Gluten Free Snowboarder

I recently had the tremendous good fortune to spend five days heliboarding at Great Canadian Heliskiing located near Rogers Pass in my favorite Canadian province, British Columbia. While I have visited GCH numerous times before, this was my first trip there in three years and an excellent reminder of why I keep coming back.

As any skier/rider who lives in the US knows, it’s been a bad year for snow in the lower 48. As a result, I wasn’t exactly in mid season shape when I started this trip. However there’s nothing like a helicopter to really get your legs cooking. Fortunately the exhaustion I felt by the fourth day was easily overcome by the adrenaline that the terrain and snow quality sent coursing through my veins.

You’ve probably also noticed that there seems to be an awful lot of teletubbies on the hills these days thanks to the ubiquitous GoPro cameras that you see perched on everyone’s helmet. I personally prefer the Contour HD which is the round tube you see attached to my googles in the picture above. I did however have access to an extra GoPro which I convinced those riding with me to strap on their heads backward so I could work on my form. Check out the video below for the results

As you might be able to tell from the video, it was an incredibly good time. I can not count the number of times I thanked the gods, the guides and my own good fortune to have been there. I will post more about the trip in coming days, as I accumulated enough footage and photos for a small miniseries. Fortunately the weather seems to be turning down here in Colorado so my local friend reading these posts won’t hate me…

Kevin sampling the goods...

It’s been a funny season for me. Although there’s been very little snow in Northern Colorado I’ve somehow managed to get in enough powder days to keep me sane. Mostly this has been accomplished by driving to Wolf Creek regularly but I’ve also lucked out and made the most of the snow that’s fallen locally. Today was no exception as Eldora was the prime spot in the state with 10″ overnight and 15″ by noon making for some awesome skiing and riding for several thousand Boulderites. Fortunately I know some good stashes on the mountain and have a blind spot for ropes so between those two factors a very fine day was had. Please see my video report below for details…

Back in the powder again

While I had a great summer and a beautiful fall, when the snow starts flying in town my mind turns to winter with its’ many delights. Some years the gods can be cruel and make us snow obsessed folks wait till winter officially starts before delivering natures precious white fluffiness. Fortunately this is not one of those years -- at least not at my favorite family owned ski hill better known as Wolf Creek.

Colorado's finest forecaster out doing field work

For two year’s now I’ve been trying to convince Joel Gratz, the man behind OpenSnow (formerly known as Colorado Powder Forecast) that he really needed to check out the mountain that consistently gets the most snow in Colorado. But being a full time meteorologist/web site developer/business owner doesn’t leave a lot of time for long road trips so the timing had to be just right to make it happen. Thankfully, weather and work finally aligned properly and I had the pleasure of having my own personal forecaster for a classic Wolf weekend. I’ll let Joel’s video report tell the story of day one.

Day two promised more of the same.  While Saturday definitely featured some early season conditions by Sunday we were in full winter mode. The ski patrol at Wolf is all about customer service so in no time at all they had all the ridgelines open for our hiking pleasure.

Wolf Creek's version of the Ho Chi Minh trail

The best terrain at Wolf can only be reached by hiking which often makes the mountain feel more like lift accessed backcountry than a traditional ski hill. I personally don’t mind having to earn my turns -- if nothing else it helps the endorphins kick in earlier.

On the stairway to heaven...

I tried my best to give Joel the full tour but a patrol induced slide knocked Horseshoe Bowl out of contention. So we had to settle for just ripping up the lovely glades that are everywhere on the mountain. We shot a ton of video, but like most helmet cam footage it’s only really worth watching if you experienced it the first time. Suffice to say, it was well worth the effort.

No place I'd rather be...

The picture above says it all for me. I’m headed into a nice steep pitch in dynamic terrain filled with pristine snow -- I couldn’t really have asked for anything for more especially considering it was November 6th! But in fact it wasn’ t that surprising as this was far from the first time that I had the pleasure of bountiful early season freshies at the Wolf and hopefully won’t be the last.

And the scenery on the ride home wasn't bad either...

All in all, it was a great start to what hopefully will be another great season. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and it certainly felt good to be back on the snow again. No matter what, I feel blessed to have even one day in these incredible mountains and hope you all feel the same. Happy trails, everyone…

Going...

going...

gone...

