Sportsguide Magazine

By Kate Cheney

Perhaps you’ve seen it. A no-nonsense white pick-up truck that is otherwise nondescript save for the clever retooling of the name Toyota on the back tailgate that reads, “Otto.” On many winter mornings it can be found parked alongside the road in Little or Big Cottonwood Canyon. But you’d have to get up early to catch its owner, 41-year old backcountry skiing legend Andrew McLean, because chances are its been there since 5 or 6 AM. The name “Otto” is in reference to McLean’s best friend. “It’s actually his truck,” claims McLean, “he just lets me drive it.” An odd comment given the fact Otto is a Bernese mountain dog and no longer alive, but then again you have to understand McLean and his passion for dogs. Or why McLean’s idea of a backcountry tour, called “dawn patrol,” is skiing 50-plus-degree, rock-strewn couloirs before work. Or a day of climbing is a 5.12 route after not touching rock for 6 months. Or why trail-running entails huffing 3,700 feet up the Pfeiferhorn, and a mountain-bike ride covers southern Utah’s famous 110-mile White Rim loop in a day. The 5’10” über-athlete demurely explains his super-human feats of endurance, “I guess I’ve just developed aerobically over time, but that’s not to say I’m really strong or anything. I just kind of like to cruise for long distances.” It’s not hard to fathom why friends and partners call him, “Humble Pie.”

Though humble, Andrew McLean has not gone unnoticed. His talent for steep ski mountaineering (he authored the seminal book on the subject: “The Chuting Gallery”) with over 75 first descents to his credit, his participation in star-studded, international expeditions, and his ground-breaking work as a Black Diamond hardware designer (ever heard of Talons, Whippets, Camalots, Hotwire® carabiners?) have garnered McLean some hefty attention. In 2000, Outside magazine proclaimed McLean #22 on their elite list of the top 25 outdoor athletes in the world. In 2001, Skiing included him in their list of the best 25 skiers in North America. His own photographs and writings have appeared in major outdoor industry publications as has his face on several films documenting expeditions, including the ill-fated 1999 Shishapangma Ski Expedition during which McLean survived the monster avalanche that killed close friends Alex Lowe and David Bridges.

Andrew McLean is not alone in having lost good friends in the mountains, but after the deaths of Lowe on Shishapangma and Hans Saari on Mt. Blanc, McLean made some changes in his life. Eschewing ultra-steep ski lines for more remote, aesthetic ones, and opting for smaller-budget, self-supported trips instead of million dollar, fully-sponsored expeditions, McLean has learned to be picky. “I like to do trips where there’s just a small group of friends, or just one friend where you can do a lot of planning, and then if it looks dangerous, you can turn around and not worry about some sponsor wasting a lot of money,” says McLean. In 2002 Andrew McLean and partner Brad Barlage received the Polartec Challenge Grant Award and “best expedition” honors from National Geographic Adventure and Skiing magazines for their unique (and relatively low-budget) adventure to Baffin Island. Instead of hiring expensive snowmobiles, McLean designed and made special kites and sleds to propel them to the base of huge arctic couloirs which they then climbed and skied, racking up 19 first descents in the process.

Despite the media attention already heaped upon him, I decided to find out for myself what all the fuss was about (and yes, why Otto lets him drive his truck). Born in Salt Lake City, McLean spent his early years in the Avenues. His mother, an instructor at Alta, taught McLean how to ski when he was four. “One of my earliest memories,” recalls McLean, “is skiing circuits on the Alta Lodge rope-tow.” McLean took up ski racing when his family relocated to the Northwest where he grew accustomed to the steep, icy lines of the Cascades.

McLean also exhibited an affinity for design and tools at a young age, cutting the legs off chairs in his grandparents’ house and nailing them to the wall to make airplanes. Such auspicious beginnings eventually led McLean to the Rhode Island School of Design where he focused on industrial design. After experimenting with designing medical instruments and boat building, McLean decided to apply his education to his passion for climbing and skiing. “I had always admired what Yvon Choinard did with Patagoina, so I decided in my mid-twenties that I was going to start my own climbing equipment company,” explains McLean. To that end McLean designed and began to manufacture a little hook called the Talon, a three-pronged device used in aid climbing, in the late eighties. About the same time Black Diamond cleaved off from Patagonia, and expressed interest in buying McLean’s Talon design. When Black Diamond saw his resume, they not only bought the Talon, but also hired McLean on as a hardware designer in 1990. The next year, McLean followed the fledgling company to their new headquarters in Salt Lake where he became an avid backcountry skier under the tutelage of the late Alex Lowe. John Bercaw, a category line manager at Black Diamond and long-time friend of McLean’s was a part of the hiring team that brought McLean into Black Diamond’s R&D department. “He’s been crucial at BD,” says Bercaw. “Andrew is such a user [of gear]. He can see the need for it, how it applies and he can walk into a place like Black Diamond and start designing it.”

But after thirteen years, Andrew McLean is scaling back to part-time at Black Diamond in order to pursue his other interests: ski mountaineering, expeditions, writing, photography, and designing dog-specific gear for his new love, Greta. McLean isn’t wasting time with his revamped schedule. Days after our interview, McLean took off to Antarctica to tag yet another first descent down Mt. Francis, the highest peak on the Antarctic Peninsula, and next year will join another Utah-based adventurer, Mike Libecki, for a kiting, climbing and skiing odyssey to Queen Maud Land, also in Antarctica. And when he returns, “Otto” and the Wasatch will be waiting.

Note: On March 15th McLean’s latest creation The Wasatch Powder Keg backcountry race is set to be held in Little & Big Cottonwood Canyons.