Desktop Wallpaper: The Baldy Chutes
Posted Thursday March 6, 2008 by Rachel in Skiing-Desktops Skiing-Wallpaper
This is the view of the Baldy Chutes from the Collins Chair at Alta, Utah, taken in March 2008.
Skiing the Main Baldy Chute at Alta
Posted Thursday October 25, 2007 by Rachel in Ski-Areas Skiing-Links
The Main Baldy Chute, dropping down from the top of Alta’s Mt. Baldy, is “one of the most prominent and classic chutes in the Wasatch”. Easily visible from Alta and requiring only a 30-45 minute hike when the lifts are spinning, it’s a popular and manageable chute for those who are less experienced with hiking and touring.
There are a ton of great trip reports online, including this one from Adventures in Utah which has some really great pictures. I like this picture in particular. This site also offers several trip reports and some nice pictures that give you a good feel for the chute.
In terms of difficulty, The Chuting Gallery puts it at 38-40°, which is pretty manageable for a confident advanced skier. It weighs in at a D8 on the D Scale—lower than the D10 given to the headwall at Tuckerman Ravine. This shot from Adventures in Utah is the best I’ve found for giving you an idea of what you’d be getting yourself into.
All in all it looks really awesome, and I can’t wait to give it a shot.
Bonus link: These guys attached a video camera to a radio-controlled helicopter last weekend and took a video of the Main Baldy Chute.
Photo from robbaker on Flickr.
Ski Training in the Off-Season with Harb Carvers
Posted Friday September 14, 2007 by Rachel in Skiing-Gear Skiing-Links
I came across a link to Harb Carvers over at The Ski Dva, and I have to say, they look kind of cool. They’re basically in-line skates that have two rows of parallel wheels, forcing you to “carve” turns similarly to the way you would on skis – by getting one edge’s worth of wheels up off the ground. Also, they’re made to be used with your ski boots.
There are some nice videos and a quick-start guide on the site that give you a feel for how similar to skiing these are. Unfortunately, they’re kind of expensive—about $300 depending on which model you get. That seems a little steep to me right now, but we’re getting awfully close to ski season (eee!). Maybe next April I’ll be willing to give them a try.
Corbet's Couloir at Jackson Hole
Posted Saturday August 18, 2007 by Rachel in Ski-Areas Skiing-Links
I came across some great pictures of Corbet’s Couloir over on this thread at AlpineZone.com.
For those of you that might not be familiar with Corbet’s, it’s a legendary chute at Jackson Hole that’s evolved into the chute to ski to prove what you can do, even though it’s not necessarily the most challenging (though I’m sure in some conditions it can be). S&S Chute, for example, is right next to Corbet’s, and requires a rarely-given ski patrol sign off before you can try to ski it.
Jackson Hole offers a camp, called Steep and Deep Camp, for those who’d like to try to talk themselves into skiing Corbet’s over 4 days of advanced/expert level instruction.
If you’d like to get an idea of how steep the beginning of the cute actually is, check out some of the Corbet’s Couloir videos on YouTube. There are also some great stories about Corbet’s over on EpicSki.com from a guy who’s an instructor at Jackson Hole.
Summer Skiing in Late July at Timberline (Mt. Hood, Oregon)
Posted Thursday August 9, 2007 by Rachel in Ski-Areas Site-News
This post is a little late, but on Saturday, July 28th I had the opportunity to drive up to Timberline and try some summer skiing on Mt. Hood. Work sent me to Portland, Oregon for a conference, and I’d read about summer skiing at Timberline before, so as long as I was out there I decided to make the 1.5 hour drive and check it out.
Some pictures (full set available here):
Overall it was really enjoyable. There wasn’t a ton of snow, but what was there was really not bad. It was slushy, of course, but not any worse than Vermont on a warm day in early April. The race lanes that they’d salted were even better—noticeably firmer than the public lane.
Unfortunately, there was only one terrain park open to the public, and the features in it were bigger than I was comfortable with—really big hits and no boxes (just rails). The other two parks were reserved for camps only. There was a public halfpipe, but you had to ski all the way to bottom of the second lift to use it, so I passed. By the time I skied down there at the end of the day I was pretty tired and didn’t want to push my luck.
