Backcountry Ski-Touring: a mind-expanding means of ascending

When I was younger, spending my Winter sports days moving up and down the slopes with my snowboard and ski-pass to cover as many kilometers as quickly as possible, I often noticed people trudging uphill with skis. Each time, I wondered, "Why on earth? Why would you want to go up so slowly?" That was also the time I pursued my Snowboard Instructor's certification — not so much to teach, but more to master the techniques. And a bit for my ego, fair enough, for sure. But mostly it was about the technique. I had been snowboarding for over ten years, with several Wintersports holidays each year. I quickly moved past group lessons. I am a self-learner, autodidact. When something grabs my attention, I pick it up quickly with a firestarter mentality. The energy it generates is the catalyst for more. Carving downhill, the sound and feeling, unlock a surge of adrenaline that is unparalleled. Private lessons brought much more quality, but a Snowboard Instructor camp was truly next-level. It elevated my skills to a higher level while also remaining somewhat the same. I felt that I wanted to develop more broadly. T-shaped. But skis, no, I wasn’t ready for that yet. It felt a bit boring actually. Snowboarding was just too much fun, and time was too precious since the time on the board was very limited.

I continued to snowboard like this for many more years. Up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down. Until, through a path of personal growth, I came into contact with meditative practices like yoga, breathwork coaching (Thanks Jeroen Bouman ), sweeping at temples, and volunteering. More mindful and more from a natural flow. As a result, I noticed that the things that always drew me were suddenly not as relevant. I gained a broader perspective from a deeper and especially better connection with myself. It could be described as waking up from an illusion I had always maintained. Besides greatly expanding my biking adventures, in my previous article I wrote about my adventure in Sri Lanka face-to-face with elephants, I also started engaging in sports in winter conditions. This was a big contrast to my previous winter sports adventures. For me, sports in winter conditions are quite different from winter sports.

Winter sports, as they are now massively organized, in my opinion, miss the mark. There are too many people in too little space with very poor snow quality. That, to me, no longer has to do with athleticism in the snow. It's entertainment. Going up and down with a lift pass has, for me, bypassed the real experience found in physical exertion and pure immersion in nature.

It's not just about engaging in sports activities. It encompasses the whole of being outdoors. Try cooking at -8 degrees Celsius and see what it does to you. Or waking up in your warm sleeping bag when you need to go out for a quick toilet break and it's -15 degrees Celsius outside of that sleeping bag. That’s quite uncomfortable, and that's why most people don't do it.?But that's where the growth lies.

Jumping into the North Sea with a wind force of 5 to 6 and an outside temperature of 6 to 7 degrees Celsius, as I did last weekend together with my girlfriend Christine den Ouden to celebrate her 38th birthday and her new coaching practice, is way out of the comfort zone. Ultimately when you are submerged in the water, the perception shifts. You'd be amazed at how different things are from what you initially imagined in your head. And it always lies in the doing, the exploration in practice.

Back to sports in winter conditions. Last year, I made significant hikes with my snowboard on my back. It was incredibly liberating, and descending on the snowboard you carried up yourself after hours of trudging through the snow was incredibly rewarding. The hike up is actually worth much more than the descent, although the descent is quite pleasant.

I made such beautiful walks through dense forests, blinded by the glimmer of sunlight reflecting off the snow on the branches or the light breaking through falling snowflakes. It makes you forget how intense it is to hike with a board and snowboard boots on your back while sometimes sinking knee-deep into the powder.

Endless Growth: The Frame of Reference

Going on these kind of adventures is almost like a meditative undertaking. The organization requires a significant investment each time. Take what it involves to go on a ski trip or summer vacation, condense that into a long weekend, and do it regularly. It requires thorough organization to perform under these challenging conditions amplified by extremely low temperatures. Each time you do it, you get better at it. I have done it so often now that I am trained in the organization of outdoor living. For me, it is akin to being in a meditative state. As a result, I can do more and more in less time, am more resistant to stress, and have a growing capacity to organize. Fear, reluctance, and resistance remain, but the scale and intensity of the endeavor continue to increase. The growth in that respect is endless and is stacked, compounded — interest upon interest. The return on investment gets bigger and bigger. And every time, I realize: I am just getting started. This adventure is so incredibly beautiful, I want much more of it, and each subsequent time there is much more to it.

