Custom backcountry skiing

It depends on the trip. At a minimum you should be able to ski blues at the resort. We don’t recommend learning how to ski in the backcountry — it can certainly be done, but it will take a long time and expose you to more risk than learning at the resort.

• Professional Mountain Guide with over 17 years climbing experience around the world & advanced wilderness medical training.

• All group gear climbing gear: Tents, Ropes, carabiners, first aid kit, emergency communication device.

• All Breakfasts and Dinners in the field for overnight trips.

• Use of our harnesses, helmets, and headlamps if you don’t have your own.

• Airfares to or from your home city, whether on scheduled or charter flights.

• Personal gear: clothing, backpack, skis, boots, poles.

• Avi gear: Beacon, shovel, probe.

• Personal snacks / lunches

• Food and accommodations while not in the field.

• Guide’s travel (for climbs outside the PNW).

• Tips for guides.

We guide routes from basic snow climbs all the way up to full alpine complexity every-trick-you-have-in-the-bag-you-need. For simple objectives we can usually guide at a 1:4 or 1:3 ratio. For routes that involve vertical climbing, we’ll most often be at 2:1 or 1:1 ratios. This ensures an adequate margin of safety and fluidity of movement.

If the ski day you’ve chosen requires a 2:1 ratio but you’re a party of 3, no worries, we’ll just add another guide to the trip!

We’ve been teaching backcountry skiing and avalanche awareness for over a decade. Anything you want to learn we can help you get there! Even if you consider yourself an expert skiier, we can likely teach you a bunch of useful tools to smooth out your systems.

Multi-day trips will either require camping (all the ski traverses) or staying in an Airbnb or hotel (Japan, Antarctica). We can help you arrange accommodation if you’d like.

For some trips, you may lodge with your guide, for others you can choose to lodge separately.

We have people come on our trips by themselves all the time! There’s nothing like travel through remote wilderness to build community. Our prices are based on double occupancy of rooms. if you’re traveling alone we’ll ask you to pay a one time solo - travel supplement to cover the extra cost of the room. Please inquire for updated pricing.

Indigo Alpine Guide trips are most often run by the owner Jack Bynum and his closest and most trusted friends. All the people who work for IAG have over a decade of experience guiding trips in the most remote places on earth, have wilderness medical training and advanced guiding certifications.

For Day Trips:

If you cancel for any reason prior to 30 days before the course start, you may rebook a later date for 100% credit, subject to availability, or receive a refund. If you cancel between 7 and 30 days prior to the course start, you may reschedule subject to availability. Between 7 and 30 days there are no refunds. If you cancel inside of 7 days from the course start, there are no reschedules or refunds available. This includes, but is not limited to:

– Injury/illness (positive cover exposure excepted)

– Weather, mountain and travel conditions (please see #4 below)

– Personal scheduling changes

For Multi-day Trips:

You may cancel up to 120 days of the scheduled travel date and receive a full refund minus a $500 per-person service fee. If you cancel between 120 and 60 days of travel, there is a 50% cancellation fee. Within 60 days of travel, there is a 100% cancellation fee. We highly recommend purchasing travel insurance as we are not able to make exceptions to this policy in cases of family/medical emergency or of the trip being canceled.

We always encourage folks to purchase trip cancelation insurance in addition to the mandatory medical evacuation insurance. We require that you have at least $200,000 in medical evacuation insurance. Your insurance policy should cover hazardous sports and we recommend that your policy cover search and rescue. Since we cannot confirm each client’s policy individually, it is your responsibility to make sure your policy will cover you while you participate in your activities of choice on the expedition.

For US citizens, we recommend Global Rescue. You will have a choice of purchasing it with or without the cancellation coverage–so make sure to select the one that gives you the coverage that you need. Other commonly used companies include World Nomads and Squaremouth.

You are welcome to seek out other insurance options, as these are only recommendations. When selecting a policy, please make sure they insure all the activities you’ll be participating in (many don’t include roped climbing, skiing, mountaineering, etc).