Ultrafit: Skiing nature's obstacle course

The back side of Moose Mountain at Lutsen ski area on Minnesota's North Shore drops precipitously through tight trees and past broken stone, slanting steep at a talus slope, cascading off cliffs, losing elevation as fast as land can in the rolling topography of the Sawtooth Mountains. The face -- a quarter-mile-wide swath that looks due north -- is icy, wind-battered and, in places, bare as an alpine bowl.

Here in 1994, resort workers carved out the Plunge, an ill-fated expert's trail with an optional cliff-jump entrance. The run was unlike anything seen before in the region, re-creating conditions more like those encountered on a wind-scored mountain face than a slope in the Midwest. "There was a boot track to the edge where people looked down," said Jim Vick, the resort's marketing director. "And there was a boot track coming back, the path of retreat."

No one died on the Plunge. But few people skied it, and the snow on its steep face was close to impossible to maintain, Vick said, adding that "something less than 5 percent of our skiers" could manage it. So in 1998, Lutsen workers strung an orange rope across the run's entrance, indefinitely closing an alpine experiment ahead of its time.

Jump forward a decade. Unfold Lutsen's trail map. The Plunge is still closed, but in its place the resort has added more than a dozen advanced and expert-level trails, including double-black-diamond chutes, 75 acres of gladed tree skiing and a formerly out-of-bounds run on Eagle Mountain that follows a clear-cut path, boulders studding its backcountry-like face.

Lutsen is not alone in adding adventurous terrain. During the past five years, resorts in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula have experimented with modified snowmaking technologies, new grooming machines, forest management techniques for gladed tree skiing and new chairlifts built to access wilder terrain. For advanced skiers and snowboarders -- or anyone looking for a taste of action beyond the groomed trail -- downhill skiing in the Midwest suddenly has something to offer.

Mount Bohemia

"There's always been an underserved market in the Midwest of skiers looking for adventure," said Lonie Glieberman, founder of Mount Bohemia on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. "Short and icy slopes are what people had come to expect."

The shift started in the late 1990s, both in the Midwest and beyond. Despite the highly publicized deaths of Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono, who skied into trees in the late 1990s, an industry-wide change in attitude toward personal responsibility on the slopes was gaining momentum. Resorts in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado began opening boundary gates to give lift-riding skiers access to adjacent backcountry, a practice now common in many states.

In the Midwest, the creation of tree runs and new expert terrain dovetailed with a demand from a new generation of snowboarders and freestyle skiers for halfpipes, jumps, rails and other terrain park features offering thrills above and beyond groomed trails.

Mount Bohemia is a case study. The resort, a rustic two-chairlift ski hill, opened in 2000 with dozens of backcountry-like runs, including chutes, cliff drops, and a half-mile-wide gladed hillside open to tree skiing. There's no snowmaking at Bohemia, and nothing is groomed. But deep powder is common: The resort at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula gets up to 300 inches of snow in a good year.

Most Midwestern resorts rope off tree runs and snow-choked riverbeds for safety or liability concerns. But at Bohemia, you're free to ski where you please. "It's like skiing used to be," Glieberman said.

Granite Peak

Wausau's Granite Peak in central Wisconsin has rock-lined chutes at its summit and nine double-black-diamond trails. Since the resort changed ownership in 2000, dozens of runs have been added, including tree-skiing areas. "We had a vision that we needed to make the terrain more natural," said operations manager Vicki Baumann.

That vision included developing parts of Rib Mountain, the second-highest point in the state, where acres of underbrush were cleared without leveling the trees, creating skiable terrain in the forest islands between the trails.

For experts, Granite Peak is capped with three steep chutes, Caroline's Couloir, Charlotte's Chute and Mama Mia, all short but challenging. "They drop down between the rocks, then funnel to double-black-diamond trails below," Baumann said.

Porcupine Mountains

Back in the U.P., where Glieberman also operates Porcupine Mountains ski area near Ontonagon, there's a new mountain slope that promises "more than 100 acres of in-bounds backcountry terrain and lots of fresh powder," according to literature from the resort. Porcupine's concept is unique to the region: Instead of employing a chairlift to move skiers uphill in this new area, the resort runs a tracked vehicle called a Snowcat. Skiers pay $25 (plus the price of a daily lift ticket) for unlimited rides on the cat, which runs laps on the hillside dubbed Everest.

Snowcat skiing, popular in the western United States, all but guarantees fresh powder, as the method of transport can accommodate significantly fewer people than a chairlift. At Porcupine, where 200 inches of snow is an average season, Everest offers a half-mile-wide forest of deep snow and fresh tracks.

Lutsen retakes the Plunge

Back at Lutsen Mountains, natural snow is not always deep enough to cover expert trails. Although the area gets 10 feet of fluff a year, it takes a tremendous base to cover boulders and stumps on such runs as Cedar Ridge and Bears Den, tumbling double-diamonds that cut over a talus field.

But the resort has gotten creative with its snowmaking infrastructure. Using a process called selective snowmaking, workers employ small, tripod-mounted hoses to precision-coat narrow runs through the rocks and trees. "We get into areas now that were never accessible with a snow gun before," said Dave Sontag, a slope maintenance worker.

Another tool Lutsen uses to promote steep skiing is even more high-tech: a new Pisten Bully PB600 groomer, a $306,000 machine that employs a winch system to ratchet itself up gnarly slopes. The machine, which is cherry red and comes with heated seats, can groom and shovel snow on pitches that were never before tillable.

In 1994, workers spent untold hours hand-shoveling snow to cover brush and exposed stone to open the Plunge. Now, that same job might be accomplished by a single worker steering and plowing over the course of a long night.

Indeed, 10 years after it shut it down, Lutsen plans to reopen its double-diamond chute.

"Ever since it closed, people have asked 'When are you going to open the Plunge?'" Lutsen's Vick said. "Well, next year it's coming back."

Stephen Regenold is a Twin Cities writer and author of the syndicated column www.thegearjunkie.com.