Back Country Trips

This is my bread and butter and I will be posting articles about how and where to go on a back country snowboard/ski trip for cheap! As well as break down my trips step by step and cost by cost so that you can experience the fun I have had for cheap.

Ever wanted to ride the back country but thought it was too expensive? In this article I'll be telling you the secrets of getting to the back country as cheap as possible while maintaining the highest level of fun expected from a top touring company.

First of all I'd like to introduce myself, my name is Derek and I have been an avid snowboarder since I was about 9 years old. I currently live in Colorado working in the winter as a snowboard instructor at Vail and in the summer I teach mountain biking. This is all good and fun and it's what I love to do but in the winter seasons I also plan and sometimes guide back country tours, which is by far the most exciting and my passion. I'm certified in First Aid, CPR, Avalanche Safety, Climbing/Ice Climbing just to name a few. Ok so here's the rest of the story.

As I grew up in Minnesota and my snowboarding progressed I needed a little more than the Minnesota hills had to offer. I first came to Colorado in high school on a snowboarding trip with all my buddies. We loved it so much we went every year after that doing what everyone does - road trip out to Colorado and rent a condo in one of the towns like Breckenridge or Vail and spend over $100 a day just to ski the mountains. These trips became expensive roughly $800-$1200 each and one by one my friends dropped out of the tradition because of money issues, and to be honest we hit almost every major mountain in Colorado and it was losing its.... well.... awesomeness....

Awesomeness Diminishing

I decided to take a new approach with the trip and plan a back country riding expedition that would be both cheap and re-vamp that extreme excitement and adrenaline we needed. Heli-Skiing or (Boarding in our case) is obviously the ultimate goal but still a little too expensive for a bunch of college kids on a budget. I searched and searched for back country tours in Colorado and they were still expensive ($300-$500) a day. The biggest factor in finding cheap deals is to not follow the herd. I steered away from Colorado and looked in the Wyoming area and BOOM prices dramatically decreased. I was looking at numerous lodges in the mountains (which I'll name in the next post) that roomed very cheap, and also rented out nice mountain snowmobiles for around $200 for a full day without a guide. These snowmobiles were 2 person machines, so that's $100 a person for a full day of shredding the sled and pickin your own lines! This worked great we had a group of 8 so we rented 4 snowmobiles (at a discount since there was 4) and we just switched off every run rider and driver. It worked out fantastic! When it was all said and done the trip cost me about $500 and the amount of fun we had on the 7 day trip was better than any other winter trip I had been on.

In my next post I will break down this first trip I took to Wyoming back in 2010 step by step cost by cost so that you can have this amazing experience for cheap and not have to deal with the crowds and long lines!

So here's the break down:

First we all drove from southern MN since that is where all my friends are from so that was a 14.5hr drive and there were 8 of us and 2 vehicles. Gas there and back for me was $50 not too shabby. We ended up staying at Bear Lodge Resort in Wyoming here is where it is located on the map. It is just outside of a small range which is more than enough to explore by snowmobile (sled) with somewhat shallow peaks compared to some of the resorts, but kick ass terrain features and powder. 

We checked into their 

     Duplex Condo Cabin: $185/night,   +$8 per person so it was a little crammed but we stayed there for 5 nights and split 8 ways came to about $130 each; we said there was 6 of us and I recommend sleeping 6 people to these duplexes 8 was pretty snug. 

     The sleds were 600 IQ LXT Trail Touring (2 Passenger) 15" x 136" Track, 1" Hacksaw $169.00 Full Day plus any gas used (they had to come back full). These sleds were surprisingly in better shape then I thought they would be in and handled the terrain pretty well. The only thing is I suggest practicing on a mountain sled before coming out and trying to bog through the mountains on a tandem sled. This came to about $95 per person each day we rented, which is the same as a lift ticket anywhere in the Breckenridge/Vail area! We rented these snowmobiles for 4 days that we were there and they offered a group discount which was nice (10%). We went pretty cheap the rest of the trip we packed pretty much all of our food, lots of sandwiches and the 2 days we weren't renting the snowmobiles we went snowshoeing in Yellow Stone which I highly recommend. So we had snowmobiles that were fun to ride and explore, we chose our own lines, no one was around for miles, and we were all alone without a guide! Doesn't get much better than that if you ask me. 

http://www.bearlodgeresort.com/Snowmobiling/rentals.aspx 

      

   Over all:

      Gas $110 (including sleds)

      Lodging $130

      Snowmobiles  $300 (4 days and got a discount that saved me $40)

      Grand Total was $600 on the money had spend a little on drinks. If anyone can find 6 nights lodging and 4 full days of riding anywhere for anywhere near that PLEASE LET ME KNOW! Feel free to post comments on this post and I'll reply and help you plan your own trip! This is just one of many trip I've taken like this and I'll be sharing another with you soon.

My buddy Joe right after he dumped Ryan off the back

Me in some powder