I recently took a holiday-season job at a national outdoor outfitter. They shall remain nameless, because just last week a VP from Marketing showed up to tell all the new hires that there are company guidelines on blogging. I didn’t bother to read them, so I have no idea if BroBomb meets the criteria. For $9 an hour I don’t really care.

The job has put me in contact with enthusiasts of some outdoor sports that I have no interest in doing, and a different breed of skier/snowboarder than I tend to find myself in contact with. The coolest dudes are the “backcountry” characters. Everything they do happens outside of any “bounds.” They thru-hike, climb, camp, and respond to every question with a mellow head nod and, “fer sher, fer sher.” They’re wells of knowledge wrapped in Marmot or Arcteryx. These cool cats have been teaching me about water purification and “randonee” bindings. They were even kind enough not to laugh (too hard) when I didn’t realize the word was/is pronounced “randonay.”

The snowboarders in this backcountry tribe ride split-boards, which are both strange and fascinating contraptions. I can’t deny that it gives me some small bit of pleasure to know that they still have to use skis in order to get up the hill, and through some convoluted technology they are able to switch back. With all the “skiers copy snowboarders” realities of the past decade, it’s nice to know that there’s something skis will always do better.

They’ve usually done a few years in Colorado, Utah, Montana, or California. Those who never left the east coast always counter western glory stories with their own from “Tuck’s.” I’m sure there are gnarlier places than Tuckerman’s Ravine, but for these guys it’s the feather in their east coast caps.

"How's ur performance base layer, bro?"

Aside from the bond that being the “new guys” will give anybody, I can’t really say I had much in common with these characters. I’m a lifelong park rat, and at 26 I am just beginning to face the fact that the human body can’t slide metal rails forever. I have no contingency plan.

In an effort to relate, I told them stories about how I wore park gloves on Loveland Pass and damn near lost my hand. They asked if I had ever stayed in the park on a powder day, and I sheepishly admitted that I’ve lapped rails while the white stuff was falling. When they heard that I don’t always hold poles, confusion was prevalent and I’m pretty sure one or two guys got offended.

Are we really two different tribes? Does the hardcore DIY backcountry skier have anything in common with a poles-optional park rat? My experiences point to yes. At the risk of getting really sappy about this, there’s a shared passion that bonds us. We’re willing to go out in any conditions and find something to smile about. We don’t buy $1000 setups that collect dust in a closet aside from one or two sunny weekends, and we’ve all had some legit ski injuries.

Freeskiing is very young, but we’re already seeing older pros make their move to the backcountry. You’ll never catch me waxing poetic about “returning to the roots” of skiing by taking a state-of-the-art helicopter to the top of an Alaskan peak. Most of us don’t have access to helicopters or fleets of snowmobiles, but some snowshoes or AT bindings are the poor man’s answers. This might be the year that I get my “Tuck’s” story, and maybe the Meatheads will let me follow them into the eastern wilds to get a story. Will I wish there were a rope-tow and a few rails up there? Absolutely. But I’ll probably have a lot of fun, too.