If anyone knows how to pull off a quick multi-day mission to unexplored zones in the high alpine, it’s trail builder and athlete Jenna Kane.
Jenna Kane’s happy place is far from civilization: a remote ridge or alpine peak that she’s reached on her own power. It doesn’t matter if she’s skiing, running, or mountain biking, if she’s exploring a new zone and waking up outside, then she’s happy. Kane, a Flylow athlete, works for California’s Kirkwood ski area, near South Lake Tahoe, as a freeride ski coach in the winter and a trail builder in the summer. When she’s not working, she’s out in the mountains with her partner, Greg Cunningham. The two are known for high-alpine, multi-day ski traverses across the Sierra Nevada range and fast-and-light running expeditions across the same peaks when the snow melts. We called up Kane while she was raking a trail to chat about the artistic side of trail building, what brings her freedom, and what she packs for a quick overnight mission.
As a trail builder, the forest is your blank canvas. You’re trying to figure out what feels inspiring to you as a designer but also what makes sense, ecologically: Where is the water going to drain, what type of soil are we building with, how much shade is there from trees, what types of rocks are here? How do we make this natural and also fun and easy for people to ride? You’re problem solving every day. I enjoy the challenge of thinking: Where is the best place for this trail to go?
There’s immediate gratification of digging dirt and shaping a berm or building a jump and riding it and saying: I built that. But there’s also this side of long-term planning. You’re making plans and proposing ideas for a trail that may not happen for a year or five years or even 10 years. We aim to build trails that are going to last a long time. We want these trails to become part of a place, to help people connect to that place and encourage them to become stewards of the land—that’s the main goal.
The more trail I build, the less I ride. Trail building is so physical and it’s hard to carve out time. But riding my bike is crucial to remembering what kind of experience we’re trying to create. Running, biking, and hiking on trails has informed this hyper focus on what goes into making a great trail.
The more I ski in the Sierra, the more I want to spend time in those mountains in the summer, too. So, we’ve been doing a lot of overnight trips, going fast and light. Seeing how far we can go. Being in the mountains is what inspires me.
For a fastpack trip, we’ll go two or three nights with a 30-liter pack. We’re off trail, fast hiking, running, scrambling. I love being out for multiple days at a time. There’s something about waking up, away from a road, away from a computer, away from civilization, and then spending the whole day traveling. Being able to stop whenever you want. Go for hours and hours. I love that sense of freedom. You don’t have to follow an itinerary, you can let the terrain guide you. I love that there isn’t a rulebook, and you don’t need a lot of gear.
Things I always pack: a water filter, sleeping bag and pad, some dehydrated meals, instant coffee, a lightweight stove, an inReach device. I wear my Moonlight Shirt, Hudson Short, and Switchback Hat on repeat, then I pack a Samara Anorak for wind and a Mia Jacket as a lightweight puffy. You really don’t need more than that.
In May, we wanted to do a trans-Sierra ski tour. We had this idea of starting on one side of the range and getting to the other side, having a rest, then coming back. We crossed Taboose Pass and we started by hiking through waist-high lupine flowers. We made our way along the Monarch Divide, where there’s this half-moon feature that separates the south and middle forks of the Kings River. It was like a sky ridge, with immense relief down to the river canyon. It just dropped off.
We had a food supply shipped to a pack station in Kings Canyon National Park, so we stayed there for a night, had burgers and a beer, swam in the river. We had to walk down 4,000 vertical feet from the snowline to get there, carrying our skis and then bringing them back up a different route. The route up, we ended up walking through this popular rock climbing zone and people looked at us, carrying our skis, like we were crazy.
It was terrible skiing on the way back, with 70 mile an hour gusts. But getting away from it all, it’s always worth it. Even if there’s a little suffering along the way.
I always say start small. Get out there for just one night—it doesn’t have to be far away. It can be an area you ski or hike or run all the time, but maybe you’ve always wondered what’s over the next ridge. Eliminate everything you don’t need. Keep it simple. Don’t try to do the most epic thing ever the first time. Do something that feels manageable. Over time, you’ll be surprised by what you’re capable of.
We’re looking on a map at places we haven’t been before. Maybe we see a line or a zone that we’re interested in and we do some research, look at satellite imagery, calculate the distance and how much food you’ll need. That’s a huge part of it for me. It’s a perk if there’s no information on a zone. You have to be your own resource. That takes time and confidence to figure out. But discovering feels exciting. I feel like I’m doing something new and different every time I go out.
Check out Jenna Kane and Greg Cunningham's last big adventure in the film, the Redline Traverse.