The Skin Track

With a professional ski guide for a dad and a ski instructor for a mom, Nina Hance learned early how to set a steep skin track and charge hard. At 20, she started to work towards her ski guide certification and got a job as an apprentice guide for a heli operation in Alaska. Imagine her delight when, her first week of college, she met Olivia, climber, skier and aspiring avalanche forecaster: the ultimate female adventure companion.

“She taught me to swim up sandstone splitters. I taught her to link hop turns though a tight couloir. She taught me how to party hard, and I made her wake up early for powder days,” says Nina. “Whether in deep conversation over a bottle of wine, swapping leads on a multi-pitch, or giggling in the skin track, we couldn’t get enough of each other.”

The morning Nina awoke to a phone full of missed calls from mutual friends, she had the terrible realization that she would have to find a new way to love the mountains.

Music: If Walls Could Talk by Jacob Bain & Nis Kotto • Original Scores by Jacob Bain • Chasing Trains by Publish the Quest