More skiers turning to Colorado's backcountry

By Douglas Brown, The Denver Post

Here in Ski Country, USA, the resorts run thick. But Colorado's mountain vastness contains a lot more runs than those greens and black diamonds in Steamboat Springs and Crested Butte.

And increasingly, skiers are trekking into the alpine wilds for untouched powder and evergreen solitude. The backcountry segment of the ski industry is growing fast, spurred along by the invention of AT (alpine touring) gear that lets skiers make turns the same way they do on groomed ski slopes — with their heels attached to the sticks.

"It's a significant trend," said Kelly Davis, research director for Ski Industries Association in McLean, Va. "What I'm seeing is a lot of people want to get their feet wet, so to speak, with backcountry, and more and more are trying AT in lift-service sidecountry (taking lifts to the tops of mountains at resorts, but skiing down through wild, ungroomed areas)."