What a difference 365 days makes. It is why I don’t buy all the hulabaloo from weather forecasters about El Nino, La Nina, or global warming. The weather is what it is, and no matter what we do to try to control it, the best way to deal with it is to roll with it. [...]
Archive for December, 2010
Watchin’ the Weather: Snow-Forecast.com
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Snowhounds love to watch the weather. Not just to see what’s coming, or know when to enjoy what it has wrought, but to go out and embrace it while it’s happening. It’s part of why I like skinning up in a storm. You’re totally immersed in a swirling dance of snowflakes. No matter whether they’re [...]
Trimming Tele Fat
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Telemark equipment has gotten ridiculously heavy. Like many telemark skiers I kept adding more so I could enjoy unlimited terrain options; burlier boots, fatter skis, wider skins and heavier, more powerful bindings. Before long I was hauling over 10 pounds per foot into the wilds. Since 1990, the weight on our telemark feet has nearly [...]
Posted in Black Diamond, Garmont, Kinney, Matt, Skis, Telemark Bindings, Telemark Boots 
Tags: free pivot, lightweight, losing weight, Thompson Pass 
11 Comments »Review: Pieps 30° Plus inclinometer
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If you have reason to measure slope angles accurately, you would be hard pressed to beat the convenience of Pieps 30° PLUS. It’s a small, light device that measures slope angle in any orientation quickly and accurately. How does it work? With some electronic wizardry on a chip that measures gravitational acceleration in three axes. [...]
Posted in Accessories, Pieps Tags: inclinometer, lithium ion, meanderthal, skinning angle, slope 1 Comment »More snow comin’
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Awoke to the sound of rain this morning. When it rains in the summer in Tahoe I love it. When it rains in the winter in Tahoe, I’ve come to accept it. The bungalow we rent is at 5850′ feet. It is low enough in elevation that when warm storms come in, they manifest themselves [...]
Jackson heads home
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On the road for a bit, but heard some good news on Dick Jackson. Dick’s the owner of Aspen Expeditions, a mountain guiding service out of Aspen. Besides being one of America’s premier guides he’s an experienced paraglider. This past October he had a bad landing after gliding off Mt. Sopris near Carbondale, Colorado. He [...]
Ten-11, day 3
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Took another solo tour on Sunday that started as trip to the pool for a workout. As soon as I turned onto the freeway my eyes saw the crest of the Sierra around Anderson Peak. There had been fresh snow up high and the sight beckoned like it always does when the sky is blue [...]
Posted in Beacons, CA, Skinning Tags: 20°, 3 Axes, competitive skin track, meanderthal, neanderthal, Tracker 2 No Comments »Review: Ortovox Kodiak Shovel
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…if you’re ever involved in an avalanche rescue, you’ll wish you had a backhoe you could fire up right then just by spitting on some dehydrated backhoe crystals. Until you can beam one in from an app on your iPhone, a collapsible, human-powered hoe is the next best thing.
The Kodiak keeps the hoe option, but you change the orientation of the blade by connecting the shaft through a vertical or perpendicular yoke at the top of the blade. It’s a solid connection.
The Human Snow Conveyor
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A strategy for shoveling snow with measurable improvement. Practicing how to locate a buried victim with an avalanche beacon has become common protocol in avalanche courses, and to a lesser extent, by private parties. However, in the case of a real rescue, locating victims can be accomplished relatively quickly (assuming everyone in the group is [...]
Posted in Avalanche, Dostie, Craig, Technique Tags: avalanche, Bruce Edgerly, Dale Atkins, human conveyor, Manuel Genswein, rescue, shoveling, strategic shoveling, strategy, v-shaped 8 Comments »
