I was a city kid. I didn’t grow up in the mountains or out in the countryside. I didn’t even ski in those days. But I have always been connected to wild places. On days in the big city that the wind blew and the rain fell, days that were filled with dreary clouds my instinctual thoughts turned to higher elevations and more precipitous terrain. In the wilds inclement weather wasn’t a problem that city folk dreaded, it instead gave the mountain experience a more exotic texture. “Full conditions” are as much a part of the mountains as shear granite peaks, tall trees, high alpine lakes and grand timberline vistas. What some might call bad weather is the most rudimentary tool that sculpts mountains into their cathedral shapes and smoothes canyon walls into slick monolithic forms. Watching mother nature in all her meteorological fury somehow connected me to a life I could not have foreseen. I knew in my heart, even then, that I would somehow make my pilgrimage and that I would come home to the Promised Land.

There is a lure to the mountains and the backcountry that is like the magnetic draw of the Promised Land to a wandering pilgrim. I feel like one of the chosen few because I have found the Promised Land and I live there.

The other day on our way home from work at Mammoth Mountain my partner Kurt Stolzenburg and I were talking about just what lucky lads we were to live in the incredible place that we do. I argued that luck had nothing to do with it. This was a homesteading maneuver made by design and considerable fortitude, not luck. He agreed and just at that moment we crested the top of the Sherwin Grade and began our descent down into the sleepy hamlet of Bishop. The view of Bishop and the Owens Valley from Sherwin Summit is grand on the grandest of scales. It is a vista that I shall never tire of winter or summer.   There below us was the verdant basin were we made our home nestled between the mighty Sierra and the lofty White Mountains, two gigantic snow cloaked craggy bookends that stretched a hundred miles south. This place is such a land of contrasts the mild weather perfumed with the scent of high desert sage lying in stark relief to a vast array of mountains that are Alaskan in scale. It is the deepest valley in North America, made so, not so much by the lowness of the valley floor, but by the 10,000 feet of towering summits that line either side of this majestic landscape. We just stared out at the view, in awe that we actually resided in this wonderland. Almost in unison we chanted, “Behold the Promised Land”.

An old high school chum of mine once asked me, “If money was no object and you could live anywhere in the world you wanted, where would you live?” I answered promptly, “I already live there!”   What more could a man like me want? In summer the climbing on firm Sierra granite is the best there is in the world. The lakes and streams and peaks and meadows blanketed in wildflowers are breathtaking. Few mountains, if any, compare. This is John Muir country. In winter and spring a deep Sierra snowpack turns this summer playground into an even larger and more incredible playing field. The joys of walking through the Range of Light become mundane when skis are attached to feet and plodding magically transforms into that whimsical flying feeling of sliding on snow. Life becomes a dance in dry Great Basin powder, keeping time until spring when the Sierra corn snow turns this incredible terrain into the best skiing in the known universe. The Almighty seems to smile continuously on this part of the world.

I make no excuse for my great love and devotion for this range. I am a man smitten and like being in love with a beautiful woman I see no other beauty that equals it. But in all matters of the heart there are many perfect matches.   I know that the Promised Land comes in many shapes and sizes. I have friends in the Adirondaks and the Green Mountains, in the Colorado Rockies, the Tetons, the Sawtooths, and the Cascades, who are all completely devoted to the object of their affection. May these marriages of skiers and mountain ranges, of skis and snow, be as long and fruitful and passionate as my own. Mine is a mating for life.

A friend and fellow ski instructor, Andrew Crane always sends me a card at Christmas with the same message – keep the dream alive. What he means is don’t give up Bardini. Don’t succumb and follow the path of chasing a buck at the expense of giving up the dream. I am poor by many standards. But in matters of the heart and soul, in a life enriched by true friends and fantastic mountain experiences I am to be counted among the wealthiest people in the world.

