Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25062
photo, Scott Bauer "it·s there if You Want it and h ere 's how You go about Want' -- I , ASPEn A Hig h-En d Resort Fin ds its Soul The backcountry is hard. Avalanches and crevasses and tree wells and backpacks going and you have the skills to go there}. Highlands has the Y chutes. Actually more bowl than chute, more short walk than long and cl iffs. The palpable weight of gear solely designed to bail your ass out: trans ceivers and shovels and probe poles. Wind, snow and sky. The wrong line leads to mandatory air. In a sentence, the inbound sandbox is where you go to free your ego; the backcountry is the home of the soul. All of this is why Aspen has decid ed to do what no other major American resort has yet to do-they've decided to open their gates, to free your mi nds, to let your asses follow. They're calling it a backcountry tour, an off-piste experience, the holy grail of the extreme world. You want to believe them, really, they seem so sin cere, but what the hell, they're talking about Aspen. Aspen, Colorado. Where the rich and famous and every other techni- color-yahoo on vacation comes to wander and graze, where the most extreme things are the prices. But someone has realized that there are other things at stake, things like real skiing and purity and memory of a time when things were different. Stand atop two mountains, Aspen Highlands or Snowmass, swivel your head and gape. This is the new territory of Aspen's guided backcountry tours (you can certainly ski all of this land solo-just make sure you know where you're hike, more deep than steep. But remember, this isn't meant for the expert, this is meant as an introduction. Aspen's way of saying: it's there if you want it and here's how you go about wanting it. Snowmass is a another animal. The tours run off the west edge of the mountain, into the glades beyond Elk Camp, a terrain vast and white and tree-thick. It is the type of place you go to lose yourself and find yourself. The God's country that led some errant fool to put a lift here in the first place. It's the type of free-heel place that requires trekkers or rondonnee set ups. And if all of that is too tame, too pedestrian, not a meal but a morsel, there's the backside of the Cirque. Last year Snowmass added a platter lift, making the Cirque's high alpine bowl some of the baddest lift-served territory in the whole blessed range. But just over the top, a short boot pack away, is the real goal: a wide cliff band parceled into rigid chutes and dicey lines and big drops. It's all there-you just got to want it. -Steven Kotler GUIDED TOURS RUN ONLY ON FRIDAYS AND COST AROUND $100. THEY INCLUDE LUNCH. l) ASPEN SKI SCHOOL (800-525-6200) OFFERS 2-, 7- AND 20-DAY LIFT TICKETS AS WELL AS SEASONS PASSES: 2-0AY TICKET 13-27 YEARS OLD 28-64 YEARS OLD 7-0AY TICKET $274 $90 $118 $385 .................. � ............ �) Ing it.