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Adventure Skiing: Exploring the World One Turn at a Time

From Antarctica to the Wasatch, adventure skiing is about more than terrain — it’s a way of exploring the world and ourselves. A reflection on ski mountaineering, guiding, and the mission behind Wasatch Mountain Guides.

Adventure Skiing: Exploring the World One Turn at a Time -

Author: Todd Passey

I just returned from Antarctica, where I guided another ski mountaineering expedition on Mt. Vinson — my fourth time guiding Vinson on skis and my third time skiing directly from the summit (out of roughly 35 total summits). Skiing off the top of Vinson has only happened a handful of times in history, perhaps six or seven. Every time I clip into my skis down there, I’m reminded why I fell in love with this craft in the first place: skiing isn’t just a sport. It’s a way of exploring the mountains of the world — and exploring ourselves.

Adventure skiing is more than ski tourism or travel. It’s a personal journey rooted in curiosity, community, and a willingness to step into the unknown. It’s the why: the fun, the challenge, the growth, and the experience that comes from moving through wild mountain terrain under your own power.

Skiing as a Passport

Adventure skiing has carried me to some of the most remote and inspiring mountain environments on Earth:

  • Alaska, where the mountains of Valdez rise straight from the sea and the scale of the Alaska Range teaches humility every day. Guided ski touring in Alaska has endless possibilities.
  • Svalbard, where polar bears roam the same valleys we ski and Arctic light transforms skiing from summit to shoreline into something surreal.
  • Antarctica, one of the most remote environments on the planet — a continent of ice, wind, mountains, and expansive, uncompromising terrain.
  • Chile, where the Andes stretch beyond the imagination and volcanoes offer long, aesthetic fall-line skiing.
  • Canada, with deep snowpacks and vast glaciated ranges accessed from secluded mountain huts.
  • The European Alps, where France, Italy, and Switzerland blend culture, history, and deep ski mountaineering tradition.

These places are wildly different, yet skiing connects them. Breaking trail in unfamiliar terrain, feeling cold air on your face, dropping into a line with partners — new or old — and sharing views that stop you in your tracks. These experiences transcend geography and define what adventure skiing truly is.

Adventure at Home

Adventure skiing isn’t limited to international ski expeditions or far-flung objectives. Even here in the Wasatch Mountains, where I’ve spent decades guiding backcountry skiers, I still find a sense of discovery.

4 skiers skiing on a snow covered slope with a large alpine snow covered mountain in the background in the Chugach Mountains

Near Valdez, Alaska

Exploration takes many forms:

  • Changing and variable snow conditions
  • Evolving hazards and decision-making challenges
  • Refining skills to move efficiently through complex terrain
  • Reaching new limits — and sometimes pushing past them
  • Skiing classic lines in entirely different conditions

Every day in the backcountry is an opportunity to explore something — even if it’s simply your own mindset. With exploration, comes education, and teaching avalanches courses and managing backcountry ski mentorships has provided me with great fulfillment, when passing knowledge to students and clients.

Exploring Skill, Fitness, and Capacity

Ski mountaineering has a way of revealing who we are. It asks us to show up with skill, fitness, judgment, and humility. It asks us to grow.

As a professional mountain guide, I help clients explore their own capacities through guided ski mountaineering, backcountry skiing, and expedition-style objectives. Watching someone discover a new level of confidence or capability is one of the most rewarding parts of this work. And truthfully, I’m exploring right alongside them. Every expedition, every storm cycle, every skin track teaches me something new about my own abilities and limits. That’s what keeps it interesting.

Adventure isn’t just about skiing steeper lines or more remote terrain. It’s about the person you become by moving through it.

Why We Keep Going

Whether it’s skiing off the summit of Vinson or linking powder turns in the Wasatch backcountry, adventure skiing is ultimately about curiosity. It’s about asking:

  • What’s around the next corner?
  • What’s possible today?
  • What can I learn from this snowpack, this mountain, this moment?
  • How can I grow — as a skier, a partner, a guide, and a human?

That’s why I keep traveling. That’s why I keep guiding. That’s why I keep skiing.

Adventure skiing is a lifelong conversation with the mountains — and with ourselves.

Where Adventure Skiing Meets the WMG Mission

At its core, adventure skiing is about exploration — of terrain, conditions, and personal capacity. That same spirit sits at the heart of Wasatch Mountain Guides.

WMG exists to help people step into the mountains with curiosity, confidence, and respect. Whether we’re guiding in the Wasatch, the Alaska Range, the Alps, or on the ice of Antarctica, our mission remains the same: to create meaningful mountain experiences that inspire growth, connection, and a lifelong relationship with the outdoors.

We don’t just guide people down mountains.

We guide them into new versions of themselves.

Adventure skiing provides the perfect medium for that work. It blends skill and creativity, challenge and joy, uncertainty and discovery. It invites people to expand their comfort zones, trust their partners, and see both the world — and themselves — with fresh eyes.

Every expedition, powder day, icy traverse, and summit push is an opportunity to learn something new. That’s why WMG keeps showing up. Because the mountains are always changing, and so are we.

As long as there are new places to explore, new conditions to navigate, and new people to share the journey with, Wasatch Mountain Guides will be there — helping skiers discover what’s possible, one turn at a time.

A skier descends a steep slope in the Alaska Range, skiing powder, with large mountains in the background.

The Alaska Range

About the Author — Todd Passey

Todd Passey is an IFMGA-certified mountain guide and a founding guide with Wasatch Mountain Guides, with more than two decades of experience leading ski mountaineering, climbing, and backcountry expeditions around the world. Born and raised in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, Todd’s passion for skiing and mountaineering took him across all seven continents — from the Alaska Range and the European Alps to the Arctic and Antarctica — guiding climbers and skiers in diverse and challenging terrain. He has pioneered routes on Antarctic peaks, guided clients to all Seven Summits, and is known for his sound judgment, technical mastery, and positive approach to guiding in demanding environments. Todd’s focus on personalized experiences, clear communication, and skillful mentorship helps clients grow their confidence and capabilities in the mountains, whether on Utah’s powder slopes or on international expeditions.