Skiing By Fair Means

In 1997 Adrian Nature climbed to the North summit of Denali and skied alone down the 14,000-foot Wickersham Wall, the biggest face in North America. Rumor has it, at one point the skiing became so steep that he tossed his pack, retrieving it further down. Then he fell but managed to stop. Hours later, Nature crossed the flooding Muldrow River. It was the first solo and continuous ski descent of the face. A feat accomplished using his own power, starting from the base of the mountain, climbing to the top and skiing back down. Nature skied the Wickersham Wall by fair means.

The term by fair means describes climbing mountains using your strength and ability, while not degrading the mountain to make the ascent easier. By fair means is the purest style of mountaineering. It follows a set of unwritten ethics established by the mountaineering community. The same concepts of mountaineering by fair means can be applied to skiing. 

By fair means was coined by English mountaineer Albert Mummery, who in 1880 backed off the coveted first ascent of the Dent du Géant, a 4,000-meter tooth of rock on the Mont Blanc massif in France. Upon defeat, Mummery said, "Absolutely inaccessible by fair means!" The first ascent of the Dent du Géant came later, in 1882, using iron stanchions, fixed rope and chipped steps. The route is now equipped with thick ropes for climbing hand-over-hand to avoid 5.10 rock climbing.

“Without style and ethics in the mountains, what do we really have?”

— Adam Fabrikant, 2024 AAJ. 

By fair means is a style of moving through the mountains. It describes the manner, skill and equipment used. For example, the best mountaineers use alpine style to move fast and light, as a self-sufficient unit up the mountain. Alpinists—those who climb in alpine style—avoid using fixed ropes, fixed camps, or bottled oxygen. Such as the recent alpine-style ascent of the north face of Jannu. Alpine style is the antithesis of expedition style, where high altitude mountains are climbed by any means necessary: large teams, bottled oxygen, porters, fixed ropes and bolts.  

“Imagine using a step ladder to dunk a basketball.”

— Mark Jenkins, The Elements of Style

For skiing, the most common style is mechanized skiing. A machine—chairlift, gondola, snowcat, snowmobile, or helicopter—lifts the skier to the top of the run. The difficulty of the mountain has been reduced, making it attainable for more skiers, like expedition style. 

Backcountry skiing is equivalent to alpine style. The skier starts at the base of the mountain, ascends the mountain using their skill and strength before making the run. The mountain is approached on its own terms, without using aids to make it easier, or degrading the mountain. 

Where exactly is the line between mechanized skiing and skiing by fair means? Most backcountry skiers use cars to get to the trailhead. What if a snowmobile is used for a ten-mile approach, before climbing to the summit? Is that backcountry skiing? Is that by fair means? It becomes an ethical gray area. In alpinism, the community has drawn an acceptable line. As the late alpinist Hayden Kennedy said, "It's not a kindergarten black and white...the naked free solo."

Part of what bolsters the credentials of skiing by fair means is that it foregoes a guaranteed outcome. While you may want to climb and ski a mountain, there’s a good chance you won’t. An equally likely outcome is to fail because of weather, avalanche conditions, strength or skill. The summit or a glorious descent are not guaranteed. By fair means requires a mindset shift to seeing failure as equal to success, and style as more important than success. It’s “more of an art and less of a conquest,” writes alpinist Kelly Cordes. We approach nature on its own terms and be challenged. Then nature often wins, like it's supposed to. 

“The quality of the experience and how we solve a problem is more important than whether we solve it. We strive to leave no trace.”

— Tyrol Declaration

Another beautiful aspect of skiing by fair means is that it’s slow. Not only does it take time to climb the mountain, but it takes years to acquire the skiing and avalanche skills. Those years of practice build appreciation for the mountains. Likewise, the time-consuming act of climbing the mountain gives more appreciation for the mountains, not just a myopic focus on the summit or the brief descent. The anticipation and delayed gratification of possibly skiing the peak, or arriving back at the base of the mountain alive, brings greater highs when success is achieved and greater lows from failure. All that leads to happiness. Ultimately, happiness is what we’re after. 

