On a weekday morning in January in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest, the base of the gladed Maple Villa backcountry ski zone could have been mistaken for a Walmart parking lot on Black Friday. Some skiers sat anxiously in their cars, waiting for a spot to open up, while others parked at the nearby Ledge Brewing Company and walked the mile up the road with their skis slung over their shoulders. After a slow start to the season in New England, there was finally enough snowpack to abandon the groomers for backcountry terrain.
It wasn’t always like this. Unlike the West, backcountry skiing on the East Coast has distinct challenges. The amount of private property in the region is staggering only 4 percent of land east of Mississippi is public, compared with 47 percent in the West and access to it is hindered by a complex web of private landowners, trusts, and federal and public managers, not to mention dense new-growth forests. “Historically, because