Humans will often fear the unknown. Our imaginations can run wild. New places with new challenges will often equate to new mental foes with which we do battle. There’s no shame in this. It’s completely normal. Especially given some circumstances, it’s entirely expected. To not feel trepidation, in fact, might be a cause for concern in some cases. So, within the context of this blog posting, what new place or places with what new challenge or challenges have caused some level of fear to rise to the surface for our guests?
Based on the time of year you might have already guessed we’re talking about backcountry ski touring. Specifically in this case, we mean skiing the can-be-intimidating steep chutes of Tuckerman Ravine. We get it. The 6288′ Mt Washington has a tough reputation to begin with. Couple that with wild weather and questionable avalanche and surface conditions, and it can be pretty bad. And if that isn’t enough to worry about, on nice days there are 100s if not 1000s of people “up there” with cameras in hand just waiting for your wipeout. The social media pressure is on!
Helping people face this situation and overcome it is part of what we do. And doing this for two guests recently, is what Redline Guide Will Murphy did. Did they climb into the foggy upper reaches battling vertigo as they carefully skied down? No. Not all the way, anyway. They did climb part way up and skied from there. Given the day, the lack of visibility higher up, that was a good call. But was it good for our guests? Yes. Will shared his observations and along with the following photos, really telling the tale. The synopsis is this: Our guests went up higher with Will than they would have on their own. Will opened the door for them, so to speak.