What is my frame of reference, I began to wonder and keep wondering. Society or something much bigger than that. Something that works for me instead of something that gives me comfort but also leaves me feeling dissatisfied. For me, that latter is society and everything that happens within it. There is a causal relationship between how much time I spend in nature, how free I feel, and how little I let myself be distracted by societal noise such as media, politics, etc.. I realized a long time ago that if I keep thinking as I am conditioned by average societal conversations and/or the media, I will continue having a mindset as such. Like a rat in a wheel. Trying to run a race that can't be won. Recently I enjoyed a fantastic conversation with my sister Sieske Valk , who makes her contribution to sustainable change while living in London. She aptly described it as: "We live in a consumer society while we, ironically, are being consumed by it."

True freedom comes from within. And for that, I had to literally and figuratively expand my consciousness by transcending consumer society. I had to set concrete goals and start chasing them with the help of the Reticular Activating System, the heat-seeking missile in the brain that we all possess. Google it!

“If you do not have goals of your own you are doomed forever to work to achieve the goals of someone else”

–Brian Tracy

Many conversations I previously encountered, for example at those inevitable birthday parties, in my circle often revolved around planning the next summer or winter vacation, which often seems to be a significant challenge. Or discussions about how things could be improved (politics, the educational system, the economy, the weather..) while little actually seems to get better if one wants to perceive it like that. There are numerous media outlets with fantastic in-depth articles about everything that is wrong with this world, but ultimately very little changes if there is no change in the way of thinking. The world one perceives is the world one gets.

“Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us”

–Earl Nightingale

Nowadays, I have conversations with like-minded people who are also on the journey. Discussions focus on optimizing the climb. How to boil snow as quickly as possible at extremely low temperatures or other undiscovered natural gems nearby. Because that's how it is: behind every turn lies the next challenge.

If my frame of reference is politics and the fact that things are not progressing, then my energy goes there, and one thing is for sure: ten years from now, it will still be moving at the same pace as it is now. I focus on what can be done instead of what can’t be done. What cannot be done or what is not going well is always available. Just turn on the news, and it will be served up to you. I believe in motivating myself and others from the perspective of what will become reality if you really (!) set your mind to it.

“The mountains are calling and I must go”

–John Muir

What must be possible is to ascend even faster with an even more intense experience. Around the New Year, during our hike at Passo San Pellegrino (near Cima Cadine) in the Italian Dolomites, we saw some men quickly ascend to 3000 meters while we were struggling with crampons. I made it to 2300 on the plateau. There, the enormous couloir to 3K revealed itself to me, and I saw those men steadily moving upward with a constant rhythm.

“Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”

–Jack Coughlin, United States Marine Corps

I had been considering the idea of using snowshoes for a larger surface area to avoid sinking too deeply into the snow. When I saw those men steadily moving upward, it sparked a realization — something I had resisted decades ago, walking uphill with skis, was now an epiphany. That's what I wanted too. To reach 3K quickly, I would need skis. No snowboard on my back, no snowshoes, but rather skis with special skins underneath. At 2300 meters, I said this to myself and immediately told my girlfriend, who was waiting just below me on a ridge at 2150 meters. I spoke it out loud and haven't let go of the idea since. In the weeks that followed, that became my focus. I began to see it everywhere. A typical example of The Reticular System in action: the heat-seeking missile of the brain. Again: Google it!

“Where attention goes, energy flows”

–T. Harv Eke

Three weeks later, I bought my own set through a second-hand sales website for a very reasonable price. The seller listened to my story and gave me a substantial discount because he found it so fantastic. "So, you can't ski and you're going to drive up there this weekend to ascend on your own?" He found it fascinating. For 120 euros, I was all-in: skis, skins, boots, poles.

I watched some beginner ski lesson videos on YouTube and just went for it. Not overthinking it, not making it too complicated. Just go! The South German Alps it was. Into the backcountry.

A disclaimer is appropriate here:

I have almost 30 years of winter sports experience and am very aware of the risks of avalanches. I always check with locals and read the signs to stay in sync with potential dangers. There's a clear line between being reckless and taking calculated risks. And the latter is where both the responsibility and growth lie for me.

