Please read Michael Pearlman’s excellent post Ski Patroller Death Highlights the Real Price of Powder Turns on New West about the ski patrollers we too often take granted. It is sad that it takes the loss of one of these very professional and dedicated people to remind us that they risk their lives so we [...]

I presume Mr. Wolling and his ski patrol partner were following standard procedures that have been preformed hundreds of times over the years to stabilize the snow in Cheyenne Bowl. If that assumption is correct, then we can assume that this year’s snowpack is extremely treacherous, causing a release capable of trapping and nearly killing a very experienced patroller doing normally safe and standard procedure avalanche control duties.

Remember last year at this time? The Tetons were getting pounded with heavy snows and the avalanche danger was insane. There was an inbounds avalanche fatality  at Jackson and another avalanche partially buried several of their ski patrol members and damaged an on-mountain restaurant. The danger was so high Jackson had to keep much of [...]

I live near Jackson Hole and every year I toy with the idea of buying a season pass there, but I balk at its price tag, this year it is $1970. If I took advantage of its summer price discount I’d pay only $1675. If I skied 50 days I’d end up paying about $33 [...]

Grand Targhee is a pretty small ski resort. You’d think it would be difficult to hide something important from the public at a  small resort wouldn’t you? But for the past twenty years or so Targhee has  managed to cram its only ski shop, yeah its only SKI SHOP!- at a ski resort!, into a [...]

“Dear skiers! Downhill skiing demands awareness. Advanced skier’s speed while descending the slope can reach 100 km/hour. In the places of mass skiing inexperienced and undisciplined skier is the serious danger for the others.” From the Bukovel Ski Slope Rules and Etiquette. “Obeying the rules will help you to have an exciting and effective rest [...]

I wonder how many people representing the various sectors of the ski industry are in Copenhagen? Current trends in climate change certainly don’t look good for the ski industry, do they? Yeah, I know, compared to the health insurance industry, or the banking industry, the ski industry is pretty small potatoes, so when its future [...]

Travel and other obligations will keep this blog off the air until ski season really starts, but thoughts of skiing are never far from the center of my universe.
I just returned home from several weeks in Colorado and was catching up on the local newspapers when I spied a piece in which the reporter bought [...]

I just read a report on Firsttracksonline stating that the Aspen Skiing Company signed on to a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal advocating for “both capping and putting a price for the first time ever on the pollution that causes global warming.”
I applaud ASC, but have to ask, where are Vail Resorts, [...]

In a previous post, There Goes the Neighborhood, I wondered about the future of the Yellowstone Club now that economic sanity is being valued even by people with enough money to live frivolously indefinitely. Has all the bad PR and gloating by critics and schadenfreudenistas permanently branded the YC as a new kind of toxic [...]