Backcountry Magazine The 2024 Photo Annual | #155 Back Issue

Light, subject, composition. The three basics every photographer knows can make or break an image. Connect that with a reader’s desire to be that subject—a heelside turn in the alpenglow of the Lyngen Alps, peering down a snow-choked couloir off Mount Glory, sap lines deep in a hush-hush zone of the Green Mountains—and a simple printed page begins to do more than just stimulate the eyes. It tells a story, tugs at the heartstrings, dopamine is released, and in an instant you can smell the aspens, feel the greatest snow on Earth and breathe in the crystalline air as it chokes off your throat. —Mike Lorenz, Backcountry Magazine Art Director since 2009

For Issue 155, The Photo Annual, Lorenz poured over roughly 15,000 photos, in search of just that: images that captivate. From skiing through glacial caves in Switzerland to face shots in the Wasatch, a silhouetted skier, mid-air with the sun on his shoulder to an epic skintrack in B.C.’s Tantalus Range, each photo he’s chosen draws you into the depths and joys of backcountry skiing.

Then, there are the stories. Photo essays from Norway and Utah’s 900-inch-deep winter; an embrace of backcountry skiing communities and the alliances they’re building. There are tales of earning your turns by foot and stacking up vert via heli; the proposed backcountry resort under question in Zincton, B.C.; a profile on glaciologist and ski mountaineer Alison Criscitiello; wisdom from career ski photographer Re Wikstrom; and advice on uptracking. Photos and words alike, they come to life on the printed page.

Here comes the 2024 Photo Annual.