Congrats to our Canadian friend, extremely passionate backcountry skier, and Arc’teryx, Dynafit and Backcountry.com poster-boy, Greg Hill, in his quest to backcountry ski 2,000,000 vertical feet in one calendar year. It’s been a long road for Greg and I’m sure it took a tremendous effort on his end to reach the 2 million mark. No doubt he’s psyched to NOT think about numbers for a while and just ski rad, Selkirk terrain.
I’ve read a few comments on the interwebs that this achievement isn’t that big of a deal or all that hard to accomplish. That people have been doing it for years, and who wouldn’t want to ski as much as possible…all year long? To that, I say…ORLY?
The Early Numbers
Days Skied- 261
Number of Ski Runs- 1019
Average Feet Per Day- 7520
The thing is, is that inevitably there will be down days when you’re tired, need to be responsible, the conditions blow, or there is no real snow within hundreds of miles of where you live…and you don’t ski. Or at least don’t hike and ski 5,480′, the vertical Greg needed to average every day, for 365 days to achieve his goal. Therefore, the next day you need to put in a bigger day, like 10,000′ to catch up…and that might just make you take another day off, or have a short day, the next day. See where I’m going with this? Add in the fact that finding good (and convenient?) places to ski for the whole calendar year, and this sounds like a doozie of a challenge and an impressive feat by the G-man.
I say big props to Greg Hill and I look forward to seeing what he’s up to in the future. I know I will see and ski with Greg down the road, and when that day happens, I will gladly break trail for my honorable backcountry brother. And who knows, I may even let him have first tracks! 🙂
Big congratulations to Greg.
Especially in the style he did it.
It would be one thing to set up a track to quickly get your vertical,
but he did it in backcountry style thru powder and crud.
In SA he could have gone to a place like Ushuia where there is a constant dusting
that would provide fast skinning, but he was in Chile and northern Argentina where conditions are iffy.
What an acheivement. Wish I could get a quarter of that.
He’ll celebrate by going skiing.
To all the naysayers. Go to Revelstoke and hook up with the boys. These kids will run your Jholes into the snow.
Full respect for Greg and major congratulations. To ski that much true backcountry vert day in day out without getting injured or avalanched, dealing with illnesses, family, not being a trustafarian or sponsored by Red Bull is amazing. Anybody who tries to put that down is simply an idiot or a jealous idiot. An amazing accomplishment and I’d say one of the greatest of our time. Just try it at home kids…
what ptor said. you killed it greg.
superhuman feat, congrats Greg!
“To that, I say…ORLY?”
Yeah Greg! Anyone who thinks that Greg’s accomplishment is not incredibly awe inspiring must not really be a backcountry skier. When he first proposed this goal, I could not believe the audacious nature of it, and now I am just totally in awe of this feat.
Additionally, the fact that Greg did real backcountry skiing, and ski mountaineering, and not just lapping some convenient 2,500′ run, makes this feat even more impressive.
Yeah congrats to him! I would be divorced had I tried to get away with something like that. Wait a minute, I am.
HA…well, not really…but, HA!!!
Good job …. Now go get some turns !
amazing….a lot of that 2 million vert looked hard to come by. He was using cams and ice climbing and generally getting after it in the video…obviously not just in it for the numbers.
Sounds like the real deal to me. The man is MOTIVATED! Heck, I get all iffy when the hill gets skied up or its below zero or I can only get a few laps in ’cause of work. Mr Hill rocked nearly every damn day! In this “everything has been done” world you gotta be original in your various life quests. Congratulations Greg!
Congratulations!!!!
YODLE YODLE AAAAAAAAAAAAA HE WHOOOO YODLE AAAAAAAAAAAAA HE WHOOOOOOOOO
TRUTH PTOR
Ski yeah soon
nice work greg! That kind of dedication is unreal! That record will never be broken! Love the random jholer stabs! bnk sounds like glen flake! Why do people like to rip on jholers? Everywhere Ihave ever skied I realize that jholers can ski circles around most people! But I have not been to europe! Rogers pass yes!
Would love to see a list/map of which peaks/tours he skied during the quest and in his career. Numbers are one thing, but the amount of country he has seen is another…remarkable. Anyone seen his list?
[…] Greg climbed 2 million vertical feet in one year. On skis. This is the equivalent of climbing approx 5480 feet per day. Think hiking up to the top […]
a small list of the peaks he skied are here
http://www.backcountry.com/greghill2mil/index.html
Greg did not have much time to publish his routes. He did film almost everyday and plans to put out a movie.
Backcoutnry.com is stoke for Greg and happy to could encourage his insanity.
tom:
here’s some more information (still at a very high level):
http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2011/01/skier-greg-hill-hits-2-million-feet.html
“71 peaks were climbed during the quest.”
(i find “77 days that hill logged more than 10,000 feet” pretty impressive.
You’re an Animal, I mean a real modern day Super Man! Congrats!
For the Love of God get some rest, and get drunk you deserve it!