Andrew McLean
Andrew McLean lives in Park City, Utah and is a gear designer, writer, photographer, ski mountaineer, climber, Mountain Unicycle rider and father of two very loud little girls.
Andrew McLean's Latest Posts
Skin Set Up – Part Two
Now that the edges have been trimmed back and the nose has been set, I like to tweak my tails a bit (the tails of the skins that is). Although I designed the BD ClipFix and used that system for years, I’ve now gravitated towards the STS system (shown below). I liked the ClipFix, but […]
Skin Set Up – Part One
I’m the first to admit that I’m anal-retentive when it comes to setting up my skins. Why? Because spending an hour or so in the beginning getting your skins just right means you never have to fool with them again and that they seldom fall off or fail in the field. I can’t remember the last […]
Little Man, Big Hole
Crevasses are no fun. If you are in an area with lots of big, obvious cracks, then it is easy to justify roping up, but there are many times where you won’t see a crack for days and the hassle of traveling roped up (and it is a hassle) don’t seem worth it. Even if […]
Merry XX-Mas
I got a good laugh out of this, although you may not… Everyone knows that Dynafit bindings are the lightest, sexiest, most bad-ass clampers on earth, although only the Euros know how to express this in simple terms. I’ll burn in hell for this, but click here for an adult version of how to tour […]
Deciphering the Avalanche Rose
The idea of an “avalanche rose” has been around for a while, but has been making its way into avalanche forecasts where it is one of my favorite quick-hit summaries of the current avalanche stability. The “rose” part come from the concept of a compass rose (north, south, east & west pointers with sub quads) […]
Meadow Skipping – From the Top, with Feeling
Ninety-nine percent of enjoying backcountry skiing has to do with knowing where to find good, safe snow. It only takes a few times of hiking all day only to ski endless windjack to send skiers scurrying back to the resorts. The current Wasatch conditions are especially tough as the snow has barely filled in to […]
Tough Skiing
Whessh! Today had some tough skiing, skinning and avalanche conditions. With low temps, high winds, limited visibility and high avalanche danger everywhere, we stuck to safe ridgelines and low angle terrain. As we were skinning along this gentle ridgeline, a crack shot out from under my feet as I took this photo, went about 50′ […]
Wild Weekend in Store for the Wasatch Mtns
Rat-a-tat-tat, hang on to your hat! There’s going to be some very wide spread and dangerous avalanche activity in the Wasatch Mountains today and this weekend. One of my favorite snow stability comments comes from Bob Athey – “When it comes to snow, it all depends.” If there’s no loose snow to transport, then high winds are […]
Hack Job
Well that was fun. Straightchuter.com was somehow hacked yesterday, but thanks to the efforts of Valentin Secades M. from Costa Rica and his trusty associates, it is now back in action. For some reason it allowed people to register new websites under the straightchuter umbrella, so there are now staitchtters, straitshooters, str8tshtrs and many other […]
PNW not so hot, but ‘Stoke looks good
The Pacific Northwest is definitely a feast or famine area for snow. One season it sets a world record for recorded snowfall (Baker with something like 1,250″) and the next… nothing. Right now it is unfortunately in a solid nothing cycle, so I’m going to pass on the logging and head back to the Wasatch. […]
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