Women's White Mountains Backcountry Skiing Retreat | New Hampshire Editorial Photographer Joe Klementovich
Women's White Mountains Backcountry Skiing Retreat — Extended Photo Collection
I've spent a lot of time in the White Mountains with a camera, and most of it looks like what you'd expect — the big dramatic terrain, the weather, the technical athleticism of people moving through hard places. This assignment felt different from the moment I walked in the door.
Backcountry Bliss, the all-women ski and yoga retreat founded by Hilary McCloy and Lindsay Mayock, operates out of Betsy Donovan's (Lindsay's Mom) home on Conway Lake. What Lindsay and Hilary have built is something that doesn't have a clean category. It's not a ski clinic, not a wellness weekend, not a team-building exercise — it's all of those things running at once, held together by genuine care for the people in the room. Walking in on that first morning, coffee and oatmeal on the table, Moose the golden retriever doing her rounds, I knew pretty quickly this was going to be one of those assignments where I needed to get out of the way and just watch.
The photography challenge here was real. You're moving between two very different environments — the warmth and intimacy of the house, morning yoga in golden window light, foot soaks by the fire — and then the full exposure of the Gulf of Slides on a cold, but sunny February day, wind moving across the snowfields, skins on, everyone working hard and earning every turn. Holding both of those worlds in the same story, without one undercutting the other, is the job.
What I came away with was a picture of a community that had figured something out — that the mountain is better when you share it, and that taking care of your body and each other isn't separate from the adventure. It's the whole point. The images here go beyond what ran in the magazine — more of the quiet moments, the mountain, and the women who made the weekend what it was.
Read Birch Malotky's full story at New Hampshire Magazine