Powderwhore Productions’ Television

Okay, I admit it: the prospect of spending an hour watching a crew of Telemarkers dropping their knees did not exactly fill my heart with glee. Skiing is a big tent, I understand, with plenty of room for people doing things any which way they choose, but as I inserted Television into my DVD player for the very first time, I felt not unlike I was about to wander into the wrong aisle at the adult book store (more…)

Posted in Film & Television | 0 Comments

Snow

Mammoth reports 3-7 feet of snow, with nearly 2′ of new snow in the past 24 hours. Locally, the last few storms have opened up Mountain High and Snow Summit, though on pretty minimal bases. I’m off for the holiday, so have a Happy Thanksgiving, and get out there and find some snow…

Posted in Current Conditions | 9 Comments

The Eagle (and the UFC) Have Landed

There are a number of conversations I’m dreading having with my son. One of them is in the process of just beginning, courtesy of the UFC commercials which inconveniently appear on television during some of the shows my son watches. In my son’s conception of the world, you see, grown men don’t hit each other in the face (more…)

Posted in Musings | 0 Comments

The South Fork Slide, Revisited

Sometime during the ’09-10 winter, a large avalanche took place along the NE aspect of San Bernardino Peak, wiping out a portion of the South Fork Trail somewhere slightly southeast of Poopout Hill. When my partner and I saw the remains of the slide that April, toward the end of the season, it was obvious it had happened months earlier. But that doesn’t mean we weren’t spooked by what we saw (more…)

Posted in Skiing | 3 Comments

The ‘Couloir to Nowhere’ DVD is Here!

It’s here at last: the Couloir to Nowhere DVD is now available, just in time for the holiday season! SierraDescents’ first-ever short film tells the story of our ski descent of Iron Mountain, deep in the heart of the San Gabriel Mountains. When I first took a photo of Iron’s north face, from atop Baden-Powell in 2008, I could have never imagined how much trouble that single photograph would cause (more…)

Posted in video | 5 Comments

Take Mom to Surefoot

I haven’t written much on the subject, but the truth is I rue the day the thermofit liner was invented. For one thing, the thermofit liner and subsequent thermofitting process transfers the responsibility of boot fit from manufacturers to retail shops, which is certainly good business for the shops, but which in practice means there is a huge range in the quality of the fitters/results out there. But the biggest reason I don’t like thermo liners is that they’re fundamentally flawed: they ask your foot to do something that it is particularly ill-suited to do (namely, act as a battering ram). So, what are our options? (more…)

Posted in Gear | 6 Comments

Bon Voyage, Dan!

My friend Dan is going skiing on Monday…for a year. After a brief tour of several U.S. ranges, he and his wife will leave for the Himalaya, with plans to summer in the Andes after that. Aside from the overwhelming jealousy I feel watching them go, I’m also so stoked that they’ve managed to turn a long-time dream into reality. I did a little bit of traveling when I got out of school, but the truth is I really didn’t appreciate the freedom I had at the time. And I certainly didn’t take advantage of it. So to those of you whose ties are currently loose and whose eyes tend to look to the horizon, I say go for it.

Seize the opportunity to make things happen. Shake things up a little. Be bold! As time passes it becomes harder and harder to get away. Traveling the world and skiing many of the greatest ranges sounds almost irresistible to me—but so does taking a nice nap on my sofa. So to Dan and his wife, I say Bon Voyage. Hope you have the time of your lives! And to the rest of us, maybe Dan’s example can inspire us to seek out a little extra adventure in our own lives, be it on the farthest corner of the globe…or right here at home.

Posted in Skiing | 0 Comments

BPA Receipts

Here’s another way that most ubiquitous of not-so-friendly chemicals, BPA, can end up in your body: via store receipts. Turns out that the thermal papers used to print most receipts are heavily infused with the chemical (up to 2% by weight, apparently). Tests have revealed that the BPA easily rubs off on your fingers as you handle the receipts.

As always, the perennial question is should you be worried? Maybe. Handle one receipt or so a day, and your exposure level will be well within the daily tolerance level established by (I believe) the FDA. However, people with wet fingers can pick up up to ten times as much BPA off the receipts. And, the presence of other chemicals on your hands commonly found in hand lotions (specifically, alcohol), can act as a carrier, drawing BPA through your skin and into your bloodstream much more efficiently.

The worst case scenario would look something like a pregnant cashier with lotion on her hands handling hundreds of receipts per day. Such a situation could potentially lead to harmful exposure levels, especially (obviously) to the fetus. Alternative papers are apparently in the works, so watch for a “BPA Free” tag on receipts in the future. Of course, there’s no guarantee that these newer formulations will prove to be any safer. Via Science News.

Posted in Health, Science | 0 Comments