Secret stashes, exploration, solitude, and more

Interesting selection of views here. <br><br>I've posted a lot of trip reports, primarily on Turns-All-Year, Telemarktips.com, RSB, and Brent's predecessor to this board. I am sometimes unwilling to share specific directions to places I'd rather keep uncrowded, as is my right. Furthermore, a lot of places are shown to me on the condition that I keep them secret, which I do.<br> <br>Sometimes I don't post at all about these places; sometimes I write only the vaguest of descriptions, offering access and stability details without specific locations. Sometimes, when I'm feeling especially clever, I'll write a report which is transparent only to those who already know the route in question, but opaque to all others. This takes a lot of effort.<br><br>Usually, however, I give sufficient hints so that anyone willing to put in some effort can figure out where I've been; it's never my intent to maintain some sort of private playground, but that doesn't mean I want to make it effortless either. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. I enjoy writing reports and sharing valuable information with others (e.g., access, stability, weather and snow conditions, terrain), and my readers get to figure it out and share the goods, should they so desire. <br><br>My experience is that posting trip reports featuring vague descriptions of locations is very different from "handing out marked-up topos," or "telling hundreds of people." In fact, I've never, in five years of posting dozens of trip reports on the internet, had anyone publicly "out" any of the stashes I've described. The mere fact that this has never happened suggests speaks well of our backcountry community, and it is difficult for me to conceive of doing such a thing as anything but a selfish, destructive act. I suggest that anyone tempted to act this way take a long, careful look at their own motivations, considering carefully what they might have to gain or lose.<br><br>In the meantime, anyone wondering about any of the places I ski should feel entirely welcome to join me for a tour.<br><br>Enjoy,<br><br>Mark

Mark - I'll have to take you up on that one of these days. I'm curious about "the usual secret place everyone knows about" or whatever you've called it (I have a guess, but no topo map to be posted any time soon and no more clues to be dropped than what you've posted...). Ive enjoyed the few tours I've done in your arena.<br><br>Re: Freshie's intentions, who can really know but Freshie? So why care? Impact is more knowable and seems more relevant than intent, and the impact here was clearly shunned by the community. <br><br>In any case, it is indeed a good reminder that there are other clever folks with access to maps (and there are LOTS more lurkers than posters, sopping up the details)! I'll happily post some non-guidebook tours but will keep others to what I've now learned is the "stashworthiness protocol."

Let me first say thanks to those who replied to my original inquiry for tour info. I had spent my fair share of time looking at maps before asking, but it's comforting to get some assurance that someone else has found good skiing on the random, attractive (according to the map), north facing slope before setting out. Your terse posts were exactly what I was looking for.<br><br>I personally derive an incredible amount of satisfaction from searching out and exploring unknown ski destinations. I feel for those who have not truly experienced the joy of discovery - no, not visiting a place for the first time with a knowledgeable friend, or even a route description, but the feeling that comes from really embracing uncertainty. "Well, we've sufficiently committed ourselves to the point where going back is harder than continuing forward. Except we don't know if we'll be able to get over the next col.." When not-in-the-guidebook tours are popularized, this experience is robbed from those who seek it out, and the experience is diluted and devalued for everyone involved.

Glad you had fun up there. If "posted" = "popularized" in your mind, then I'd beg to differ on the black and white nature of the statement. I don't think you've devalued the Chair Peak Circumnavigation by posting a variant that Volken didn't describe in his book, as it sounded like a somewhat well known variant anyhow. I don't think throngs will flock to Silver Creek due to Charles' posting of beautifly photos of the area. The postings of descents off Forbidden or Luna or Fury didn't make anything easy for anyone. I've posted TRs for Earl Peak, as it seems like an obvious ski objective to anyone who has followed the guidebook up into Bean Creek Basin (as the crowds I've seen up there would indicate, though I didn't clearly describe the line I took down Earl...).<br><br>But at a more nuanced level, I think I agree with you. I've found variants of guidebook tours that I'd never post and if someone shared a spot in confidence I'd keep that confidence regardless of other factors. <br><br>But a simple cure to being devalued by information is to simply not pay attention to the information. Anyone who wants to figure out their own Ptarmigan Traverse has all the opportunity they need - just don't read all the Alpenglow history reports and it's all new to you!

I haven't been too regular about checking out what's going on in this board, but I finally did wonder why this thread was getting so much activity...now I know. I should probably first congratulate everyone involved for keeping comments so constructive on this very sensitive topic. It is what I have come to expect from contributors to this forum, but it is still nice to see in a situation where it could easily turn out otherwise.<br><br>I think RonJ's "stashworthiness protocol" is generally a good guide (although see below), and I try to adhere to it. I know, however, that I have made a few mistakes over the years, probably one very recently. Sometimes the need to invoke the protocol is explicitly stated, sometimes it is just obvious, and other times it is hard to tell. I generally don't feel the need to obscure the details of where I have skied, but then again I am not generally doing such cutting edge trips as many here. There are a couple of trips which I like to do for which I won't give details publically, feeling like the areas won't accommodate many skiers and/or I discovered them myself (keeping in mind ajjenkin's great story). I have taken to not even writing up trip reports for these few trips.<br><br>I don't view the function of the Trip Reports as being a guide book, and so I don't expect a trip report to contain detailed route information (although it can if the author wishes). I think a trip report can be written to share information about snow and avi conditions with others without including enough details to precisely localize the trip, and it is this information that I find most useful in the Trip Reports. Telemetry data is good, but there is nothing like a first-hand report from the day before. I think it is harder to write a useful trip report when excluding details of the location, but nonetheless possible.<br><br>There is nothing like studying the maps and then heading out to discover a "new" ski destination, but I don't think that happens very often and personally, I can get similar satisfaction from exploring an area new to me even if I know that lots of people ski there, as long as there is no one with previous experience leading me there.<br><br>There is one thing I have been wondering about with respect to the "stashworthiness protocol": could it, in the longer term, be producing more "crowds" than a simple posting of a trip report for a particular destination? I keep thinking about something Jim mentioned reading, about "connections" type of personalities (typical bc skiers?), and the 6 degrees of separation phenomenon. If you take two buddies to your stash (which no one else in the world has even thought about skiing), they, being good skiers like you, will have a number of other buddies who are also good skiers and would immensely enjoy skiing your stash. So, each of those first two buddies takes a group of their friends to your stash and they all really like it, so a little later each of them takes a group of their good skier buddies to what is now just "the stash" - no longer just yours. I think I have seen the initial phases of this progression occurring for a couple of locales. I just wonder whether, if it is the intention to keep a stash truly a stash, the "stashworthiness protocol" might actually be working to produce the opposite effect?

I've thought at least a little more about that after talking with you about the concept of "connectors" and the "tipping point," Charles, and while I think you're right, I also don't want to live in a tight little world where I won't share anything with anyone who doesn't already know about it, because skiing is at least as much a social activity for me as it is an athletic or aesthetic one and it is fun expanding my world of friends and I want to share with my friends, and they of course want to share with other friends, and so it goes... Until, alas, a place becomes common knowledge. For anyone who thinks this is BS, check out a copy of "The Tipping Point" from your local library and give it a read - you'll see that it won't take the internet to make your favorite stash a clusterf#$k. <br><br>Posting clear descriptions to the internet, however, seems even more likely to cause a spread of the news.<br><br>And no matter what, there are alwasy the tracks you leave, which can be followed...