“It’s time we... searched again for the limits of possibility—for we must have such limits if we are going to use the virtue of courage to approach them. ”

— Rheinhold Messner, The Murder of the Impossible

A final positive note about by fair means is that it demonstrates a world-view. Backcountry skiers know that wild places on Earth are few. Skiing by fair means saves those wild places for everyone. Foregoing the archaic attitude of man over nature. 

Even the most diehard practitioners of by fair means find themselves in that ethical grey area. I use helicopters and airplanes for skiing. Sometimes to reach summits, sometimes to base camps and sometimes to fly to other countries to ski. My preferred method of skiing, though, is to park along the highway, skin and climb to a summit, and then ski back to the car. If I do use a machine to get up the hill, I try to acknowledge that there is a better style. That I am playing foosball, when I could be kicking a real ball. 

More Reading

• Albert, Jason and Fabrikant, Adam 2024, Grand Descents: A Half Century of Ski Alpinism in the Tetons, American Alpine Journal.

• Cordes, Kelly, 2014, The Tower: A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre. 

• Messner, Reinhold, 1971, The Murder of the Impossible, Mountain #15. 

• Jenkins, Mark, 2005, The Elements of Style: It's time for a radical reform of high-altitude mountaineering and a fresh debate over what it means to climb right, Outsideonline.com, www.outsideonline.com/1909956/elements-style

• Kennedy, Hayden, 2012, The Enormocast, Episode 7, an interview with Hayden Kennedy: Alpine Taliban or Patagonian Custodian? Part 2. 

• The Tyrol Declaration on Best Practice in Mountain Sports, www.theuiaa.org/upload_area/files/1/tyrol_declaration(0).pdf

Double Glacier

Glenn, James, Paul and I needed an adventure. A place with no information. Where we could just go and see what happens. We asked our man Steve Gruhn for trip ideas. From a list of options, we picked a remote corner of the Neacola Mountains, a sub-range of the Aleutian Range. A region I'd neglected since 2011. 

We didn't go to the Neacolas. 

Getting to remote is Alaska is the first obstacle. At Sportsman's Air Service at Lake Hood we checked the FAA weather cameras with Joe Schuster. Marginal weather, but we decided to get in the Super Cub and give the flight a shot. The problem was Schuster said, "It's your call." That means I would pay the bill for a botched flight. Flights to the middle of nowhere Alaska are not cheap.

We found out mountaineers are not priority at Sportsman's. This flight was taking wine-tasting caterers out to the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge. What's just out of sight in this photo are two pallets of skinned beaver carcasses, waiting to be transported to hunting lodges for bear-baiting.

Entering the Neacolas, above the Blockade Glacier and the McArthur River, riding the Super Cub like a bucking bronc in pounding wind. Our first choice landing zone wasn't happening. Pilot Ben Knapp and I turned east toward Cook Inlet. Looking for another zone. Recently, I've grown to enjoy picking base camp locations on the fly. Just looking out the window, then pointing over the pilot's shoulder and saying into the headset, "Right there!" And anyway, trips are not supposed to go as planned in Alaska. If they went as planned, it wouldn't be an adventure.

Ben landed the Cub on a broad glacial ridge surrounded by numerous peaks and extruded himself from the plane. Fortunately, back at Lake Hood in Anchorage, minutes before getting on the plane, I downloaded a low-res map of the entire Neacola and Chigmit region onto my phone. When I located myself on the phone, I learned our location: Double Glacier in the Chigmit Mountains. Oh yeah!

The Boys, as my wife calls us. I've been going on trips with Glenn Wilson (blue jacket) for 20 years, James Kesterson for 15 years and Paul Muscat (right) for 10 years. These trips include: Mount Baker, Denali, Mount Marcus Baker, Mount Bona, Iliamna Volcano, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Mount Logan, Mount Chamberlin, Mount Isto and now the Double Glacier. Many memories.

On this trip we climbed peaks every day. All of them with no sign of humans. I didn't even get a chance to knock down cairns. On this trip we had a lot of rain and snow. That’s the weather necessary for 4,000-foot mountains to be draped in thick glaciers.

