Powder

FREEING THE FALL LINE

I dig my ski edges into wind-scoured layers of snow frozen to the granite dome of South Baldface in New Hampshire. Straight ahead, about 10 miles northwest, a gray shroud wraps Mount Washington’s 6,288-foot peak. The summit cap trails into a glacial cirque on the leeward side, filling the valley below with a witch’s cauldron of clouds. It’s February 16. Up there, temps hover in the low single digits, and winds blow up to 84 mph.

But here on 3,547-foot Baldface, I’m in a flawless midwinter scene: clear skies, warm sun, 22 degrees. Behind me, the mountain’s eastern slope rolls downhill—past Baldface Knob, a subpeak that breaks through the treeline—to the Maine border, just five miles away for the ravens who shadow us. There’s a clear view to the valley below, where the Cold River curls between stubbled farm fields split by the state line. I spot Maine’s Pleasant Mountain on the horizon, with Shawnee Peak ski area’s broad groomers spilling down its northern shoulder.

Another boundary divides my perch from that distant highpoint: the southeastern limit of the White Mountain National Forest, about 800,000 acres that encompass alpine bowls, vintage ski trails, and untold powder caches tucked into forested slopes. This stretch of public land, equal in size to Yosemite National Park, is managed by the U.S. Forest Service and sits within a day’s drive of 70 million people.

I’m here with four of them: Mike Roy, a software developer, and Katelin Nickerson, an environmental consultant, both from Portland, Maine; Jake Risch, president of Friends of Tuckerman Ravine; and Tyler Ray, a 41-year-old attorney from nearby North Conway, New Hampshire. As New Englanders, they love to ski the trees, and represent an evolution of that age-old local custom.

For decades, an outlaw code ruled the Northeast’s backcountry scene. Lone-wolf skiers plotted descents through thick, second-growth forests where young trees crowd together and interwoven branches deliver a full-on thrashing. Then they cut back the growth—an illegal act without authorization on public lands—to free the fall line and cultivate secret stashes.

That clandestine practice, however, is being ushered out of the shadows by my ski partners, who seek to foster backcountry skiing access through law-abiding methods in New England.

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