Sunrise got 4" or so from the storm last night which is not exactly a powder day, but still is fresh snow. They have gotten a foot and a half in the last 4-5 days so the snow should be fresh and enjoyable.
Will report on the day tomorrow or Saturday.
]]>Recently, a young man was caught by an avalanche while skiing out-of-bounds at Snowbasin Resort in Utah. When found, he was dead and buried under only a foot of snow. The physics are interesting. When an avalanche stops, the snow settles within seconds and sets-up as hard as concrete. The victim's movements are paralyzed, and -- like drowning -- death usually comes within 15 minutes due to suffocation. Though there are historical cases of people surviving after being buried up to 45 minutes. At any rate, it's a hideous way to die...There are precautions to be taken in avalanche country. Check avalanche conditions online or via local media before a trip. Know the landscape and avoid open, expansive areas without trees. Never cross-country ski, snowmobile, or otherwise travel alone in the backcountry. When accompanied by fellow recreationists, small portable shovels, collapsible steel probe poles, and electronic transmitter beacons all increase the survival odds if one is caught in a snow slide. If caught in a slide, flail your arms and legs around in a swimming motion that might leave limbs exposed when it stops. If there's time, extricate yourself from skis or a backpack to assist range of motion. Even a deep breath before it hits will increase survival time by a few minutes. Keep your mouth shut so it doesn't fill with snow and choke you. After all that, say your prayers.
But avalanches aren't the only hazard found out-of-bounds. Recently, at Grand Targhee Resort in Wyoming, a 46-year-old man from New York skied over the line near day's end and simply got lost. He called the 911 on his cell phone and reported his predicament. When asked to describe his surroundings he noted an open snowy meadow with a creek flowing through it. Unfortunately, that described hundreds of acres in the area. The man had a GPS Unit, but didn't know how to use it. He was dressed well for a day of skiing, but lacked the extra clothes and survival gear needed to survive the night. Local Search and Rescue personnel and the Grand Targhee Ski Patrol searched for part of the night, but due to snowy weather and the avalanche danger, halted the search until daylight. In the morning they found the man dead of hypothermia.
It is all about preparation. First, know your surroundings. If you want to go backcountry skiing, at least know how to use a GPS and beacon. Have the right equipment. Never go alone.
There are hundreds of dangerous activities in life that are extremely fun and rewarding. Backcountry skiing can certainly be one of them, but it is not for the inexperienced. Hence why I do not ski backcountry. But even backcountry is no where near as dangerous as "side-country skiing" where novice skiers venture just over the ropes to try to track some wide open expanse of snow.
Know your limits. Have the right gear. Have SURVIVAL GEAR. Don't do stupid stuff.
]]>Already, the Aspen Global Change Institute forecasts that if global emissions continue to rise, the local ski industry will be little more than a memory by 2100.Among the group’s sobering findings:
“High greenhouse gas emissions scenarios… are likely to end skiing in Aspen by 2100, and possibly well before then, while low emission path scenarios preserve skiing at mid-to-upper mountain elevations. In either case, snow conditions will deteriorate in the future.”
Skeptics of global warming cite images of major blizzards and snowfalls measured by the foot in Midwestern and mountain regions. Williams says those pictures hinder efforts to convince people that a warmer future really is coming.
“It’s a small but constant change,” he said. “It’s hard for people to embrace that.”...
The Williams-Lazar report offered a glass-half-full scenario for Colorado. While other areas face devastation, change appears to be coming more slowly to places like Aspen.
That doesn’t mean it won’t come, even if freak early or late storms seem to paint a different picture.
“The way I think of it is: Do you want to ski with your grandkids? Or do you want your kids to ski with their grandkids?” Williams said.
“That’s about three generations out. That reverberates with people. They get that.”
Interesting. Scares the hell out of people.
Before I look at the methodology, I just want to point out a few things. First, there is a major correlation between the ENSO (El Nino) ocean temperatures and the snowfall in particular in either the Southwest or in the Northwest. Weather patterns caused by El Nino are well documented and there is a strong correlation.
Yet even in the strongest of El Nino years, climatologists cannot predict even within a narrow range of what the snowfall amounts will be. This is an El Nino year. How many inches approximately will Brian Head receive? Somewhere between 300-500". That is about as good as you will get.
And that is a short time horizon. That is only forward looking, say six months tops. If climatologists cannot tell me even a solid ballpark figure of how many inches of snow a particular resort will receive in a year, even as late as say--October, so I know whether or not to buy a season pass or when the opening day will be this season, how in the holy hell should I believe that they can tell me when opening day will be on average in the year 2100? In 2009, A-basin had their earliest opening EVER. October 9th. Climatologists say they can only make predictions about long term trends using fancy "closed source" computer models that have been ripped to shreds for their coding errors, not make short term predictions about anything useful. Water levels will rise several feet by 2100 and submerge half the coastal cities, but tomorrow there is a 40% chance of light showers. 40%? WTF?
Below the fold, I will get into why I am so disgusted by the scare tactics thrown around by the environmental folks that think putting up windmills is somehow going to help Aspen have good snow in 2100. And I won't even get into the Sierra Club saying that switching from coal to nuclear power is like switching from cigarettes to crack.
