ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jean Vives is well qualified to write this book. He has more than 30 years of backcountry skiing and mountaineering experience. Plus, his unique doctoral research on alpine ski touring won him the Charles Houston Award from the Wilderness Medical Society. In addition to skiing the Haute Route in the Swiss Alps between Chamonix and Zermatt, he has twice skied the Colorado Super Tour from Winter Park to Crested Butte. The latter took 28 days to complete and covered 170 miles, making it the longest ski tour in the United States using Alpine touring equipment. Vives has published numerous articles on backcountry skiing that have appeared in Outside, Powder, and Ski magazines. A former co-director of Aspen Alpine Guides and past member of Aspen Mountain Rescue, he has climbed and trekked all over the world including Patagonia, the Alps and Ecuador. Jean received his doctoral degree in physical education with a speciality in exercise physiology from the University of Northern Colorado. As a professor at Kathmandu University in Nepal, he taught high-altitude exercise physiology. Jean recently designed and skied the Colorado Haute Route from Vail to Winter Park, 63 miles of route and with over 43,000 ft of ascent/descent. Vives lives in Fraser, Colorado.