We managed the marginal weather with hours and hours and hours of BSing. Like only long-time friends can do. Here's Glenn, James and Paul having the twentieth impassioned BS session of the day. Beyond is Cook Inlet with the oil and gas platforms barely visible.

Our most significant peak was the first known ascent of Peak 6,402. Remote, wild and waaay out there.

This peak we turned around on due to avalanche conditions.

On our last day we woke at 11:30pm for a crack at Double Peak. At 6,818 feet Double Peak looks down on the entire zone. We made it to a few hundred feet from the summit, but were denied by steepness and avalanche conditions.

After a week of climbing many summits, and hours of fascinating conversation, we flew back to Anchorage over the Cook Inlet tidal wetlands and duck-hunting shacks.

Yet another trip of 100% success with best friends. I can't wait until our next installment James, Glenn and Paul!

212th Rescue Squadron

If you need a rescue in remote Alaska, you hope it's the 212th Rescue Squadron who shows up. These are the para jumpers in the Air Force, also known as PJs. They have the skills and the gear to pluck you from anywhere. A famous example of their work was the rescue of Jack Tackle from Mount Augusta by Dave Shuman.

Anchorage PJs are often in my avalanche classes. They are the unassuming students sitting in the back. The ones that are attentive and quiet, until it's go time.  

Bobby Schnell—one of the PJs—and I discussed training together for several years. This spring it happened. With two separate groups, we first practiced rock and ski mountaineering skills near Anchorage, then flew into the Alaska Range to apply those skills. Except for the second trip, where the Alaska Range wasn't happening, so we shifted to plan B. 

Brock Roden on day one at Emendorf Air Force Base, making plans and sorting systems. The PJs have more training than any 10 Mountain Guides combined, but their training is different than guides'. They wanted more lightweight mountain travel techniques to add to their arsenal of skills. 

Multi-pitch climbing on the Seward Highway. Although the Seward Highway ranks among the worst climbing in the US, the views are great and climbing starts at fun, and just gets better from there. 

Ted Sieroncinski, belayed by Bobby Schnell, climbing ChugachChoss above Anchorage. 

Near the top of Sunshine Buttress, a multi pitch 5.7. Standing is Matt Komatsu, the head honcho PJ, who is working on a degree in creative writing at University of Alaska in Anchorage. 

ShaneHargis (pointing) and I instructed together on the first trip. Shane has tons of experience from years of training Marines in Bridgeport California and from LOTS of personal climbing in California. His hands are like meat hooks from years of being crammed in California cracks. Although our training is different, it was very easy to work withShane. Shane and the PJs converted me to the 5:1 up crevasse rescue haul system, which puts less force on the anchor and uses less space.  

The Sterling Hollow Block is a standard autoblock backup for rappelling. One drawback to the Hollow Block is that it gets slurped into an BDATC Guide if used for progress capture, whereas standard six or seven millimeter cord doesn't get sucked in. For ski mountaineering, where skinnier ropes are used, a better belay device would be an Edelrid Micro Jul (if you can figure out the confusing thing) or PetzlReversino, which are designed for skinnier ropes. 

After a couple days of climbing and ski practice around Anchorage, we flew into the Pika Glacier in the Alaska Range. A one-hour flight direct from Lake Hood in Anchorage.

Camp on the Pika Glacier.

Base camp living.  

Christian Braunlich at a hanging belay above the Pika Glacier.

Sonny Carlos rapping back to base.

Winding through an icefall below Italy's Boot.

An early morning crust tour near Italy's boot.  

Brock likes training. 

On the last morning, before flying back to Anchorage, Christian, Shane and I pumped a four-hour lap around a bunch of mountains. 

On the second trip, fifteen hours after reading a horrendous Alaska Range forecast, we were way south, where the rock is dry and Ted and Bear had to make difficult breakfast choices. 

Chris Bailey leading pitch two. A few days earlier he'd never rock climbed. PJs learn fast.

Sieging the crux, PJ style. Bear leading, Matt Kirby cheering from above, while Chris Bailey waits his turn. 

Thanks for an incredible three weeks you guys!