Alexis Kelner 1938–2026

I never met Alexis Kelner, but I was saddened to see that he passed on September 23rd at the age of 87.  

If there was a Mount Rushmore of Wasatch Mountain backcountry skiers, mountaineers, historians, and conservationists, Kelner would surely be on it.  His obituary summarizes many but surely not all of his contributions.  

I first encountered his name as one of the authors of the Wasatch Tours series, which was essential reading when I moved to Utah in the 1990s.  By that time, the series, co-authored with another Utah ski legend Dave Hanscom, had expanded to three volumes.  The original, published in 1976, was the first backcountry ski guidebook for the Wasatch.  

For the youngsters out there, there were no cell phones or backcountry ski apps.  There was no Utah Avalanche Center (founded in 1980).  Avalanche transceivers were in their infancy and not available for Kelner's early ski touring adventures.  Skis were skinny and long.  Backcountry skiing in the Wasatch was a real adventure, requiring planning and the use of things called maps and aerial photographs.  Andrew McLean once discussed on his Straightchuter blog how us used the photos in Wasatch Tours to find ski lines, looking for the avalanche paths that Kelner and Hanscom had recommended avoiding!  Times have changed, although skiing in avalanche terrain still involves risk.  Sometimes it is worth remembering that our modern rescue and skiing equipment does not change that.  

Volume 2, which I once described as the Dead Sea Scrolls of Utah backcountry skiing, contains one of my favorite passages on the joys of ski touring:

"About 0.75 mile beyond this point, to the right of the jeep road, is a seemingly impenetrable oak grove located atop an ancient alluvial fan.  Leave the road here and head south almost directly into the grove. No ski area developers have cleared the willows and oak, so considerable ingenuity and determination are requires to get through the rush.  True cross country touring is, after all, a character developing and strengthening form of recreation."

I don't know if Alexis or Dave wrote that passage, but it summarizes well the attitudes of ski tourers at the time (and certainly some today).  

In 1980, Kelner published Skiing in Utah.  It's hard to find these days (the Marriott Library at the University of Utah may have a copy), but it provides a great history of the early days of Utah skiing. I referred to it frequently when writing Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth. 

Kelner was one of three founders of Save Our Canyons in 1972.  He was a supporter of Wasatch wilderness and per his obituary an early advocate for the Lone Peak Wilderness area.  I've always thought that the Wasatch are a bit unique in that the wilderness areas are actually right next to Salt Lake City.  This is probably an artifact of the steep terrain and how difficult it was to get into those areas back in the day for mining, which protected them to some degree from development.  Today, skiing in the Lone Peak Wilderness remains a "character developing and strengthening form of recreation."

Lone Peak Wilderness, February 2023

RIP Alexis Kelner from a grateful Wasatch backcountry recreationist.