When I was up in Alaska, everyone kept telling me that I would now be ruined for skiing anywhere else. But for me the exact opposite seems to be true because as with any true addiction, a good dose just makes me want more. Fortunately for me, this April in Colorado has been stellar and provided me with numerous opportunities to get fresh fixes. Yesterday it was Loveland’s turn to deliver the goods -- when the morning report said 8″ overnight and snowing hard (16″ by lunchtime) I called everyone on my list but no takers so was forced to shoot the following video of myself just to prove how good it actually was.

Surfing USA

One thing there was no shortage of on my Haines heli trip was helmet cams. Every one seemed to be sporting one in every shape, size and manufacturer. Because of safety issues, there was no setting up for shots so unless you had a super long telephoto or optical zoom a helmet cam was your best bet. The problem with helmet cams of course, is that without anyone else in the picture they quickly get boring no matter how good the skiing was. So I have a good 30 minutes of endless face shots and untracked terrain which will mean very little to anyone except me in my old age. I did pull still frames out of any good footage I had of others or scenics from my still camera which can be found here. As for the rest of my footage I’ve decided to just post this one little excerpt from a run called T-Top. It wasn’t the steepest or the deepest and it went on for a good 5 minutes longer than this clip, but it’ll give you a good idea of what the riding was like including my favorite new snow terminology -- “sluff management”.

Who needs a photographer?

Got to admit I’ve been slacking lately on updating this blog. It’s been a combination of less than epic conditions and spending time breaking in new gear. I finally broke down and bought a split board (Voile Mojo RX 66) after one too many post holing sessions in the backcountry. It’s a lot of fun and lot easier to use than I thought and is opening up a whole new range of possibilities. So between testing out the new board and my lack of luck at the resorts I’ve been spending a lot of time at my favorite local haunt -- Berthoud Pass.

Laying tracks on "Outlaw" - Current Creek, Berthoud Pass

The other piece of gear I’ve been experimenting with lately is my helmet cam (Contour HD). What I quickly discovered is that without a person in the shot the helmet cam footage gets old quickly -- you really need to be following someone else or get yourself in the picture somehow to give some perspective and visual contrast. In looking around the web, I saw all sorts of clever ways to do this including Joel Bettner’s reflective googles trick. But clearly the most frequently seen approach to better utilizing a helmet camera is mounting it on the end of a ski pole like I do in the video below.

Berthoud was fun as always even though it was probably the least snow I’ve ridden there all season (that’s the other problem with the helmet mount -- the face shots on a good powder day obliterate most of the footage). But now that I’ve got my equipment dialed in all I need is a good storm which could happen as soon as this weekend. Worse case, I’m headed up to Alaska in a week so with any luck I should get some good footage there -- I’ll keep you posted…

Hi Mom

It’s been a tough season for Wolf Creek. Their ski patrol director died in an avalanche back in November and seemingly in remorse the snow gods have been withholding their usual bounty from the area. Although I did not know him personally, I’m sure I had met him because I’ve always made it a point to thank the patrollers there for the incredible effort they put in keeping open the entire area for what is often only a few people. This includes extensive hike to terrain where my friend Kevin and I spent most of our weekend enjoying turn after turn of deep untracked snow despite the presence of several thousand Texans who were enjoying the President’s Day Weekend.

A typical turn at the Wolf

If you’ve followed my blog at all you know that Wolf Creek has a special place in my heart. I have had more epic days there than anywhere else but more than that it’s just got a relaxed vibe that you can’t find at the major ski areas. The lifts may be slow and the runs short but few other places can deliver the powder as consistently as the Wolf. This weekend was no exception but the irony was that the supposed bigger snow day (Sunday -- 14″ new) was just a tease for Monday (a supposed 6″ in 24 but more realistically overnight) when the sun came out and the crowds went home. We worked hard for our turns but boy were we rewarded as the video below can testify.

So once again we left the mountain shaking our heads at how good the skiing and riding was and how lucky we were to be there. Long live the Wolf!

