So Ben, how's the skiing going?
For what it's worth, I skied nearly exclusively on hiking trails. Especially in the boreal zone, for most of the NH48, there often aren't viable alternatives to hiking trails. Skiing a stone staircase might be ugly, but it beats bushwhacking on skis through krummholtz at 200' per hour (or less). There are obvious exceptions (think of the famous routes on a selected few mountains), but if you're going to ski all 48, using hiking trails will facilitate your success. (In fact, for a number of the "great routes" down slides, continuing down-mountain off trail may be harder than figuring a way to get back on trail for your exit.)
T