The Wild Alpine Wilderness Ski Week just keeps rolling with one of the longest stretches of good weather and great skiing that I can recall. Continue reading ‘And Another..!’
Archive for the 'Random' Category
Never mind that last post. As part of an on-going winter of the weirdest weather I have ever seen, on Saturday we skied dirt in the rain, then on Sunday it turned to bottomless puking snow. The snow totals for this season must look like a person (or a planet) going into cardiac arrest – up, up…. down, down, down.. nothing… down, DOWN, down, nothing… UP UP UP, down…. nothing. For comparison, as of Saturday 3/17, Alta has as much snow as it did on Jan 8th last year. It is like the season is just getting started and yet it is almost over. Continue reading ‘Utah Gets Some’
In a flurry of unexpected activity, Park City registered one of its biggest snow storms of the season early this morning with snow totals expected to reach .6018″ by the time it is all over. Striking in the early hours of dawn, the storm raged for 23 minutes beginning at 5:21am and tapering off by 5:44am. Plow drivers have been busy clearing the roads of all snow and large chunks of asphalt, which will help with next summer’s road repair maintenance schedule. Exotic sports cars with less than 2″ of clearance are urged to avoid driving and infants who have not yet learned to walk should stay indoors. Fortunately, schools were already closed for the Martin Luther King holiday, which helped spare the children from nature’s fury. Continue reading ‘Utah Almost Gets an Angry Inch’
I was perusing the magazine stand the other day and ended up buying not only one, but two skiing magazines, which doubles my combined retail purchase of ski mags for the last two years. The first one was the 2012 Skiing Adventure Issue which I bought mainly for the Grant Gunderson double fold-out cover photo. It captures everything that is great about skiing in general and backcountry skiing in particular. The magazine also has a nice profile on Bill Briggs, some good trip reports and a concise backcountry gear guide. Continue reading ‘Ski Magazines Worth Buying’
After an email and a follow up phone call from Ted Wilson, I have decided to delete the previous posting as Ted said he felt it was a personal attack on him and betrayed our friendship. The gist of the post was that Talisker, an ultra high-end developer in the Park City area whom Ted works for as a lobbyist, is planning on putting a tram from the top of their Dream Catcher chairlift up to and over the scenic Wasatch Crest trail, across 1.8 miles of public Forest Service land and terminate it at the Solitude ski resort. This is an incredibly controversial plan and made more so as it is being pitched as a solution to the traffic congestion in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It is also controversial as Ted has a long history of being a champion of the beleaguered Wasatch and his support for this lift is seen as a betrayal of these values. Ted says it is not and there is a “method to his madness.” Time will tell. Continue reading ‘The Canyons Tram and Ted Wilson’
Noah Howell and I have returned from Dicksonland where we found some, uhmm, firm, skiing and unfortunately almost no wind for kiting, which was a shame as the area is a kiter’s dream. We started on a glacier, then work our way down towards the sea-ice, camped for a few days, then crossed the sea-ice and spent about four days at the abandoned mining town of Pyramide. Shut down in 1998/9, there was something about hanging out in a town that use to have 2,000 people in it that made it very, very creepy in a Stephen King kind of way. But, the skiing was good.
After being just the two of us so far on this trip, it is fun to see other people starting to arrive from all other parts of the world (with a strong emphasis on the Tahoe7Truckee area) and get psyched up to go out on another aventure. The boat is a Challenge 67, which was built as one of 16 identical boats for a “wrong way” around the world sailing race. It is steel hulled and capable of bounching off of ice and should hold our crew comfortably. Out plan is to head up to the north and see what kind of mountains there are to ski in the area. With 24 hours of BEAMING sunlight, the schedule is wide open and the plan is to take things as they come. It should be fun!
Eighty degrees north, not 80 degrees in steepness, although you never know…
One of the most influential things I’ve ever read was a fortune cookie which said “Practice Saying Yes.” It wasn’t even my fortune, but I adopted the philosophy and it has served as a starting point for many, many expeditions. Trips take on a life of their own, but the first step is to commit to it and then hope some of your skier buddies have read the same fortune and are also willing to say “yes.” From there, you never know what will happen.
My upcoming trip is to Svalbard, which is a chain of islands to the NW of Norway. I first heard of this area through Doug Stoup, then again through Kris Erickson and also through Kip Garre. This trip was originally going to be a trio, but with Kip’s passing, it is now Noah Howell and myself for the first two parts of the journey. To begin with, we are going to use kites to move around in an area named Dicksonland where we hope to find some nice couloirs which you can glean a hint of from the topo maps of the area. This trip has been on and off and only recently came together, so I won’t be doing any web updates or call ins.
Kiting to couloirs in 2002 on Baffin Island with Brad Barlage. This trip really set the hook for me on kite assisted skiing as I hate walking long distances on flat terrain. With kites, you can cover huge distances and have fun at the same time. Or, you can go nowhere if there is no wind.
After this ten day stint, we will return to the main town, Longyearbyen, where we are meeting up with Doug Stoup and about six other people to board a 65′ boat which will act as our floating basecamp while we scout for skiable lines from the sea. This is the maiden voyage of Ice Axe Expeditions (Doug’s company) Norwegian Ski Cruise, which if all goes well will be an annual offering.
The third and final segment of the trip is a second week on the boat with a new group. The idea with this trip is to push further north on Svalbard and potentially ski above the 80th parallel, which would be a fantastically unique experience in a dances with Polar Bears kind of way.
Hanging in the rain with Doug Stoup in Antarctica a loooong time ago. Doug easily gets my vote for most traveled person I know, especially in the higher latitudes.
Even after doing lots of trips, they don’t seem to get much easier to prepare for and there is always a ton of little details to take care of. So far, this trip has been nice as I’m already geared up with 96% of what I need (kites, skis, camping stuff, etc.) and hardly needed to get anything new. As always, I am deeply grateful for all of the assistance I get from companies like Mountain Hardwear, K2, Scarpa and Backcountry.com for helping feed my habit. Not only do they make and sell great gear, but they help to make sure it is thoroughly tested in wild places. Thanks!
And of course, my ultimate thanks goes out to my wife, Polly, who makes it possible to have my cake and eat it too. If I had to choose between trips and family, I’d take family in a heartbeat, but so far I haven’t had to make the choice.
Happy turns,
Andrew
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