Is it acceptable to post a TR?

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, Kyle. Here's how I resolved a related question in a letter to the editor of Couloir magazine in 1994. (The editor had been criticized by readers for exposing secret spots.)

Don't forget joy of discovery

As someone who writes and speaks about backcountry skiing, I too have wrestled with the question of publicizing secret spots. My solution is to recognize three kinds of backcountry places: 1) those that are already well known and accessible, where additional publicity has little effect; 2) those that are very remote, where difficult access prevents them from becoming popular; and 3) places that are accessible yet for some reason little known.

I don't mind publicizing spots in the first two categories. This is how we introduce newcomers to the sport and inspire experienced skiers to expand their horizons. The last group however, are backcountry gems. I don't write about these spots or mention them in my slide shows. Although the wilderness is a big place, the number of good, accessible, little known spots is tiny and always shrinking.

Some people get indignant when I decline to name my secret spots. These are perhaps the same people who demand to know everything about the private lives of public figures.

My response is to assure these folks that if we meet at one of my secret spots (or one of theirs!) I'll greet them cheerfully and join them for a great day of skiing. I trust that everyone's experience will be richer for having spent the time to find these spots on their own. The process of discovery is one of the great joys of wilderness skiing.

I agree with Lowell_Skoog on not publicizing "secret spots" or lesser known but accessible. There is certainly a joy of discovery to ski touring where some places are best left for the imagination.

Lowell I couldn't have said it any better myself.

Thank you for that contribution it was spot on and exactly what I was going for.

Good post, Lowell.

"Acceptable" is of course in the eye of the beholder, and we can't stop others from posting certain TRs (though some folks will stop skiing with those who do). But at any rate, if someone "discovers" a new spot by following another party's skin track, I do think it's worth asking whether the spot fits Lowell's "category 3," and if so, leaving the spot little-known for others to discover on their own. I don't think that this does a disservice to what k-root calls "the younger generation of skiers and boarders." Why steal the frustrations AND joys of discovery from them? And why homogenize the backcountry experience so that every place becomes a bit like Muir and Heather Ridge? I'm more than happy to take folks with me to places I've ferretted out (in fact, doing this years ago paid off handsomely yesterday in a nice skin track very close to where I'd have placed it ), but sharing in this fashion will tend to scale the exposure and resulting "growing crowd" linearly, whereas posting a TR can scale it exponentially.

There are plenty of well-documented "safe tours" for the "younger generation" as well as plenty of opportunities for them to share the same joy of discovery that has been (and is still) experienced by their elders. And maybe try buddying up to some old codgers - they may appreciate your ability to break ferocious trail as they teach you some new tricks .

I understand posting avalanche conditions and a stability report using slope angles and steepness but I was wondering how people feel about others posting TR's when following already laid out skin tracks for the entirety of a tour? East Peak, The Slot and Stone Man are one thing but say a random traverse into seldom ventured areas.

??? A TR is a trip report, right; in other words a report on a bc trip; I think it is entirely acceptable to post a trip report if the date, location, route, and conditions are included. IMHO, I don't think a TR is a TR without those things. Now, I just hit 50 bc days since mid-November; obviously I don't report 98% of my mundane trips, but if people haven't posted in a while or I see something unusual (or dangerous), I'll report. I like reports from the general areas that I ski regularly, especially when snow conditions are discussed, even if there was a report from the day before on even that day on the next ridge over.

this quote earlier posted by Lowell:

"... three kinds of backcountry places: 1) those that are already well known and accessible, where additional publicity has little effect; 2) those that are very remote, where difficult access prevents them from becoming popular; and 3) places that are accessible yet for some reason little known.

I don't mind publicizing spots in the first two categories. This is how we introduce newcomers to the sport and inspire experienced skiers to expand their horizons. The last group however, are backcountry gems. I don't write about these spots ..."

IMHO, this statement is disingenuous and self-serving; I could rewrite and say, I don't mind publicizing spots others know about and steering ever greater numbers to those spots, because that way if I can keep my spots secrete, then at least I will get my fair and disproportionate share of untracked snow and solitude. I don't know of any area in which "additional publicity" has little effect! Even the lowly and disparaged Mazama Ridge will see an increase in use of several hundred percent when somebody posts outstanding snow conditions.

In any case, I don't object to anyone posting their trip reports on whatever location the choose. In the last couple of years, some of the most interesting reports I've read were about trips to minor peaks in the Tatoosh outside of national parks, accessible by logging roads, not highways, etc. Fun reports.