March 2014 archive

Awesome April is here

  This is the time of year when the wannabes fall away. Spring – when the snow alternates within hours from cold smoke to mashed potatoes. It’s the time of year when it’s icy in the morning, velvet corn in the afternoon. With the right conditions the weather warms for the day while the sun …

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Powder Mountain delivers for BCM Gear Test

  Howie put the question to me, live, with a video camera rolling. I hate being put on the spot like that. I’m a writer because I know how easy it is to say the wrong thing in the heat of the moment. It’s much better to consider the ramifications of what you say with …

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BCTalk: Spring conditions in Tahoe

  It was the best of snow, it was the worst (or lack) of snow. The trip up to Lake Aloha was a good as it gets, perfect, smooth consolidated corn with a great freeze overnight. We took a few Sugar Bowl Academy kids on this one to show them the joys of backcountry skating …

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Review: Leki’s trick Tourstick-Vario ski pole

  Leki’s Tourstick has 20cm of Speedlock adjustability, then folds down to < 40cm.[/caption]Leki has a new pole, the micro adjustable, foldable, TourStick Vario, that anyone with traveling on their mind should be taking a closer look at. It combines a lot of nice features into a single ski pole, including Leki's ultra comfortable Aergon® …

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How long do you keep your ski boots?

How long do you keep your ski boots? To get some sense of that the poll on the right was posted on this site.

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2015 Fat ski demo at Sugar Bowl

  The weird winter we’re having in Tahoe this season forced the typical alpine demo day at Alpine Meadows to be canceled. Thankfully it was rescheduled for Sugar Bowl last Wednesday, March 5th. Unlike the last two years, this demo day featured soft snow conditions. No, it wasn’t light and fluffy powder, but for evaluating …

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Project Zero launches Know the Snow Contest

  A recent post by a friend on Farcebook made me realize there are still an awful lot of people unwittingly relying on luck for survival when they head out of bounds for fresh tracks. He did a quick survey at the OB gate and found less than 10% of those going out had basic …

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