The Kabookie Bids Adieu
A sad bit of news I unfortunately have to report following the WWSRA demo at Mammoth Mountain is word the Kabookie will not return for the 2015-2016 season. As the metal-free version of Blizzard’s smash-hit Bonafide, the Kabookie’s niche was always precarious: a little too heavy by modern touring standards, yet also a little too light in the eyes of Alpine skiers (more…)
Posted in Gear | 2 Comments
At The Eleventh Hour, Snow
I was thinking, yesterday, about skinny runs. For those of you who skied in the 70’s or 80’s, I’m sure you remember them, because that’s all there were: narrow, winding runs that ran through trees. We skied a lot closer to trees in those days—and a lot slower. By the wide-open-highway standards of today, many of those old runs would look more like catwalks (more…)
Posted in Current Conditions | 10 Comments
2015 WWSRA Mammoth Mountain
It’s been hard, these past dry years, to think much like a ski buyer, but the makers have continued their work notwithstanding, and, snow or not, they’ve made some fantastic skis. To see what’s coming for 2016, last week I attended the WWSRA (Western Winter Sports Reps Association) demo event at Mammoth Mountain (more…)
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Mammoth Found Encased In Ice
Yes, I’d heard Mammoth Mountain saw rain virtually from top to bottom over the past few days, but some things you just have to see with your own eyes to believe. Holy Mr. Freeze, Batman, that’s a lot of ice! Mammoth looks like it’s been speed-glaciated. Great gleaming sheets of ice are everywhere, along with the staccato scrape of screaming ski edges (more…)
Posted in Current Conditions | 5 Comments
Above and Below the Line
Here’s a fairly dramatic look at just how high the snow level was during this last Sierra storm cycle. This looks like the aftermath of some kind of freakish summer snow squall, but no, that’s what we got from the weekend’s “atmospheric river”. Eyeballing the line on this shot of Birch Mountain and the Sierra crest, that’s a snow level right around 9.7K (more…)
Posted in Highway 395 | 0 Comments
Reluctant Post-Storm Discussion
I guess we have to say something about the storm, though for the past few hours I’ve been wondering if maybe it would be better if we all just pretended it never happened. Hey—how about those northeast blizzards? Makes you want to grab your XC skis and catch a flight to JFK, no? OK, sorry about that: back to the west: (more…)
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San G Siren Song of the Day
Yes, there it is, the continuing siren of San Gorgonio Mountain’s north face, as seen yesterday from the View Haus at Snow Summit. Sorry the photo quality is so poor: one of our cost-cutting measures over the summer was to dump the Nikon and the long lens, which leaves me (temporarily, I hope) without a good way to get telephoto shots (more…)
Posted in Current Conditions | 2 Comments
Out of Bounds
January links for your internet amusement…. (more…)
Posted in Out of Bounds | 0 Comments
The January Report
This is not Year Four: I refuse to call it that. Yes, there are indications Mammoth Pass will see its lowest February water survey reading in history, and yes, Mt. Baldy has already given up the ghost here in SoCal, but I am not yet ready to face reality. We still have a solid thirty days or more to choose to believe a March Miracle is coming (more…)
Posted in Current Conditions | 7 Comments
Kids: The Snowplow Returns
As parents we are oh-so-sensitive to regression. We fight tooth and nail for every scrap of developmental progress, be it reading, eating with utensils, escaping diapers, or not drawing on walls, and when those inevitable moments of regression shatter our complacency, our sense of loss and even outrage can be overwhelming. (more…)
