Backcountry Skiing Canada.com is Celebrating its First Anniversary

Online, June 11, 2010 (Newswire.com) - May 30, 2010 (Nelson, B.C.) The creators of backcountryskiingcanada.com are happy to celebrate their first anniversary. Focusing at first on backcountry skiing opportunities in the West Kootenay Region of British Columbia's interior, the site grew in its first year thanks to contributors from the Rockies and Coastal Mountains. Appealing to telemark and alpine touring folk, the site became a virtual meeting place for people eager to learn about back country skiing routes, conditions.

The online component of the program is only half of what's on offer-backcountry ski touring enthusiasts can get even more powder skiing information from the paper-based guidebook, which is available at retailers in Nelson, Rossland, New Denver, Revelstoke, as well as select stores in Calgary and Vancouver. It is also available here, on the site. The guidebook includes many of the same images as appear on the web site, but readers can learn more about how to access ski touring routes in the backcountry, suggested descents, etc. Feedback from local ski touring enthusiasts has been excellent. Many visitors have also purchased the backcountry guide because it provides a good snapshot of ski tours in the area.

In a very active first year,
backcountry skiing Canada published two newsletters and hosted hundreds of people posting to the backcountry forums. These forums attracted many back country skiers who were keen to read up-to-date information on the featured tours in the Kootenays, Rockies and Coastal Mountains. Was the snow on a particular day epic? Was the powder so high that a backcountry snorkel was required? Were the avy conditions stable or not? These are the kinds of questions the backcountryskiingcanada.com forums answered and hopefully made ski touring a little safer, and a lot more fun.

After some great input from backcountry skiers in BC (and Alberta), the team behind backcountry skiing Canada is excited to announce that next year's iteration of the site will be "new and improved." Backcountry skiing enthusiasts will be able to get even more route information on ski tours in the West Kootenay, and will also see new route information for ski touring terrain around Smithers, Shames, Revelstoke/Roger's Pass, Whistler and more. The intention is to increase the number of routes profiled on the site, and to cover many new regions of British Columbia. That's a lot of backcountry skiing to enjoy! New routes will also include the complete route profile as included in the West Kootenay Touring Guide. Visitors to backcountry Skiing Canada will be served the full burrito on these routes.

And there are other things in the works too! In its second year, the site will offer ski touring fans more functionality and some bells and whistles that will make navigating through the site to find the ultimate backcountry ski routes easier than ever. The backcountryskiingcanada.com team is also working on a ski touring photo comp. with some amazing prizes for the best photo. Without giving it all away, we can say that these prizes will be truly excellent-not your average $30 backcountry ski touring pack! Look for
more info on the back country ski photo competition on the site or read about it in the autumn version of our newsletter.

The backcountryskiingcanada.com site and West Kootenay Touring Guide would not be the de facto beta source for local backcountry skiing without the input of professional ski touring guides who have skied all the terrain featured. The quality of the route descriptions is high because, for the most part, they were developed with the help of certified ski touring guides who know the terrain intimately.

After its one-year birthday, the backcountryskiingcanada.com team is looking forward to working with our many partners and continuing to be an excellent source of backcountry ski touring information.