The (patient) powder hounds reap their rewards

Any skier who has spent a  winter in the Denver/Boulder area is almost certain to have has an I-70 horror story. For a front range skier there’s no escaping the terrain trap that is the main thoroughfare through the mountains. When I woke up Tuesday morning to find out that Vail had called 16″ and Breckenridge 26″ (roll eyes here) my first thought as always was “time to get moving”. My second unfortunately was “better check on I-70″ and sure enough it was closed. I had planned to go to Vail with everyone’s favorite forecaster Joel Gratz who immediately suggested we leave right away and take 285 to get around the closure but this had the potential of breaking my hard and fast rule that I must spend more time on the hill then in the car on any given ski day.

Does this look familiar - I-70 Georgetown exit

Since only a relatively small portion of the road was closed (Georgetown to Silverthorne) we decided to take a chance and head up hoping the road would open by the time we got there. No such luck however, so we sat in the car for two hours searching the web in a futile attempt to get some info all the while being greatly entertained by the CDOT phone road report which told us that the road was closed so we “should plan accordingly” without giving us any indication of why it was closed or when by chance it might reopen.  Just as we were about to give up and head home the road reopened and now our only option for first tracks was Loveland.

Who needs a queue when there's powder to be had

We certainly weren’t the only ones whose plans had changed to Loveland but news of the road closure had discouraged a lot of folks so while they were quite a few powder hounds out, there was plenty to go around. Loveland had also called 16″ but with the high winds the day before (a 100 mph gust was recorded the previous morning)  I assumed the snow would either be in Kansas or heavily wind packed so was very pleasantly surprised to find a legitimate foot plus of high quality Colorado snow. In the last year, Loveland has opened almost the entire East Wall you see above the tunnel which has steeps, cliffs and lovely glades so we spent most of the day there getting fresh tracks and face shots as evidenced by the video below.

The Loveland ski patrol did a hell of a job getting things open considering they were also stuck in traffic and opened all of the ridge by mid day. There was quite a crowd hiking up the hill and they were all rewarded for their efforts. They say good things come to those who wait and on this day that was certainly the case…

It was beautiful day in the neighborhood - Monarch 12/21

Your mom probably told you this but it’s worth repeating -- don’t believe everything you hear. Take for instance, this last storm that’s been making headlines for ski resorts around Colorado. While it’s true that several feet of snow has fallen in the last couple of days, it takes more than quantity to make for “epic” conditions. Unfortunately much of Colorado has been experiencing a phenomena familiar to Californian skiers -- something known as “Sierra Cement”. I got to experience this personally on Monday when despite arriving in the middle of a now 5 foot dump, Crested Butte skied like a 5″ day in spring. Having driven 6 hours in a snowstorm to get there, it was a tad disappointing to say the least. It snowed the entire time we were in town and while it all looked beautiful and everyone treated us great we hightailed it out of town the next morning hoping for a change of luck and praying for a drop in temperature.

Now that's more like it...

Fortunately the gods decided to be kind to us and reward our efforts at our next stop -- Monarch Mountain. Monarch is your classic local ski hill -- super friendly folks, fun terrain and lots of hidden stashes. While the majority of visitors seemed to be sporting Texas accents, that generally only scares the locals way and leaves more untracked for those willing to go off the beaten trail. We had come expecting little in the way of powder so were immediately energized when we discovered lots of good old fashioned Colorado fluff in the parking lot. It wasn’t bottomless “blower pow” but more than enough to make our day. There wasn’t a lot of competition in the woods so we spent several hours whooping it up in the trees as the video below can testify.

After the day was done I tried to talk my compatriot into chasing some more powder at Wolf Creek but the fear of heavy (as in wet) snow combined with the incredible responsibilities of producing the most accurate snow forecast in Colorado led him to decline. Sadly I eventually made my way back to Boulder having learned once again that while you may never know what the snow will be like until you actually get on the mountain  -  if you get out there often enough you will eventually be rewarded and those are the days you’ll remember when you’re planning your next adventure…

I thought I was going to sleep in today but when my phone rang at 6 am I knew those plans were out the window. Sure enough Mary Jane called 10″ and the double digit rule was immediately in effect. Sooner than you can say I-70 we were on the mountain and enjoying some very nice turns. Now while I may own a video production company, I’m still working out the kinks for shooting ski video. I’ve been trying to get by with my still camera but as todays water spotted and hand held footage shows, it’s not really meant for snow and I find myself stopping too frequently to get shots. However, yesterday my very nice employees got me a big gift card to REI so a helmet cam may be in my very near future. Stay tuned to see if I can do it justice…