Relatively speaking, airbags are a new tool in North American avalanche safety. Yet they’re proving to be a great tool in any backcountry kit. It’s important, however, to keep them classified as just that—a tool; something that may improve your chances of surviving an avalanche, depending on the circumstances. In the past few years I’ve […]
Why the Mayor of Salt Lake City Thinks Backcountry Skiers Should Care About the UN Climate Change Summit in Paris
The United Nations is at the brink of a historic global agreement on climate change that could limit carbon emissions. The accord is being negotiated right now on the outskirts of Paris at a two-week summit known as COP21. While most diplomats don’t know their left ski from their right, that’s not the case for Salt […]
In “Turns & Curves” Giulia Monego speaks of love and loss in the mountains
Last week, Bjarne Salén, producer for Endlessflow Films, released Turns and Curves, a short film featuring Italian freeskier and mountaineer Giulia Monego and her motivation to continue mountain exploration in the face of recent personal loss.
Snow Shooter: Adam Barker
It is understandable why photographer Adam Barker is a homebody—his backyard is Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. Though travel is an inherent part of his job, he loves Salt Lake City, living with his wife and three sons a stone’s throw from the Little Cottonwood Canyon backcountry.
Fire and Ice: How the Beaver Creek burn has changed skiing in the Sawtooth Mountains
Little is known about how fire affects snow stability, so Simon Trautman, director of the Sawtooth Avalanche Center in Idaho took a deeper look into the Beaver Creek Fire, which began in the Sawtooth Mountain Range just outside of Sun Valley on August 7, 2013. The fire started after a lightning strike ignited the surrounding pine forest northwest of Hailey, Idaho. It raged for nearly a month and consumed 114,900 acres of Sawtooth National Forest. Afterward, Trautman wanted to delve deeper into how the change in the landscape might impact winter conditions.
T-Bar Films releases Shared Lines about community, conservation and skiing in Vermont
The Vermont Backcountry Alliance (VTBC) is taking strides toward increasing access to terrain through the clearing and opening of the Braintree Mountain Forest in Braintree, Vermont. And in their latest film, Shared Lines, Vermont-based T-Bar films matches VTBC’s story with stoke from last year’s deep Vermont winter.
Mountain Skills: When is it OK to go Big?
We see it all the time in the ski movies: people charging big lines in the mountains. It’s inspiring and makes us want to go out there and charge, too. Yet, most of the time we are riding “mini-golf” terrain in our own backyards, wondering when conditions will allow us to hit the bigger lines. There might even be other people going big. So how do we know when it is safe to ride big, committing lines?
BACKCOUNTRY BULLETIN: DECEMBER AVALANCHE AND BACKCOUNTRY COMMUNITY EVENTS
December is here and with it comes avalanche center fundraisers, new educational programs, and speaker series. Here are some of the events to put on your schedule this month.
Skier goes missing during massive Alaskan avalanche cycle
Dr. Liam Walsh, a 33-year-old anesthesiologist from Wasilla, Alaska has yet to be found after going skiing in Hatcher Pass on November 22.
Two brothers escape consecutive Colorado avalanches
Brothers Brian and Alex Holmes of Ophir, Colorado are lucky survivors after setting off two separate avalanches on November 25 during their descent of Yellow Mountain in southern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.
