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In article ,
Champ wrote:
On Wed, 1 Mar 2006 18:29:00 +0000 (UTC), Booker C. Bense
bbense+rec.skiing.backcountry.Mar.01.06@telemark .slac.stanford.edu
wrote:

If you're using your own effort to get up the hills and you're
not skiing on a prepared track, that's backcountry skiing.

I have to use my own effort? Really? Can't I use a helicopter?
Please?

_ You are confusing two things

"skiing in the backcountry" - This can be heliskiing, cat skiing,
snowmobile jouring, skating through wilderness on prepared
tracks.

and

"backcountry skiing", which IMHO has two fundemental features.

1. Self powered.

2. While you may be on previously tracked trails, you can leave
them at any point to choose your own route.

This seems to be a bizarre distinction to me, and not one that I would
expect anyone else to understand.

_ Well, it's American so by definition should be bizarre to an
Englishman. Nobody in the USA would call heli-skiing "backcountry
skiing". It's heli-skiing... At least amoung the people I
converse with I don't think they would find that definition too
far from common use.


I think I'll just give up on the use of "backcountry", and stick with
the euro term "off-piste".

_ Sure, that means where and not what. I mostly make the
distinction because there is a whole class of skiing gear that
is rightly or wrong called "Backcountry".

_ Booker C. Bense

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