Commentary

State of the Sport: Ski travel

An interview with Ice Ax Expeditions' Doug Stoup on the future of ski travel

Originally Published: November 3, 2011
By Devon O'Neil | ESPN.com

Noah Howell/Powderwhore.comYou can go to the end of the earth and then ski there, too. Location: Spitsbergen, Norway.

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[Editor's note: Freeskiing as a sport is in a state of flux right now. So in this interview series, we're taking a hard look at where we are now and what's next for the sport. Stay tuned next Thursday for an interview with freeskiing judge Steele Spence.]

In 1999, Doug Stoup organized an expedition to ski the Vinson Massif in Antarctica, one of the world's Seven Summits, which had never been skied or snowboarded. Two months before the trip, his title sponsor backed out. Stoup, having already recruited an A-list roster featuring Doug Coombs, Mark Newcomb and Stephen Koch, promptly emptied his $300,000 life savings to fund the expedition -- and what proved to be a historic descent of Vinson. Ever since then, Stoup has committed his life to skiing in exotic places, from the Arctic hot spot of Spitsbergen, Norway, to the Nepalese Himalaya, to the bottom of the earth. (He once guided a blind man 734 miles to the South Pole.) His Lake Tahoe-based company, Ice Axe Expeditions, attracts clients from all over the world, but you're just as likely to see pros like Jeremy Jones and Andrew McLean on one of Stoup's trips. This week, a few days before he embarked on his 24th journey to Antarctica, Stoup dissected the pursuit that's shaped him.

That Vinson trip in 1999 really changed my life. The first time I stepped on the ice runway, it was minus-40 and blowing 40 knots, the snow was glistening, and there's almost nothing living in the interior. I instantly fell in love with the continent and wanted to learn more.

Up north in the Arctic, you're skiing down to bears and some incredible bird life, and down in Antarctica you're skiing down to millions of penguins and thousands of seals and hundreds of whales. That's a unique ski experience.

We didn't have the use of SAT phones and GPS a hundred years ago. It makes it a lot easier to go explore safely and be able to come back.

Antarctica still blows me away every time. All I want to do is keep it clean and pristine. Just leave a set of ski tracks.

Keoki FlaggDoug Stoup: skier, guide, wanderer.

I call Spitsbergen "Couloir Land": It has hundreds and hundreds of 3,000-foot couloirs. You could spend a couple years there and still not repeat a line.

As you're going up to the Baltoro and the Karakoram in Pakistan, everybody's cruising by these beautiful, 7,000-meter peaks with perfect ramps that come right down and take a couple weeks to climb. And they're passing 'em up to go and do G1 and G2 because they can get sponsorships to climb an 8,000-meter peak with a contrived line. And yet there's all these other beautiful lines that are meant to be skied.

I want to go places where there are lines that are meant to be skied.

Google Earth has helped a lot. You can really get a good feel for some of the places you're going. Ten years ago, you couldn't even visualize some of these places. Once you have a visual of something, you can really plan and have a better grasp of your objective. It's not such a shot in the dark.

There's still a few places where I have dreams of going to ski. The Darwin Range in southern Tierra del Fuego -- it's about figuring out how to get there and how to ski it, because of the terrain and the environment and just the wind and weather and having enough time.

The last couple seasons it's been unbelievable the amount of snow they're getting in Japan and B.C., and people are finding the beta and punching it out when the snow's good. Because of the Internet, they can log on and see skiing that happened that day, with GoPros and Contours and maps and pictures. It's really relevant.

Ski travel is cheaper than it used to be, and I think if you have a dream and a goal you can do anything. On my first boat trip to Antarctica, we had people who were waitresses and waiters -- ski bums. It's the same thing with going up to AK and heli skiing. People save all year long to fulfill that dream. It's not a huge amount of money -- it's maybe $7,000 to $10,000 to go on a trip like that. But I think the experience and the people and the camaraderie are lifelong. And that's the meaningful part.

Devon O'Neil

Writer, Action Sports
O'Neil was raised in the Virgin Islands before dropping anchor to ski, write, and combine the two for profit. He now lives in Breckenridge, Colo.

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