That weekend, I hiked up and lost one of my skis in a chute. During the descent, I thought, "What can go wrong? It's powder snow.". I fell softly at a steep angle into the loose snow. The binding was released (by design) and slid into a layer underneath. It was no longer visible, no longer to be found. That was euphoria, shock, fear, astonishment, revelation, and getting burned—all in one. I overshot the mark, and that really shook me. And that's good because that's how you grow. The way back was long and cold. Uncomfortable is an understatement. Once back at home, after a day of sulking, I immediately bought some new third-hand skis. Never quit while you're ahead! That's how I see it. This was just the beginning, and I had approached it too optimistically, however great the first part went when things were smooth. I had already gone back once to look for the ski, without luck, and will go back again to find that ski once everything has sufficiently thawed.

This all happened at the time I had also decided to take ski lessons during an organized winter sports event with work. So, I had already thought about taking a more constructive approach. I thought, "I could do the same thing again, exactly like last year – up-down-up-down-up and down again, on my snowboard. Or I could do something completely different and take ski lessons." I hesitated for a few seconds and then made up my mind: this year, I would take ski lessons. I emailed my colleague indicating that I wanted to rent skis and take lessons. And that would have to be advanced lessons because I wanted to have already stood on skis by that time. My colleague advised me to start with the beginners instead. I agreed. A few weeks later, after losing that first ski and watching some more YouTube videos, and coming down a few more times improvisationally on skis, I ended up in the advanced class, and on the first day of ski lessons, I came down the black slope twice. And if I may say so myself: it was both high-quality and controlled.

The highlight of all my ski-touring adventures was the last time when, notably, the day before, it had been 17 degrees with spring sun below, and the next day I went up and got caught in a snowstorm, and the whole area was practically closed off. The last few hundred meters with cutting freezing wind weren't even the hardest; it was the several kilometers before that, 36 times giving up for whatever reason: too cold, too far, too tired, too steep, too dangerous. And yet continuing, knowing that at the last stretch below, you have to take everything off again and walk down with all your gear tied to your backpack and ski boots around your neck.

It's about making quick decisions, accepting that you will make mistakes, and taking calculated risks—and then building on that. I would advise reading Elon Musk's autobiography if you want to learn more about this successful approach: 'Launch, blow up, revise, repeat!'

And sometimes it's a sunk cost, then you simply have to take the hit.

Being in nature lets one understand and feel what the essence of life really is, that we should acknolowdge and truly value this interdependence in order to sustainably move forward.

“The further human society drifts away from nature, the less we understand the interdependence”

–Peter Senge, MIT Sloan School of Management

When you come down after hours of walking up in harsh conditions and eventually getting caught in a snowstorm, the reward afterward, that feeling, is unparalleled. Being physically and mentally fit enough to climb 1000 meters over more than 6 kilometers in just 3.5 hours under such conditions… the freedom you then experience. It is simply unprecedented.

Next season, reaching that 3K is the Goal. Climbing 2000 meters in approximately 6 hours.

Expanding consciousness

In my previous article, Cycling: a mind-expanding means of transportation, I wrote the following, and it still says it all for me.

People have endless capacity but use only a fraction of it. There is a great parallel between exploring a world full of endless adventures and expanding our consciousness (capacity). Once on an adventure, challenging issues at home in the material world disappear like snow in the sun, or at least the sharp edges are softened. Not because they are no longer there, but because of the focus on the here and now. It puts things into perspective. The key is to move away from societal limitations, and the way to achieve this is by simplifying life amidst nature. This simplicity simultaneously expands consciousness and enables bigger and broader thinking. You become capable of taking on ever greater challenges, both on the road and at home, making previous problems hardly problems anymore because you have become greater than them. It literally and figuratively takes you further, both mentally and physically. For me, traveling, mostly by bike, is mind-expanding. With each revolution and each kilometer, the whole becomes bigger and bigger than the sum of its parts. And it accumulates. It is compounded. It is reciprocal.

Tapering up, stacking, layering. Different words for the same idea. It's the concept of compounded interest. It's about being present here and now and shaping your own future. Amidst nature, hunting, and gathering. On a spiritual level, for me, it is the highest form of being connected; if you want a more scientific view, it involves all those chemicals injected into the brain—adrenaline, endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin—that fantastically come together, wanting more and enforcing it. In short: High-on-Life or Flow-State.

