Life used to be hard, so skiers created chairlifts and made skiing easy. Today life is easy, so skiers want to skip the lifts and make skiing hard again.
There鈥檚 more to it than that, of course鈥攖ouring gear has gotten way better, for one鈥攂ut backcountry skiing and snowboarding are booming while resort numbers are flat. According to research by the Snowsports Industries of America, some 1.4 million Americans skied or snowboarded in the backcountry in the winter of 2017鈥18. That鈥檚 a healthy jump from the 650,000 participants in 2010, estimated by 聽(the approximation considered the most accurate at that time), and it鈥檚 matched by a surging market for backcountry gear. During the 2017鈥18 season, sales of alpine-touring equipment exceeded $24 million鈥攁 30 percent increase over the previous year. Meanwhile, sales of backcountry equipment like beacons and shovels now top $20 million per season. What鈥檚 more, the Forest Service expects that backcountry winter sports will continue to grow deep into this century, despite a warming climate and diminishing snowfall. According to a recent study by the agency, between 2008 and 2060 the U.S. will see up to a 106 percent increase in 鈥渦ndeveloped skiing,鈥 which includes nordic skiers and snowshoers, due in part to fit