May 2026 / COMMUNITY
The Great Range from Seymour Mountain on a single-digit bluebird winter day! Elizabeth Izzo
A majestic view from the summit of Gothics on a blissful winter day! Elizabeth Izzo
Where Rugged Wilderness and Beauty Collide
Winter Skiing in the Adirondack Mountains
By Elizabeth Izzo
For skiers around the Northeast, the winter of 2025-26 was one of the best powder harvesting seasons in years! Here in the Adirondacks, the bottomless snow and consecutive cold winter days led to days filled with dreamy backcountry powder turns and deep woods adventuring on skis. Winters like the one we just experienced are every skier’s dream! Our Adirondack Mountains are a vast protected wilderness that invite the adventurer to witness their breathtaking beauty and rugged travel on a personal level if one is willing to journey deep into the heart of the park. Winter travel in the Adirondacks on backcountry skis brings scenery with breathtaking beauty while simultaneously testing the physical limits of the traveler.
While our mountains may be lower in elevation than other ranges, travel in the Adirondack backcountry requires winter survival gear, avalanche knowledge, and navigation skills as the woods are as wild and rugged as ever! The terrain is raw, gnarly, unmanicured, and offers the gift (but also the risk) of the path less traveled. The mountains in their majestic beauty invite us into their space to experience their wild side, to refine our resilience and grit, and to teach us how to move through them with wisdom, humility, and a spirit of raw adventure.
Late afternoon light looking out over the Upper Great Range from Saddleback! Elizabeth Izzo
Snapshot in time of Elzabeth Izzo from this winter’s incredible snowpack – stoke was high, snow was deep! Photos by Elizabeth Izzo
I’m a 33-year-old native Lake Placidian (Athlete Profile, August 2021), and I am blessed to have grown up in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. Like many, I thrive in gnarly, wild, beautiful backcountry environments requiring significant physical effort to explore. From this experience a deep connection with the very heartbeat of the mountains has developed within me, as though the mountains are part of my very being. Spending time in the wilderness with friends exploring the path less traveled via type I and type II fun is one of my all-time favorite pastimes, and we love to keep the stoke high and send it!
Skiing the 46 peaks car to summit to car was a longtime goal that came to fruition this winter thanks to our amazing snowpack. In the process of pursuing this dream and adventuring into the heart of the Adirondacks, I discovered wild places that are rarely traveled, witnessed nature both at its finest and in its most harsh forms, and grew to love and appreciate the mountains on a level deeper than ever before. Mother Nature always calls the shots, keeps us humble, and gently reminds us that we are simply along for the ride beneath her wing!
It is hard to articulate when your heart, soul, and very existence are irreversibly blessed by the beauty and awe of God’s creation, something so much bigger than us and yet we are permitted to enter into the midst of the beauty to experience it on such a personal level. The gratitude I feel to those who shared the journey and to the mountains that permitted me to experience their wild and untouched beauty is overwhelming. Cheers to wild mountain travel, forever in awe of the beauty of nature, wilderness, mountains, and the gift of life. Onward and upward!
Elizabeth Izzo (lizzo.izzo92@yahoo.fr) works in emergency medicine as a physician assistant and as a paramedic on the ambulance, she’s a die-hard Lindsey Stirling fan, adores golden retrievers, comes from a tight-knit family, has three younger siblings, and she’s an auntie blessed with three nephews and one niece (soon to be two)!