By compounding these types of adventures, I am able to do more in less time. I become more efficient and more effective. And I am getting better at separating what matters from what doesn’t. Many things are simply not relevant. Life is about majoring in major things as opposed to majoring in minor things.

"You are not a manager of circumstance, you're the architect of your life's experience"

–Tony Robbins

Expanding limitations that actually live in your own mind and which you take very seriously. It is often said not to take yourself too seriously. In the here and now, amidst great nature, that changes completely, the perspective shifts.

Live your life. Suit up, show up, lead by example. Commitment creates accountability and creates a high-performing individual. My energy and smile don’t need an extra explanation when I talk about my adventures. There is something about it that is indescribable. And even if others may not notice it, I know what I feel and that is real. Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us. I have found something that works and it is larger than life. And with that, I contribute to a larger movement."The people want bread and circuses," goes a quote from the Roman Poet Juvenus. And that's true. For me, the difference lies in being a spectator or a participant. These days, I often say I am "bread and circuses" myself.

“Citizenship in a Republic: The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood”

–Theodore Roosevelt

We are hunters and gatherers with brains that fundamentally operate based on conditions from tens of thousands of years ago and need the thrill of adventure to survive. The book "Sapiens" is highly recommended if you haven’t read it yet. That's just how our brains work. Much of the dissatisfaction that one can experience in modern society stems from either too few stimuli or too many unhealthy (informational) stimuli. Put a monkey in an office setting all day long. It won't be happy there. It becomes quite unmanageable. Now, we don't necessarily become unmanageable, but it does affect us. Think about that while you consider that we, as primates, are not so different from monkeys. Much of the dissatisfaction, which I previously referred to as "too comfortable, yet dissatisfied," that I have experienced or heard about nowadays arises from this modern life and not being sufficiently equipped to handle it. Then something else, something bigger, higher, or more is needed.

Purpose and motivation

In a previous article of mine about the "People-first way of working", which is actually not a new concept at al, but I rarely see it adequately and sustainably prioritized, i wrote the following:

Ultimately, it all boils down to purpose and motivation, which contrasts sharply with merely following top-down instructions and operating within isolated silos. It's about bottom-up pragmatism versus top-down constraints. Having a purpose, and intrinsic motivation, and from there, realignment follows. It's about feeling that you are serving a higher purpose. Regardless of the size of your organization, it's about having the energy and vibe of that startup mentality: moving forward with a shared vision.

This applies to life in general because there is no work/life balance. There is just life in the here and now and where I choose to spend my energy. Have a vision. Purpose. Dream big! Share it with others and bring each other along to achieve something greater together.

We humans no longer survive purely on a physical level, as our (Western) society is too comfortable and safe for that, but we do on a conceptual level. And that can either work for you or against you. If you realize this and can make it work for you, that is the jackpot, then you have struck gold.

Suit up, show up, lead by example. No matter what. Keep pushing, always. Either you let someone tell you what to do, or you do it yourself. Don’t be stopped by what someone else says can or cannot be done and especially don’t be stopped by what your own mind convinces you of. You are capable of much more than you think. But for that, one needs to take action! And that starts with being honest with your innermost self and aligning your thoughts and actions with your innermost self.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't – you're right”

–Henry Ford

It's likely that you are capable of much more than your own mind lets you believe.

I've officially closed the winter season, but I'm still going to find that lost ski. I've already been long and far on a bike adventure across the border, and this afternoon we're leaving for the St. Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the French Pyrénées-Atlantiques to start walking the first part of the Camino Francés towards Santiago de Compostela. Last year, we cycled it from Lisbon through Porto. My mother found this so inspiring that she wanted to do it too. And so it shall happen.?

My father will follow with their new camper van. It's something they've wanted to do for a long time but never got around to. My adventures have helped speed that up.

It's truly grateful that I can give back to my dear parents and share this experience with them.

And this is how it works for me: working together, moving forward together by working together to elevate the whole to a higher level. At the end of the day, it remains a human endeavor. And that is the good news ?? ??

Both in my professional and private life, I'm a Coach/Lead/Mentor/Trainer who not only inspires but also helps transform by sharing his experiences while working on goal-effectiveness.

Significant sustainable change is possible. 4sure.