Making the case for backcountry ski trails

I first met Mike Whelan on top of Mount Marcy many years ago. Like me, Mike had skied to the summit and was looking forward to the run down. The following year I skied with him on Algonquin and Wright peaks.

That second outing resulted in a story that appeared in the Adirondack Explorer. We were accompanied by Susan Bibeau, who took photos; her husband, Jeff Oehler; and Ron Konowitz, the first person to ski all 46 of the High Peaks.

Whelan has since moved to Colorado, where he continues to ski in the backcountry. He has created a YouTube channel, Treasured Heights, dedicated to his ski-mountaineering adventures out west. 

Recently, though, Whelan released a short video about the backcountry-ski trails on Jenkins Mountain, which were designed by Konowitz in collaboration with the Paul Smith’s College Visitor Interpretative Center. The trails opened to the public a few years ago.

As Konowitz says in the video, Paul Smith’s is the only college in the nation with a backcountry-ski zone on its campus. While fun for the students, the trails also serve a serious purpose: to demonstrate that backcountry skiing is an ecologically benign sport.

Konowitz has been trying for many years to get the Adirondack Park Agency to come up with reasonable guidelines for backcountry-ski trails on the Forest Preserve. So far, he has been unsuccessful, but he’s hopeful that the agency will do so when it amends the State Land Master Plan.

In the video, Konowitz notes that he created three ski trails totaling 1.5 miles. In doing so, he cut only eight trees with a breast-height diameter of over two inches. Having walked the area on a fall day, before snow covered the ground, I can attest that the environmental impact is barely noticeable–certainly less than that of a hiking trail or snowmobile trail.

Backcountry skiing has been around far longer than the APA. The sport’s pioneers skied Marcy more than a century ago. It’s time that the agency accommodated this traditional use of the Forest Preserve.  

Whelan’s video helps make the case. It’s worth watching.

— Phil Brown

Photo at top: Ron Konowitz skis on one of the backcountry trails on Jenkins Mountain at the Paul Smith’s College VIC. Explorer file photo by Mike Lynch