I tend to do a lot of skinning over timber. Why, I’m not sure as it is not really that much fun, but I suppose it is better than traversing way around a fallen tree, then backtracking. Timber skinning is especially common early in the season or when it is a low snow year, such as we have now (sniff…). Continue reading ‘Skinning Over Timber’
Monthly Archive for December, 2009
Super sticky skin glue can be a mixed blessing – it is great for adhering to your bases, but can nearly impossible to pull apart. The little center strip of non-glued material definitely helps with this as do the nylon mesh skin savers, although I personally just throw the mesh in the trash right after I open the box and never use it.
Separating your skins has gotten even tougher as many of them are getting so wide nowadays. My usual technique for overly sticky skins was to press them onto our dog-hair infested carpet a few times, which took some of the initial tack off, but last spring I saw an even better technique from Heather Paul Featherman. Having nearly separated my sternum many times by using the brute force approach, I loved the brains vs. brawn simplicity of this. As Heather said “Why not use the strongest muscles in your body?” Continue reading ‘Power Assisted Skin Ripping’
A few years ago I had the dream trip of a lifetime – a week with my wife at the Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) Caribou Lodge, which had been described as possibly the best skiing on earth. In a case of destiny, it was the rainest week in the ENTIRE history of CMH and they refunded/credited all of the guests, but as a snakey, freeloading writer, the offer was not extended to me. The little wannabe heliskier in me is still crying four years later.
But, here’s another chance. All you have to do is complete an essay (video?) of why ski touring is so great, and if you win, you’re in. Greg Hill narrates this video and I’m hoping that next year CMH will offer a contest where you have a chance to win a week of skiing with Greg Hill if you have the winning essay on why heli skiing is so great. Either way, you can’t lose. Continue reading ‘Win A Week at CMH via Greg Hill’
I’ll be giving a slideshow on skiing Alaskan’s First Family (Denali, Hunter and Sultana) as part of the Marley in the Mountains kick off party on December 12th starting at about 8:00pm. It is a fund raiser for the Sawtooth National Avalanche Center and with your $10 entry fee, you get FREE BEER! I love going up to Sun Valley and it sounds like they are at least skiing at the resort (come on snow…. come on). I hope to see you there. Continue reading ‘Sun Valley Slideshow – Marley in the Mountains’
Twenty years ago when I moved back to Utah and started touring in earnest, one of the first people I ever went out skiing with was a Park City local named Chris Larson. Since then, Chris has had the wisdom to leave Park City before it became, uhm, what it is now, and moved up to Idaho where he is a computer geek. Being a skier, Chris was able to take many of the existing ski, snow and weather feeds that are available and funnel them into one site, WasatchSnowInfo.com or more specifically, a bunch of sites for areas like the Wasatch, Tetons and eventually some place in Colorado named Aspen. He’s done a great service to skiers as a ton of info is packed into one simple, easy to read page.
The top of the page gives you a run-down of what the ski resorts are reporting for snow, then cuts right to the UAC bottom line avalanche forecast. Continue reading ‘One-Stop Wasatch Snow & Condition Info’
A few holiday gift ideas from a guy who has been described as “impossible to buy anything for.” Continue reading ‘Holiday Gift Ideas for Dirtbag Skiers’
One of the best slideshows I’ve seen in recent memory was put on by Tero Repo while we were on the Clipper Adventurer. Tero is part of the Finnish mafia living in Verbier and a professional photographer who was along to shoot Jeremy Jones and Xavier de le Rue. Tero’s show was good as it was short, had high quality photos and involved a humorous running dialog delivered in deadpan monotone. Continue reading ‘Tero Repo Ski Mountaineering Wisdom’
I know, I know… everytime I go on a trip it ends up being the best one ever, but in this case, I really mean it. The 2009 Antarctica Ski Cruise was a five-star blast and here are the photos and captions to prove it.
http://straightchuter.com/am-content/2009_Ski_Cruise/index.html
If and when it happens again (and assuming I get invited back…), I’ll be there. A big thanks to Doug Stoup and Karyn Stanley for making the magic happen.
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Help support StraightChuter.com and cruise the Drake Passage with some Smith Passage Sunglasses from Backcountry.com. Click on the photo below…
Skiing Naked
Well, naked as in without health insurance.
I’ve got quite a few friends who ski without any sort of health insurance and have done so myself in the past. My case was semi-accidental as I started out with self-employed health in$urance, which represented almost as much per month as my mortgage, and then after a year, it was raised for no apparent reason. I hadn’t filed a claim, visited a doctor or been late on a payment, yet it went up about 20% and the insurance company said that’s just the way it goes. So, I decided to cancel that policy and look for another, yet they were all pretty much the same – sizeable monthly payments and HUGE deductibles which in essence only covered major surgery. For anything as trivial as a broken arm, torn ACL or taking a ski tip in the head, you were on your own. My one week search turned into a month… then another, then another, and since I hadn’t been hurt, it started to lose its urgency. Continue reading ‘Skiing Naked’