Slip away from the light, away from the east- and west-facing slopes, and slide into the deep dark pitches that angle north, where the sun is a cold and distant orb, its influence as weak as gravity on the moon. The shadowed lands are the hallowed lands, chilly and dim, where night comes sooner and the snow is preserved as frosty and light as the day it fell. Sun is the great devourer of powder, destined to melt its ethereal magic into mundane goo, but the narrow gullies and slots and steeply tilted northern reaches turn their shoulders from its destructive light. These gifts of topography are nature’s iceboxes, the skier’s best friends on the hill.

At this time of year, even the planet turns away from the sun, at least the northern half of the planet, pulling away as if from a particularly odious tram neighbor. 23.5 degrees is all it takes to make the seasons—ironically, the earth is 3.5 million miles closer to the sun in January than in July. Imagine if it were the other way around. Come February, the sun, even though it can still whack a fresh dump, seems to struggle to get as high as it does. The light is oblique and slanting, the shadows long and persistent…artist’s light…maybe that’s why the far north has such attraction, Greenland and Iceland and Norway, where even in summer the light seems like winter.

The best snow mountains always face north, but mountains are complex and folded and even the hill that lies srtaight north will feature aspects of west and east and maybe even a little south. Ride a chairlift through trees, through the dappled light of a glade. It feels like the flickering of a heat gun—cold, less cold, cold, less cold—and it’s easy to imagine the effect on the snow. Turn away from the sun and soon enough you’ll feel the difference through your skis, your feet, your legs. Find a chute that drops northeast, ski the left wall, then the right. You learn quickly that due south bakes, while true north rocks. They didn’t name it The South Face, after all.

The world is filled with epic north-facing slopes, but in the States one stands above the others. Granite Canyon in the Teton Mountains of Wyoming, just outside the northern boundary of Jackson Hole, is the purest of all shaded slopes. It’s steep, so winter sun rarely kisses its chutes, gullies, and aprons. It’s densely treed. It’s backcountry. And it’s wild and rugged, with huge cliffs and closeout lines, difficult route-finding at times and serious consequences in the event of an avalanche. Because of the cold, Granite’s north-facing pitches preserve powder, but they also preserve funky nasty dirty layers in the snow, the kind that release huge slabs as if on greased ball bearings, layers that work themselves out on southern aspects but that sit in suspended northern animation, unchanged and waiting until someone leaves the freezer door open for a few days.

So, Granite is serious business, and not taken lightly even by skiers who take everything else lightly. But the payoff—sweet mother of all that is good, there’s nothing like it. Several thousand vertical of deep-pile carpet bombing, skiffs of snow that levitate, backlit powder turns like you’re living in a 1970s Dick Barrymore movie. Endless Couloir, Mile Long, the ABCs…heli-skiing without the helicopter, hidden in the shade, the price of entry some knowledge, judgment, commitment, and devotion to the dark side.

So, seek out the shadows. Head north. See what you find in the shade.

Tagged as: environment, essay, skiing, snowboarding, weather