The indigenous Great Basin people are the Paiute Indians. I have only a few Paiute friends. They are incredible people. Like many aboriginal cultures they have an intuition that speaks to being one with the land for a long time. Paiutes never ask where you live, instead they ask where you stay. The difference is subtle but noteworthy. We live in the great wide wonderful world, but we stay in our houses. I live in the Promised Land, but I stay on Sierra Street in Bishop, California. We would all do well to keep this important distinction in the forefront of our thinking. I say that to go skiing in the backcountry is one of the unique joys of living, no matter where you stay. Skiing in the great snowy outback to me is life. Don’t just stay somewhere, go my friends and live, live the joys of skiing in the Promised Land.

Allan “Bardini” Bard

Steve McQueen said, “I’d rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.” Edward Abbey referred to the urban scene as “syphilization”. We read between the lines and suspect a cure for the most subtle of modern maladies, the condition caused by the strained nervous sense of urgency that seems to define life in the city.

In my job as a backcountry ski guide I see people arrive at my door step from almost incomprehensibly busy lives in the city, ready to leave all the stress and schedules and meetings and freeway traffic alone for awhile. They need time to re-create, to recharge the old batteries, to think of nothing and reflect on everything, indeed to put life into perspective. Mostly they need to go skiing on the high and distant horizons. But skiing and mountains are only the medium for this revitalization, not the message. The message we receive is the importance of a quiet mind and satisfied soul.

Suddenly my job description is so much more than expert skier, tireless trail breaker, beast of burden, clever navigator, head chef and avalanche forecaster. In addition, I become confidant, confessor, entertainer, therapist, friend, and perhaps even the Right Reverend Bardini – First Church of the Open Slopes. It is a job with great responsibility and not just those related to hazard evaluation and risk management.

As a ski guide I have the pleasure of bringing people and mountains together to the greater benefit of both. I notice that, when people have been touched by the wild lands they are forever changed, forever more aware. They will never again see snow and mountain peaks and wind sculpted tree trunks, without being affected inside, differently than before they knew of such things, and they will return time and again to get in touch, and be touched. Certainly these are some of the deepest joys of skiing in wild places. It becomes important then, in fact essential, to savor and share these places and feelings. It is interesting that when we travel far afield to ski, what we often find is not just some intoxicatingly remote landscape but the convoluted topography of our own souls.

This is the value of skiing in, and being with, the lofty terrain of the mountains. These are the advantages of taking the high ground. I have been out into the great hinterlands beyond the backside of beyond, and my life is rich because of it. I am a wealthy man who just happens to be broke most of the time, but I’m in good company. John Muir stated simply, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” Bill Koch once said, “The world would be a little better place to live if more folks went cross country skiing.” I must agree with both of my learned colleagues.

Maybe world peace is just a few telemark turns away? Maybe it’s worthy of being a movement? With bumper stickers! TELEMARKING IS PEACE – SKI THE BACKSIDE OF BEYOND. Why not? I know of little else like a good day in the backcountry that gives me such incredible tranquility. This is especially true in times when life seems tediously long. But, as we know, life is short. Which reminds me. I saw this rather interesting Sharper Image catalog item. It is a clock of sorts, but this timepiece ticks off the time the average person has left to live. Standing and watching it is a little unnerving. A minute goes by and then another and then both are gone forever. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year we get the opportunity to have a fresh start at life. A new day and fresh powder reminds those of us that slide on snow that skiing is life. Passion and vitality for living are some of the gifts we receive from skiing, particularly skiing in the great beyond.

One need not travel to the North Pole or the Himalaya or the Andes or any of the high hidden places of the world to know these things. Outback might simply mean skiing out back – out in the quiet woods behind the barn or perhaps, skiing through Central Park when the fist of winter grips the city in an icy gridlock. It could be skiing down a New England hillside or across the great expanse of a Heartland cornfield. You are out on the backside of beyond when you feel the crisp bite of winter air in your lungs and the sting of wind driven snow on your face, and when you realize how insignificant you are in the face of such harsh adversity. That relativity, which comes from knowing the wild places, is essential to our well being and yet we so often stay home, stay inside and insulate ourselves from it. I say, resist the urge to be complacent about experiencing the brutally beautiful joys of the backcountry skiing life. Go my friends. Don’t delay. Lose yourself and maybe you’ll find yourself — on the backside of beyond.

Allan ‘Bardini’ Bard – © 1996