The confusion, I think, comes from the conflation of two separate questions: 1. In ski area boundaries our outside (in-bounds, or "backcountry") 2. Downhill s

The confusion, I think, comes from the conflation of two separate questions: 1. In ski area boundaries our outside (in-bounds, or "backcountry") 2. Downhill skiing, Randonee/Touring, or x-country (nothing to do with backcountry since you can do all of the above in bounds or in the backcountry). Backcountry, at least where I grew up in the PNW in the 90s, only pertained to where you were skiing, not to equipment or technique used to ski it.