Locals featured in new ski-mountaineering book
Aspen, Colo.-based extreme skier Chris
Davenport headlined the annual Whitefish Mountain Films event this
past weekend and signed copies of his latest book, “Fifty Classic
Ski Descents of North America.”
The book chronicles
mountaineering-style descents of some of the most jaw-dropping
mountains on the continent using glossy photos and short essays by
some of the skiers who pioneered the routes.
Six peaks from the Northern Rockies are
featured, including a descent of Mt. Stimson in Glacier National
Park — written by Whitefish skiing and mountain biking aficionado
Pete Costain. The Pilot met with Davenport to talk about the new
book and the influence the Whitefish skiing community had on its
creation.
Q: Tell us about the new book and how
you defined what a “classic” descent is.
The book is basically a collection of
50 awe-inspiring, amazing looking mountains. They all have physical
grandeur and beauty. Classic descents have many attributes. They
aren’t necessarily hard to ski or easy to get to, but the common
theme is that they are aesthetically beautiful and eye-catching.
Some do have historical references, like Mt. Washington in New
Hampshire.
Q: Local guide Greg Franson, of Blue
Bird Guides, and Pete Costain were some of your resources for
gathering information about regional peaks. How did you utilize
these locals?
To make this book creditable, we needed
to reach out to the local skiers to make sure we were including
legitimate classics. What if a bunch of Canadians came to Colorado
to make a book about the classic mountains in Colorado but never
actually talked to locals or skied there? We made a point to ski in
the area, talk to locals and make a local point of contact. Greg
was a great soundboard for us.
Q: Which Montana peaks made the
book?
Pete Costain wrote about skiing the
southwest face of Mt. Stimson in Glacier Park and (Livingston-based
North Face athlete) Kristoffer Erickson wrote about descending The
Patriarch on Glacier Peak in the Beartooth Mountains. Mt. Cleveland
in Glacier Park almost made the cut, too, but we couldn’t find a
great winter image of it.
Q: How difficult was it to narrow the
book down to 50 peaks?
Very. There are probably 1,000 classic
mountains in North America. It’s important to note that this isn’t
“the list” of mountains, but rather a nice collection beautiful of
peaks. I think the definition of “classic” is in each of us. What’s
classic to me, may be different to you.
Q: Have you skied all of the mountains
in the book?
I’ve skied 22 of the 50. I’d like to
ski as many as I can, but it’s not really possible to ski all of
them. Some of the mountains only have one descent, and it’s not
likely I’d get three or four second-descents.