Overall, though, I’d recommend Timberline without hesitation to anyone who happens to be within a 3-4 hour drive. I live in New York, and I don’t think TImberline is worth a 5 hour flight by itself, but if I lived in the pacific northwest I would definitely be at Mt. Hood a few Saturdays a month all summer long.
Extreme Skiing in the Midwest
Posted Wednesday July 4, 2007 by Rachel in Ski-Areas Skiing-Links
Yesterday I came across a thread on the AlpineZone forums that mentioned Mount Bohemia, an experts-only hill in northern Michigan that offers skiing unlike anything else you’ll find in the midwest, and supposedly even rivals the skiing out west.
This sign welcomes skiers who might not know what they’re in for. The trail map is pretty interesting as well. An article in the New York Times from March 2007 gives a nice overview of the area and what it offers.
Unfortunately, the chances of me ever skiing Mount Bohemia are close to zero due its super-remote location. It’s 6 hours from the nearest metro area, which is—wait for it—Green Bay, Wisconsin. If I ever do find myself out there for some reason, though, I will definitely give Mount Bohemia a try.
Desktop Wallpaper: View at Brighton
Posted Sunday July 1, 2007 by Rachel in Skiing-Desktops Skiing-Wallpaper
This is the view from the top of the Great Western Express lift at Brighton, Utah, taken in January 2007.
Mountain Reviews 2.0 Coming Soon!
Posted Wednesday June 6, 2007 by Rachel in Site-News
I’m excited to announce that I’m almost done working on a ton of new features for Mountain Reviews.
First, Mountain Reviews joins the web 2.0 revolution with an updated logo, now featuring stroked type and a gradient! I’ve managed to resist reflections and anything shiny thus far, but I’m not making any long-term promises.
Now, moving on to things that actually improve the site, each mountain will have a ton of subsections that will give you the information you need when you want to kill time on the internet thinking about find the best places to go skiing and riding.
From the “features you didn’t even know you wanted” department, all the browse pages will have maps of the region you’re looking at.
And… (drumroll)... Canada, eh?
There’s more, but you’ll have to wait for the rest (I know, the anticipation is killing you). I’m excited about launching and really think the changes will help bring in a lot more reviews, which is what Mountain Reviews is ultimately trying to do. Keep your eyes open for the new version in the next few weeks!
Tuckerman, Silverton, the Interconnect Tour, and more...
Posted Tuesday June 5, 2007 by Rachel in Skiing-Links
I stumbled across the New York Times Skiing Travel Guide today, and there are actually a lot more great skiing articles buried in there than you would expect.
A few of my favorites were:
- For Daredevil Skiing, the Season Is Now: A nice overview of the spring skiing at Tuckerman Ravine in New Hampshire.
- Utah’s Epic Ride: A short travelogue from a day on the Utah Interconnect Tour, a guided tour through Utah’s backcountry that takes you through up to 6 resorts in a single day. Don’t miss the slideshow.
- Out of Bounds, Within Limits in Silverton, Colorado: An overview of Colorado’s Silverton Mountain, where’s there’s only one chair and guides are mandatory. Another good slideshow with this one. Also, it uses the terms “gaper” and “noob” in the same sentence. Bet you never thought you’d see that in the Times.
Poke around if you’ve got a few minutes.
Build a Terrain Park in Your Backyard
Posted Friday May 25, 2007 by Rachel in Skiing-Links
Ok, this is awesome. In my earlier blog post about getting going in the terrain park I linked to this article at RobertsSki.com that lays out how to build your own portable boxes and rails. Today I stumbled across BackyardTerrainPark.com, that sells the “fake snow” carpets you need to use those portable boxes and rails over the summer.
This, unlike my million dollar Snowflex idea, is something we can actually do this summer:
- Order some carpeting.
- Build a box.
- Possibly build a little ramp.
- Proceed to have the awesomest summer afternoon ever.