Anatomy

Click the image to explore Grete's go-to spots at Utah's Brighton ski area.

Hunter Mortensen’s tips for ripping the alpine and lower gladed terrain on Breckenridge's Peak 6.

Here’s the legendary New Hampshire hill, a proving ground for the likes of Bode Miller, as local Ivar Dahl knows it.

Backcountry freestyler Tim Durtschi shows us around his home mountain.

With the installation of the Polar Peak chair this fall, Fernie Alpine Resort opens up new cliff- and chute-studded terrain in a zone that, until now, saw only occasional action as bootpack-accessed spring skiing.

When the good people at Snowbird make a “resort improvement,” they don’t just glade an intermediate run or groom a black-diamond pitch. They open 500-acre Mineral Basin. They blast a ski tunnel through 600 feet of rock. And now they’ve opened up Zone 5, a new hairball section of 40-degree terrain off Mount Baldy.

This mountain looms nearly 6,500 glaciated feet above the town of Engelberg, home to one of Switzerland's longest-operating monasteries. Go there and pray for snow stability and for one of the many transplanted Swedes to show you around so you don't get cliffed out. Or you could bypass Jesus and follow these directions.

Schlasman’s (pronounced Slushman’s) lift opened in December 2008 and accesses 300 acres and 1,700 feet of steep terrain. It’s more skier-friendly (translation: fewer places to get cliffed out) than the rest of Bridger Bowl’s gnarly Ridge, but beacons are required and nothing is marked. Case in point? Last season, patrol regularly performed rope rescues here.

Don’t be fooled by the T-bar that accesses this terrain: This is no bunny slope. The North Face, a massive back bowl that slants as much as 50 degrees, is the site of big-mountain competitions and gladed, fluff-filled stashes. If it’s a powder day, get here quickly.

Locals have a mantra for the Palisades: “When in doubt, air it out.” This granite block has cameoed so many times in ski-porn that its 60-footers and vise-grip couloirs are as familiar as Glen Plake’s mohawk.

Casper Bowl, a 180-degree cirque of 1,200- vertical-foot cliff-littered chutes, opened in the winter of 1997. Since then, it’s become one of Jackson Hole’s many proving grounds and the venue for numerous freeskiing comps.