skiing to the saddle isn’t really skiing the peak. I want a line skied off a peak. Some finishers have only skied to a saddle and counted it. I don’t like it, but that’s grey area. On of my ski partners would not count anything that was side stepped and called me out for doing it for a few feet on Longs. We all have the levels to which we individually count things. I’m just trying to inform what those who’ve gone before me count as a ski descent.

[greenonion]

Can I just say that I’m THRILLED to have the garden-variety bitching back, instead of the recent and now torpedoed dysfunctional and toxic crap we endured for way too long? Really. Ok, carry on...

[Dave B]

Can I just say that I’m THRILLED to have the garden-variety bitching back, instead of the recent and now torpedoed dysfunctional and toxic crap we endured for way too long? Really. Ok, carry on...

Hear! Hear!

[Jorts]

This all seems to me just as pedantic as the 3,000-ft rule

[9patrickmurphy]

Can I just say that I’m THRILLED to have the garden-variety bitching back, instead of the recent and now torpedoed dysfunctional and toxic crap we endured for way too long? Really. Ok, carry on...

Spoke too soon I guess

[Jorts]

It has come to my attention that the younger generation is unaware of what it takes to ski a peak, thinking that you can leave skis hundreds of feet below a summit (not even brining skis to summit) and then count it. So let’s go back to the beginning with the originator of this gloriously hard, but so gratifying sport!

14er Ski Ethics (Rules) by Lou Dawson:

For his project (and for subsequent projects) Dawson defines a ski descent of a fourteener as skiing "the best (most often the longest) continuous descent available on an average snow year, almost always from the exact summit, with the exception being the few fourteeners (such as Wetterhorn and El Diente) that have rocky summit blocks or boulder caps that were never known to be in skiable condition prior to the project. "
"Since you're skiing natural snow, some descents might have gaps where you remove your skis and move a few feet across rock or tundra. Again, if you're up there on an average snow year with decent coverage, such maneuvers are legit so long as they are not excessive. But, and this is the big BUT, if I'm on a peak with bad coverage because it's too early in the year or a drought, and I have to connect snow patches that would otherwise touch each other, then I don't count it as a descent of the peak. Instead, I go back again and again 'till I get it right. To me this is a critical part of my standards, because doing otherwise would allow me a sort of 'post modern' style of ski mountaineering wherein I could claim a descent of a peak even if I skied a few hundred feet of snow on the thing in the middle of summer. I don't think people would buy that, and it just wouldn't feel good."

You're kind of being the fun police calling this guy/gal out. True, it's a low tide season... but by Dawson's own stated rules, the most skiable line on an average snow year where a little dry docking between gaps is allowable and reasonable.

The rules, to some degree, are arbitrary. You're calling this person out for not adhering to Dawson's rules. According to your rules, some lines don't count unless it's an ABOVE average snowpack year. So do we want everyone to follow Dawson's rules, or Otina's rules?

Unclear why this sticks in your craw so much as to have to call this person out. I'm fairly confident that he/she was not trying to hoodwink the forum into thinking he/she was the resident ski authority instead of you.

For the record, I might just be emotional because of a tofu induced estrogen overdose.