A Response to the Vermont Life Magazine Article on Trail Cutting

The Big Jay trail cutting incident continues to create discussion about so called “illegal backcountry trail cutting.” Vermont Life Winter 2009 edition presents an article that fails to fully flesh out the issue and generally focuses on only one side of the “problem” and “solution”. So lets delve into this subject in detail using the Vermont Life article as a launching pad for a more in depth discussion.

• Vermont Life Magazine, Winter 2009: A Thousand Cuts (Article)

Is Cutting a “Backcountry” Problem?

First, I would like to address this common concept of blaming “backcountry skiers” for illegal cutting and thinning. I propose that the majority of illegal cutting occurs at established ski areas within or adjacent to ski area boundaries. While there are those that cut and thin lines that are strictly accessible by earning turns, most thinned areas are lift service accessible or at least slackcountry accessible from a lift with a short hike. This is not strictly a “backcountry” problem and I would suggest that the problem is actually significantly bigger at and around ski areas. The Vermont Life article (or at least those quoted within it) confuses ski area gladed terrain with backcountry terrain (or at least is written in such a way that suggests confusion).

Second, all skiers and riders currently recreating in illegally thinned out tree lines are culpable and have provided defacto approval and endorsement of the activity. This likely even includes many if not most of the persons quoted in the Vermont Life article that suggest “skiing without a saw”. Perhaps prior to the Big Jay cut, there could be no guilty mind despite the guilty act because cutting and thinning of lines seemed very acceptable and the way things are done. But since the Big Jay cut, any one that skis a line that has been thinned illegally is providing their tacit endorsement of the activity. This likely includes many skiers and riders who have decried cutting and thinning the loudest.

Perhaps many do so without even knowing that the line was thinned illegally. However, I think it is a safe assumption that unless a ski area actively promotes boundary to boundary (or perhaps even beyond the boundary) tree skiing, most tree skiing not on a trail map is likely the result of illegal or unauthorized cutting. Essentially, most tree skiing off the map is likely maintained without the approval of the adjacent ski area.

Environmental Arguments Not Adding Up

In the Vermont Life article, a Jay Peak Ski Patroller comments that “the skiing sucks” when excessive cutting leads to big gaps in the canopy and trees do not grow back. I have skied Jay Peak extensively and I would suggest that this issue is most prevalent within Jay Peak’s established on map glades. Perhaps one or two areas have been thinned past the point of reasonably opening up the trees for skiing and riding. But more often than not, and most unlike the Big Jay cut example, tree skiers who are thinning and cutting are doing so on a small scale and are not opting for large scale open areas. With exception of Mad River Glen, no ski areas in New England seem to be concerned with the opening of their glades into trails yet a ten foot wide ribbon interspersed with soft woods with hobblebush removed is an issue.

Further, the environmental issue of a “a single branch here and a bit of undergrowth there adds up” does not actually add up. Any one who has either visited and hiked a NELSAP location or participated in a trail maintenance day at Mad River Glen can attest to the fact that the forest grows back rather quickly. Without regular yearly maintenance, thinned out tree lines grow back sensationally fast. The legality issue can be debated but in the long term the environmental issue does not hold water for small scale thinning.

It Is Not The What But The Why

Another point I want to address is the ultimate goal of almost all thinning project. The Big Jay cut aside, thinning is done not to make trails but rather skiable trees. The goal is NOT to cut down trees when thinning! Almost everyone involved in tree skiing unanimously agrees that “less is more.” The Big Jay cut was outrageous in its scope. Something that has never been done before and will likely never be done again. And on that point, as the article notes, everyone is in agreement.

But the agreement does not end there. Everyone also agrees that this is a fairly cut and dry legal issue as well. It is absolutely illegal to walk onto property that is not your own and start altering the landscape. Even if it is owned by the state or nation (though some would argue that point, I think those excessively defensive individuals are the sometimes vocal extreme minority). So what both sides of the issue need to do is evaluate why people take matters into their own hands and break the law. And further, why skiers and riders that had nothing to do with a thinned out trail would ski the run despite the implicit understanding that it is a “fine piece of work by the locals.”

Scarcity of Powder

There are two main issues at hand including scarcity of powder and a general lack of options for a specific type of terrain. Let’s look at each aspect in more detail.

Scarcity of powder is a big motivational factor in skiing trees. As tree skiing has increased, more and more skiers and riders are heading off the trails seeking untracked powder. But gladed terrain at ski areas and especially in the backcountry has not kept pace with demand. Thus, the trees are sometimes tracked out faster than the slopes!

Suffice to say, this issue is not going to go away! Skiers and riders want more trees to provide more powder runs ensuring that “powder days” are not in fact “powder early mornings” or “sloppy seconds powder mornings”. The simple fact is spreading skiers and riders out over more terrain allows more powder skiing for more people. How fast would the powder go if there were no thinned tree runs and all skiers and riders were confined to on piste only?

Scarcity of Terrain

Ski areas and resorts do their best to respond to demand and have added gladed terrain. But environmental organizations often make such efforts extremely difficult. Often times, ski areas simply add previously illegally cut tree skiing areas to their trail map system. A tacit tip of their cap to the fine work of “the locals.”

But before ski areas tip their caps, they often gut the local cut and open up the tree trail because most mere mortals could not handle the tight tree skiing these types of thinning operations yield. Insurance companies are the bane of the ski industry as few ski areas are willing to provide expert skiers with the tight trees they desire for fear of lesser mortals entering extremely difficult terrain and hurting themselves. Thus, skiers seeking adventure decide to find that adventure on their own terms since their demand is not being addressed due to liability reasons. Ask any tree skier their favorite lines and I doubt many on map locations will be alluded to.

