A couple of days ago I suggested that skiers venturing off trail to ski steeper powdery slopes within a resort’s normally avalanche controlled boundaries would be wise to wear avalanche transceivers and carry a shovel and a probe pole just as if they were heading into the backcountry. Here’s why…Three significant avalanches where triggered by [...]

With lift-riding skiing over with for this season, and avalanche danger usually less of a problem,  April is a great month to head into the backcountry for excellent spring corn skiing, and often some very fine powder skiing as well. Of course we need to get up earlier in the morning to beat the heat, [...]

People who know me pretty much expect to only see me in the mountains only on powder mornings. If there is no new snow, or still soft, untracked snow in the backcountry, I’m generally hitting the nordic trails, leaving my car happily in the garage, keeping my money out of the oil companies’ coffers.
This week [...]

There are currently only twelve members on this team and they are all in Areches, France competing in the merciless four-day Pierra Menta randonee stage race which requires each two-person team to ski up and ski down more than 32,000 vertical feet. Think of racing up a mountain higher than Everest, on skis,  starting from [...]

Yesterday, I couldn’t resist the lure of a day old snowfall covering the Tetons and a bright sunny morning. I decided to do the long trudge up South Leigh Canyon to reach Beard Mountain and its gorgeous powder fields. From the parking area to the base of the mountains it’s a 2-1/2 to 3 miles [...]

After picking up some bagels at Pearl Street Bagels  in Wilson yesterday, I left the bagel shop by way of Wilson Backcountry Sports and my eye was caught by a new book on the book rack: Targhee Backcountry Ski Atlas, by Brady Johnston.
It is not so much a book as a collection of aerial photos [...]

Up on Teton Pass yesterday I did a quick lap up Glory and was lucky to find a parking space very near the boot trail.
When I arrived at the parking lot I was surprised to see a huge tractor, as in “tractor- trailer”, minus the trailer, parked in the lot. I know the police are [...]

There’s a bumper sticker I’ve seen on skier cars saying something like, “Skiers like to start every morning with a good dump.”
Perhaps this morning is off to one of those starts. Both Jackson and Grand Targhee are reporting about a foot of new snow in the past 24 hours with about 7″ having fallen over [...]

Lou Dawson posted a little rant recently(midway in a longer post), “Industrial skiing is indeed a blemish on the face of public land and snowsports in general. Expensive, resource intensive junkshow, for the most part — though ANY skiing has its upside and we do ride the cable on occasion.”
Lou’s has an admitted bias of [...]

There has been a lot of media coverage of the three avalanche survivors of an avalanche near Vail who managed to get themselves completely buried, simultaneously, in a single avalanche, but managed a self-rescue and lived to tell the tale. Here’s the official report of the incident.
Lou Dawson, a former avalanche victim himself, takes a [...]