Note:

Winter recreation in the back-country comes with inherent risk. Avalanche education and gear is a must. Visit the Utah Avalanche Center or your local center for more information. At the very least, watch this video and educate yourself about avalanche terrain, risks, and awareness: Know Before You Go

All tours embarked on with our kids so far are in low angle, safe terrain, free from avalanche hazard and during stable conditions.

---

While we’ve been skiers for many moons now, and teaching our kids to ski for roughly the last 8-10 years, it wasn’t until recently that we embarked into the backcountry on anything other than snowshoes. It wasn’t for lack of desire, but for lack of funding… If you are new to the backcountry scene, the price of gear roughly makes up for the cost of lift tickets. But last year we got really lucky. We found touring set ups, skis, skins, Dynfit bindings, and Black Diamond boots for a crazy good deal at REI. They are backcountry rentals that they were selling off and perfect for Chris and I! The trouble is, after only a few tours at the end of last season, we fell in love with it! It has a whole different feel than resort skiing. Now you might think we are crazy. And I get it, why would you want to hike up when you can take a chairlift?! But the mentality is entirely different. Have you ever hiked a peak and wished you could just float back to the car instead of hike the rocky, knee killing, feet aching miles back to the car that you can barely see as a speck in the distance? It is like that, only you do get to float back to the car!

So naturally, when all three of our kids (ages 4, 6, and 8) reached a point where they could skillfully or at least manage to get down blue runs in control, we began teasing around the idea of touring with them. But let us go back to the cost issue… even if they did make kid sized touring boots, the bindings alone are $500 and very very difficult to find used for much less. So we ditched the gear idea (at first) and went with hiking instead.

Backcountry Tour Trial 1

Our first backcountry adventure was up Millcreek Canyon, UT. I apologize for the old photos… it was quite a few years ago! Millcreek is a fantastic place to go for a wintry stroll or cross-country skiing. We can bring our dog and stop at many of the picnic areas for snacks or lunch. For this reason, we figured it was a great place to start our grand backcountry experiment. We picked a cloudy and not-so scenic day to go. But hey, any day out is a good day. :) My husband loaded the kids skis and boots, (thank goodness they are small) into his Deuter 50 liter pack. We hiked 2 miles up the canyon, transitioned to ski mode :) and cruised the downhill. Our bitsy one needed a few minutes of reprieve on the way up. But all in all it went well. And the kids asked over and over when we could do it again!

Skinning and ski touring with a Chariot trailer

Another great person to follow is Brooke Froelich. She regularly skins up + skis down with her young children using a Chariot trailer with ski attachments. She has these tips:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Let’s talk about skinning with kids! I’m not going to lie- this activity is much more about ME, than it is about THEM. Of course I try to make it fun, and keep them comfortable, but getting out and hiking on my skis in the winter is one of my favorite ways to care for my physical and emotional health and to literally bring the kids in tow… Terrain selection is the key element to traveling in the backcountry with kids. First and foremost, I want to make sure I am traveling on avy safe terrain. This means that I take time to do some research about where to go, and use avy education and skills to make safe and smart terrain selections. It’s been a few years since I took my AIRE level one avy course, so I took a refresher this year (check your local REI or ski resort to find a refresher or basic skills class near you). We typically bring avy rescue beacons, mostly for the habit. But we steer clear of terrain that poses risk of avalanche. When we moved to Colorado, I had NO idea where to find avy safe winter roads to travel on. I began reaching out to other Colorado residents and friends on social media, and asking for advice and ideas. The Powder Project website is a great place to find new terrain to explore too! If you feel uncertain, go hike an area first to scope it out! . . Skiing while hauling a chariot is just a little bit different haha. I believe the @thule chariot ski attachment is primarily designed for XC skiing. It can be a little tricky to turn quickly. When I’m going down a steeper section, I go into FULL PIZZA MODE to slow us down. And of course, the climb up is a bit more work when hauling 60lbs of children plus all the gear haha . . Here’s the breakdown of the gear I use to skin with my kids in the winter: Skis with alpine touring bindings and skins: I use @nordica Santa Ana 88 skis and the Strider touring boot with a Marker Kingpin binding. This is also the set up I use most days in the resort. It’s great! Ascension skins: mine are old ratty ones I’ve had forever. They work fine for the mellow roads we travel up. @Thule double chariot with the ski attachment. Huck’s skis and boots for the way down! Zoom! (Continued in comments)

A post shared by Brooke Froelich (@brooke.froelich) on Feb 27, 2020 at 5:55pm PST

Backcountry Tour Trial 2

When trying new things, con another family into joining you! It wasn’t too hard in this case, our adventure family buddies are not to hard to talk into trying new things, especially when you offer to carry their youngest on the way up or down when needed. :)

For our destination? Grizzly Gulch up by Alta Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon. So far we’ve had a high priority on easy and safe terrain with the kids. Grizzly Gulch is awesome not only for safe and easy-ish terrain, the views are epic and the access is very convenient. We put Yaktraks and micro-spikes on the kiddos who were hiking in snow boots to assist on the steep, icy snow. The kids did decently well on the uphill. We stopped a few times for a little exploring through the forest. Once again our kids had a blast. And we learned that even without touring gear for the kids, we could sort of make this work! Having friends along and ample trail bait in the form of sugar always helps too. :)

The descent was easy, as we stayed on the road with the kids. Two kiddos got a ride down on the daddy-porters. The whole family had a blast, despite a few complaints on the way up. And sure, we were moving at a snails pace, but I learned long ago to change my expectations when we adventure as a family. Soon our adventures progressed to places up Big Cottonwood Canyon: Maybe one day backcountry touring as a family really is in the cards? Looking for more info on the next step: Finding AT gear for kids? Check out our second post in this series.