It’s not all fun and games at Gear Test Week. Our 43 testers—32 skiers and 11 splitboarders—hit the slopes at Utah’s Powder Mountain with the dawn’s early light and don’t go to bed ’til the day’s reviews are complete.
“Dudeville” by Jonah Das evokes the glory days of ski bumming
When I was a high schooler, my brother and I dreamed of moving to some Western ski town, to leave behind our East Coast lives of skiing ice for those mountains of powder and double black diamond extremes. And, one after the other, we did that, each of us going to college at Western State College and skiing Crested Butte during the early to mid-1990s. We lived the ski dream until, one by one, moved away from the Rocky Mountains for work. First my brother moved to New Jersey. Years later, I moved to Michigan for a university job.
2019 Testers’ Choice: Cat Ambrose’s Picks
From the 236 products we ran up and down the mountain, each tester nominated their personal favorites. Here are their picks and profiles, so you know who’s doing the dirty work and what they liked best.
2019 Testers’ Choice: Jeremy “Shaggy” Bailey’s Picks
From the 236 products we ran up and down the mountain, each tester nominated their personal favorites. Here are their picks and profiles, so you know who’s doing the dirty work and what they liked best.
Accident report of Vermont Army National Guard-triggered avalanche in Smugglers’ Notch points to a lack of risk assessment strategies
On March 14, six Vermont Army National Guard soldiers were involved in an avalanche incident in Smugglers’ Notch’s East Gully, an event that left five requiring medical treatment. More recently, Vermont-based investigative news outlet VTDigger published a September 18 article that takes an in-depth look at the accident and the risk assessment surrounding it.
2019 Testers’ Choice: Wylie Picotte’s Picks
From carving smooth powder turns to busting through crud and shredding corduroy, each tester aims to test eight products per day, a task that provided us with more than 1,100 individual review to craft the 2019 Gear Guide, available now and packed with tester feedback.
2019 Testers’ Choice: Mindy “Cupcake” Mulliken’s Picks
From the 236 products we ran up and down the mountain, each tester nominated their personal favorites. Here are their picks and profiles, so you know who’s doing the dirty work and what they liked best.
2019 Testers’ Choice: Betsy Manero’s Picks
It’s not all fun and games at Gear Test Week. Our 43 testers—32 skiers and 11 splitboarders—hit the slopes at Utah’s Powder Mountain with the dawn’s early light and don’t go to bed ’til the day’s reviews are complete.
The Winter Wildlands Alliance releases trailer for the Backcountry Film Festival’s 14th year
With 14 years under its belt, the Winter Wildlands Alliance’s Backcountry Film Festival is a mainstay of the fall movie premier circuit. A mid-November premier in Boise, Idaho kicks off an international tour of the 90-minute show. And Backcountry Film Festival Manager Melinda Quick is excited about the potential reach of this year’s show, as she hopes to plan stops for for Europe, Australia and South America in addition to Canada and the U.S.
Safety concerns spur on the construction of winter weather stations in Grand Teton National Park
Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) is known for its steep, rugged backcountry ski terrain dotted with 50-degree chutes and exposed faces, all within a five-mile skintrack of the Bradley-Taggert Parking Lot. But while tourers can approach the park’s peaks with relative ease, a hidden barrier to access exists: the absence of weather reports from winter weather stations in GTNP. This deficit is one that some Jackson Hole locals are currently working to rectify through the construction of new stations within park boundaries.
