Oh man have I been a bad little blogger..! Nothing new for weeks, well OK, months. We have been putting an addition on our house which was suppose to be quick and easy, but of course it spawned a whole slew of other upgrades that have consumed most of my summer. Hopefully the end is in sight.
Before ever skiing in Valdez/Chugach I had heard so much glowing praise about it that I figured there was no way that it could possibly live up to all the hype. This all changed the first time I actually skied there and I had to eat my all my sarcastic thoughts. Valdez is one of those areas where all the components come together perfectly to create excellent backcountry skiing – the access, mountains, snowpack and logistics are all ideal.
This fact was lost on me, but not on 5-6 heliskiing operators, various snowmobile events and a few Valdez locals, including Matt Kinney. Matt is putting on a presentation this Friday titled “Backcountry Skiing in Valdez – An Environmental Perspective” which should be interesting, and in the very least, it is being held in a cool outdoor location, the Storm Mountain Amphitheater in Big Cottonwood Canyon. As a long time Valdez local, Matt has seen an incredible amount of motorized development in the last two decades.
Matt has kindly donated the proceeds of this show to our own local snow wizard, Bob Athey, who injured his shoulder in an avalanche accident last season.
The show is Friday, August 27th from 7-9pm with an encouraged donation at the gate.
I’ve never gotten bored with skiing as it seems like some new twist on the theme always shows up and keeps my interest alive (that plus it is just fun). But, I don’t think I ever would have anticipated our trip to Iceberg Lake in the Wrangell-St.Elias Mountains to turn out quite the way it did.
We were out for a Claus “family day” of skiing, which involves loading ten or so people into a million-dollar bush plane and flying around until we found the tastiest looking place to ski, then setting down and doing a few laps. In this case, we ended up at Iceberg Lake, the name of which later became apparent. Continue reading ‘Backcountry Wedding’
UPDATE! Due to the short notice on this trip, the price has been reduced to $6,750. The dates are April 19-25th.
This sounds too good to be true – a week long steep skiing camp in the greatest mountains on earth, the Wrangell-Saint Elias range. This is being put together by Eli Potter of Alaska Wild Alpine and will be based out of the Ultima Thule Lodge where we will be flying with Paul Claus in his Turbine Otter. In conjunction with Eli and the Ultima Thule crew, I’ll be guiding for the entire outing and space is limited to a small group. Continue reading ‘Wrangell-Saint Elias Steep Camp’
Mai oui, The Big LePowSki is rolling into Salt Lake City Feb 25-27 to set up pins and knock’em down until they go click at Brighton. This is the second annual gathering of TBLP, and last year was a blast. The format is pretty simple – ski/ride & party, but not necessarily in that order. Starting on Thursday night with a Backcountry Film Festival, it then rolls on to a Friday night pre-registration at the BD retail store where you can mingle with the athletes/instructors. Noah Howell will be signing left buttock cheeks, Forrest Shearer gets the right and Julian Carr will be sticking back layouts off of the BD clocktower onto a flat cement landing.
The actual skiing action takes place on Saturday from 9am – 4pm at Brighton and features morning and afternoon clinics on just about anything to do with skiing, riding and the backcountry. I’ll be teaching clinics on steep skiing and backcountry terrain assessment, but if I wasn’t, I’d love to take a clinic on filming or park riding. The cost is $75 which includes a lift ticket, the clinics, lunch and a ticket to the Shoot Out Party that night at Club Elevate. Continue reading ‘The Big LePowSki ~ Feb 25-27, Brighton’
I recently attended a seminar at the Winter OR Show entitled “Print is Dead” which had a panel of outdoor writers and e-commerce people, including Steve Casimiro. Steve has been one of my favorite skiing writers since his days at Powder, and the upshot of the seminar was that print isn’t really dying so much as becoming one of many other means of publishing. People kept referring to Steve’s website, The Adventure Life, so I checked it out and discovered (among other things) that Scott Markewitz was giving a photo workshop at Snowbird.
I’ve known Scott since I moved back to Utah about 18 years ago, and knew of him before that through his photography. As far as I know, Scott was the guy who invented the genre of skiing photography where you see a tight frame of a skier completely engulfed in a sea of raging powder, with perfectly lit up details and the person is calming looking through his/her goggles directly into the camera. Photos like these are the embodiment of speed, action, details, nature and humanity all rolled into one, which is probably why Scott has had several hundred magazine cover shots. And skiing is just one of many things that he shoots. There’s a photo on his website of girls throwing snowballs at each other, that makes it look like such fun that I want to give it a try.
My personal photography style is best described as “Point & Chute” where I carry a small Point & Shoot camera set to full auto with the burst mode on, pull it out when things look interesting, fire off a bunch of shots and hope for the best. This usually yields about a 1 in 1,000 ratio of good to crap, and from working with professional photographers, there’s no doubt that carefully setting up the shot is 90% of the game. In that regard, I’m very psyched that Scott is teaching a clinic and willing to share some of his techniques.
The clinic is Feb 4-7 at Snowbird and for $1,250 includes food, lodging, ski tickets and the workshop, although there is also a locals deal available if you just want the workshop. Contact Scott at scott@scottmarkewitz.com or book through Snowbird at 1.800.453.3000. It should be fun.
The Outdoor Retailer Show is in Salt Lake City and the Sundance Film Festival is getting underway in Park City, so Utah is hopping at the moment. A bit more snow would make it even better.
I’ll add some updates from the OR Show over the next day or so.
The “Up There” Ski Film Fest is taking place on Jan 14-15 in Bozeman, MT. It is being presented by the Yellowstone Club Community Foundation and benefits my all time favorite ski mountaineering organization, The Hans Sarri Memorial Fund (<– which happens to have a new website, check it out). Not only are they showing two cool films, “Swift. Silent. Deep.” and “Skiing Everest,” but they are raffling off some killer prizes, like three days/two nights at Aspen, three days/two nights at Jackson, a men’s AT package, women’s AT package and a day with Scot Schmidt. I suspect you can order raffle tickets through Drew Seessel (406.556.1275) and arrange something if you can’t be present at the actual event, but still win. Continue reading ‘“Up There” Ski Film Fest – Bozeman, MT’
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’
If you live in Alaska, I will be up there today giving a slideshow at the Beartooth Theater Pub on skiing Denali, Mt. Hunter and Sultana. Please stop by and say “hi” if you can make it! Continue reading ‘Alaska Family Slideshow in Anchorage Tonight (Thursday)’
