RSSTips & Technique

Cooking the Perfect Cheese Bagel Spinner

Cooking the Perfect Cheese Bagel Spinner

| May 8, 2013 | 3 Comments

There are many “last great challenges” in the world of Ski Mountaineering, but how to cook a perfect cheese bagel spinner is now no longer one of them.  Just because bagels, cheese and white gas are the three pillars of backcountry camping, doesn’t mean they always get along and many a bagel has been badly […]

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Narrated Couloir Video

Narrated Couloir Video

| May 3, 2013 | 1 Comment

I’ve been in a video uploading frenzy lately and put together this 4:30 clip on chute skiing. The couloir itself was a 40-45 degree line which was about 1,800′ tall.  After editing the clips together, I went back and narrated over the top of it afterwards. There is obviously far more to skiing couloirs than […]

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Gear List Blowout

| March 22, 2013 | 29 Comments

As I was packing up my gear for a two-stage trip to Alaska, I decided to shoot photos of it for future gear lists on StraightChuter. I’ll have to see how long it takes me to get around to the actual list and details, but in the meantime, here’s some/most of what I take on […]

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New Spring Skiing Setup

| March 21, 2013 | 7 Comments

Not that there is any snow in the Wasatch to actually use them, but I just finished mounting, skinning and tuning my latest ski mountaineering ski set-up today and can’t wait to get out on it. If nothing else, it is a very sexy looking little rig in a 124/80/108 mm kind of way. I […]

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%&!@#ing Glomming

%&!@#ing Glomming

| March 4, 2013 | 13 Comments

Arrrg.  ‘Tis the season for skin glomming, and what a hateful time that is. Nothing zaps your power-meter quite like an eight pounds of snow stuck to the bottom of each ski, especially when it is hot and sunny out. Whenever I’m getting really beaten down by glomming, I always smile remembering an outing with […]

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Cranium Cam

| March 2, 2013 | 5 Comments

I like everything about helmet cams, except the helmet part. Most recently, I’ve been doinking around with a Contour, which after about a year of experimenting, is finally working pretty well. It took a lot of web research for figure out the right settings for snow, as well as a UV lens, but now now […]

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Adding a Tip Hole to Your Skis

Adding a Tip Hole to Your Skis

| February 27, 2013 | 7 Comments

Step 1 – Void your manufacturer’s warranty. Step 2 – Be brave.  Don’t fear the drill. There are a lot of advantages to having a tip hole in your touring skis, and while not every manufacturer adds one, they are easy to retrofit.  Tip holes are traditionally thought of as haul points for emergency sleds, […]

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How to Skin Argenta

How to Skin Argenta

| February 18, 2013 | 6 Comments

… in 3,246 not so easy steps. I think I enjoy skinning up Argenta almost as much as skiing down as it’s a fun challenge and a very efficient way to gain vertical. With the track shown below, I start out with no climbing pegs, immediately go to high peg, stay that way for a […]

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Tuning Bench Tie Down

| February 13, 2013 | 7 Comments

Most of my hasty ski tuning jobs end up resembling a Quentin Tarantino movie with lots of blood, slow-mo howls of pain and severed appendages. Even though I have ski vises, they have a hard time clamping onto skis with narrow profiles, tapered sidewalls, rocker or extra width, which covers about 95% of the current […]

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Avalanche Science Project

Avalanche Science Project

| January 29, 2013 | 8 Comments

I’ve always wanted an excuse to make an avalanche board, and my daughter’s recent school Science Fair seemed like a perfect opportunity to try it out. Avalanche boards are pretty cool as they can show all of the elements of an avalanche (layers, triggers, slope angle, terrain) in a confined space and time, plus you […]

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