The bottom line here is that expert skiers and riders have pent up demand for powder that lasts longer and for more challenging terrain. These demands are not being met so slackcountry tree skiing is being opened up adjacent to every ski area from Jay down to Sundown and beyond.

You may have noticed that I am mostly discussing issues related to illegal thinning at and adjacent to ski areas. This is due to the fact that most trimming is happening in these locations because, let’s face it, most skiers do not want to work too hard for their powder and want a high quantity of powder that the lifts can provide. But backcountry skiers and riders have the demand problem even worse.

Essentially, there are no officially maintained backcountry skiing glades or tree runs in the entire northeast. A quick review of David Goodman’s Backcountry Skiing Adventures books suggests that there is not much official backcountry skiing terrain in New England aside from some above treeline skiing on locations such as Mount Washington and a few select remaining CCC trails, which are usually significantly lacking in the adrenaline department.

For steep tree skiing, there is currently no official means of enjoying the backcountry save for a few “naturally” occurring glades. But really, how many completely “natural” glades ski very well without at least a little brushing? Those that suggest such lines exist in anything except for tight lipped circles are disingenuous in their preaching of “if you can’t hack it, don’t hack it.” Excepting a few very select (and mostly unknown) parts of Northern Vermont, naturally occurring tree skiing is generally not available.

Is There a Solution?

Perhaps the better question would be “is there really a problem?” But lets start with the notion that perhaps there is indeed a problem. Adam Howard of Backcountry Magazine believes that it is “time for a clean slate” and time to “work with the states to create legitimate backcountry options.”

Does a clean slate mean we get to keep our existing thinned out glades and tree cuts? That would require additional yearly trimming to keep things open, which goes against a clean slate approach (or at least against how a clean slate is being enforced by the authorities). A “clean slate” would mean a generalized reduction in skiable tree options due to tree lines regrowing even if it opens up a few new “official” trails. The net loss would be significant. Are we ready to give up our non-ski area and non-official backcountry tree skiing? There is no chance that official channels could open up enough terrain to equate to perhaps even a tiny amount of the potential loss if the “locals” stopped maintaining lines.

Regarding organization, backcountry skiers have become an individualistic lot. Could backcountry skiers organize and work with state organizations to create official backcountry tree skiing? Absolutely! It has worked for the Catamount Ski Trail in Vermont (though I think Ben Rose’s suggestion that it worked for the Long Trail through the Green Mountain Club so it will work for backcountry skiing is tremendously naive as the two situations are radically different in nature and scope).

But the major problem with organization as compared to other such efforts from non-skiing recreational groups (e.g. hiking, biking, snowmobiling, etc.) is that the demand is not strictly for more terrain but rather more powder. Organizing and putting known locations of good tree skiing into the public knowledge is anathema to those that cut the trails in question in the first place. Organization would defeat the very purpose of creating “secret stashes” in the first place!

The problem again is that most of the thinning and cutting is not truly backcountry in origin. Even the big daddy of them all that started the conversation going, the Big Jay cut, was meant to be a slackcountry run using a car and the Jay Peak Resort Tram for access and transportation minus the short hike out to Big Jay via the Saddle. Even if the Backcountry Skiers and Riders of New England organized and worked with state organizations to create a (likely limited) number of backcountry tree skiing areas, it would be unlikely that the majority of thinning and cutting would be reduced because most folks participating in such activities ride the lifts more often than skiing backcountry, if they ski backcountry at all.

An organization effort could potentially work only if a “clean slate” entails continued maintenance of existing lines with the clean slate going forward and ideally new backcountry options opening up through organized efforts. Otherwise, there is no motivation to organize and far more preferable and easier to conduct business as usual.

Is There a Problem?

In closing, I would suggest that the Vermont Life article did not fully flesh out and put into context the issue of illegal thinning and cutting of areas for the purpose of tree skiing and riding. The notion that this is a “backcountry” problem is entirely off base. And the ecological effect of the majority of trail cutting efforts (large scale clearing such as the Big Jay cut aside) are overstated and likely something the forest would forget about all together if yearly upkeep was not performed. The reason organization is unlikely to happen is because agencies would be extremely unlikely to provide allowances for authorized cutting to meet the still growing demand for tree skiing both adjacent to ski areas and in the backcountry.

Further, I would suggest that this so called “problem” will resolve itself via the passage of time. Several interested parties were appropriately outraged about the Big Jay cut and launched a campaign without considering the ramifications, the context, or the full scope of the issues. Simply stating that “if you can’t hack it, don’t hack it” is naive in suggesting that there is some sort of abundance of naturally occurring tree skiing, let alone enough to meet demand, and that cutting is not needed. Bullocks.

Perhaps the problem is that there really is no problem but rather a problem was proposed due to a highly publicized desecration of land that has never happened before, will never happened again, and is not condoned by anyone. Leave it as you found it? What then could ever possibly be found when it comes to skiing trees?

Status quo may not be the best solution as there clearly is some excessive exuberance in the thinning sector even beyond the Big Jay cut. But the proposed solutions by many fail to acknowledge the demand that created this issue in the first place. Tree skiing is here to stay and growing every year as more and more skiers and riders get off the groomers and into the woods searching out adventure and powder. A clean slate is not acceptable and neither is allowing the maintained areas to grow back. Ultimately, no one has an answer and until a reasonable and mutually agreed upon solution can be proposed, I say status quo is the way to go.