About

In my element; deep powder and Targhee sunshine

OK, let me be clear, this blog is not about “if you fall you die” adventures, dulling ski edges on metal stairway rails, sexy waitresses at the Mangy Moose or even the latest terrain park tricks.

Sadly, I’m not a kid any longer, so I have only a passing interest in the aspects of the sport that get the majority of attention on websites, videos and ski magazines. But I’m hardly alone. There are a lot of skiers older than 30! So this blog aims to look at the sport from the view point of the skiers who may not do X-Games stunts or dream of 100’ cliff jumps, but who dearly love inhaling the cold smoke of a still mid-winter morning on a high peak, who teach their kids to love a sport that makes little sense to most people, who find ways to afford lift tickets and season passes when they have mortgages, health insurance bills and college tuition to pay. And who still exercise the powder clause- regularly.

This is a blog for snow lovers, winter lovers and most of all powder skiing lovers. It doesn’t matter to me if the snow falls on a resort’s slopes, on Nordic trails or deep in the backcountry. I love to ski it all. Winter first cast its spell on me when I discovered the joy of sledding fast down a neighbor’s hill on a Flexible Flyer. A pair of Northland wood skis with cable bindings appeared beside the Christmas tree one Christmas morning and a nearby golf course became my first ski slope- and I was corrupted for life. A junior high basketball coach told me to either give up skiing and ice skating before I broke my leg or he’d bench me. He never had to carry out his threat because I walked away from his team and his narrow mind. I picked my college because it was near good skiing and had its own ski slopes. I did my time as a lifty at the college ski area and also was a ski patroller there. I took my college breaks skiing instead of heading south. I spent a few happy years with a Scandinavian who taught me the joys of Nordic skiing. I’ve been lucky enough to find good powder in New England, New York and even New Jersey! But I’ve also been skunked looking for it in many parts of the Rockies, Canada and Europe.

I now live in the Teton Valley of Idaho, a skier’s paradise. The deep snows of Grand Targhee are just minutes up the road. The steeps of Jackson less than an hour away. The backcountry of Teton Pass and the whole Teton Range take only a couple of dollars worth of gas to reach. Both sides of the Tetons offer me miles of groomed Nordic classic and skate skiing trails. Living here, I write about skiing the good life here.

But I’m also keenly interested in skiing as it exists outside the Tetons. Frankly, I’m concerned about the future of a sport I love. Too many powerful people still deny the threat to skiing, and winter, arising from the growing imbalance of the chemistry of the earth’s protective atmosphere.  On a down-to-earth level, I see skiing too often trending toward becoming a sport only the privileged can participate in. So this blog looks at news and developments that are shaping the future of the sport- both the good and the bad as I see it.

I hope visitors to this blog find something of interest here.

Best wishes,

Snowman, a.k.a. Fred Johnson

deepow at gmail dot com