]]> The study in question relied exclusively on temperature predictions taken directly from the IPCC's 2001 report. The IPCC's methods and claims are certainly in question with the recent scandals.The folks at the UK Telegraph are all over the IPCC:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report is supposed to be the world’s most authoritative scientific account of the scale of global warming.But this paper has discovered a series of new flaws in it including:
- The publication of inaccurate data on the potential of wave power to produce electricity around the world, which was wrongly attributed to the website of a commercial wave-energy company.
- Claims based on information in press releases and newsletters.
- New examples of statements based on student dissertations, two of which were unpublished.
- More claims which were based on reports produced by environmental pressure groups.
They are the latest in a series of damaging revelations about the IPCC’s most recent report, published in 2007.
Last month, the panel was forced to issue a humiliating retraction after it emerged statements about the melting of Himalayan glaciers were inaccurate.
Last weekend, this paper revealed that the panel had based claims about disappearing mountain ice on anecdotal evidence in a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.
And on Friday, it emerged that the IPCC’s panel had wrongly reported that more than half of the Netherlands was below sea level because it had failed to check information supplied by a Dutch government agency.
Researchers insist the errors are minor and do not impact on the overall conclusions about climate change.
However, senior scientists are now expressing concern at the way the IPCC compiles its reports and have hit out at the panel’s use of so-called “grey literature” — evidence from sources that have not been subjected to scientific scrutiny.
A new poll has revealed that public belief in climate change is weakening.The panel’s controversial chair, Rajendra Pachauri, pictured right, is facing pressure to resign over the affair.
That would be Nobel Prize winning Panel Chair...
But that is not the end of the story:
It can also be revealed that claims made by the IPCC about the effects of global warming, and suggestions about ways it could be avoided, were partly based on information from ten dissertations by Masters students.One unpublished dissertation was used to support the claim that sea-level rise could impact on people living in the Nile delta and other African coastal areas, although the main focus of the thesis, by a student at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, appears to have been the impact of computer software on environmental development.
The IPCC also made use of a report by US conservation group Defenders of Wildlife to state that salmon in US streams have been affected by rising temperatures. The panel has already come under fire for using information in reports by conservation charity the WWF.
This is just not good science. It gets better for the inventor of the Hockey Stick Graph, Michael Mann:
There has also been an acclaimed new paper by Michael Mann, the creator of the iconic "hockey stick" graph, purporting to show that the world has recently become hotter than at any time in recorded history, eliminating all the wealth of evidence to show that temperatures were higher in the Mediaeval Warm Period than today.After being used obsessively by the IPCC's 2001 report to promote the cause, the "hockey stick" was comprehensively discredited, not least by Steve McIntyre, a Canadian computer analyst, who showed that Mann had built into his computer programme an algorithm (or "al-gore-ithm") which would produce the hockey stick shape even if the data fed in was just "random noise".
Two weeks ago Dr Mann published a new study, claiming to have used 1,209 new historic "temperature proxies" to show that his original graph was essentially correct after all. This was faithfully reported by the media as further confirmation that we live in a time of unprecedented warming. Steve McIntyre immediately got to work and, supported by expert readers on his Climate Audit website, shredded Mann's new version as mercilessly as he had the original.
He again showed how selective Mann had been in his new data, excluding anything which confirmed the Mediaeval Warming and concentrating on that showing temperatures recently rising to record levels.
Finnish experts pointed out that, where Mann placed emphasis on the evidence of sediments from Finnish lakes, there were particular reasons why these should have shown rising temperatures in recent years, such as expanding towns on their shores. McIntyre even discovered a part of Mann's programme akin to a disguised version of his earlier algorithm, which he now calls "Mannomatics".
But Mann's new study will surely be used to push the warmist party line in the run-up to the IPCC international conference in Copenhagen next year to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, temperatures continue to drop. The latest Nasa satellite readings on global temperatures from the University of Alabama, one of four officially recognised sources of temperature data, show that August was the fourth month this year when temperatures fell below their 30-year average, ie since satellite records began. The US National Climatic Data Center showsis showing that last month in the USA was only the 39th warmest since records began 113 years ago.
So where is the concensus?
]]>It really puts a face on the people that compete in the Olympics. So much of what we see is Shawn White this and Bode Miller that, but these are not the Shawn Whites with multimillion dollar endorsements. These are some of the most dedicated people you can find barely earning a living off sponsor money and ski team money to compete at the highest level.
What they do is not fun. It is not enjoyable. It is brutal. Most of the athletes describe some multiyear rehab from an injury that happened doing 60 miles per hour on icy snow. Bouncing from town to town and continent to continent to prepare.
And it is four years of preparation. Come the 1st of March, after the flame goes out in Vancouver, these athletes start gearing up for another four years of World Cups and qualifying and training to get ready for another go at the Olympics.
And if not, they prepare for the fact that their careers are over.
"Truth in Motion" stars 2010 U.S. Olympic Alpine Ski Team athletes Ted Ligety (Park City, UT), Sarah Schleper (Vail, CO), Jake Zamansky (Aspen, CO) and Tommy Ford (Bend, OR). There are also cameo appearances by Bode Miller (Franconia, NH), Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO) and Scott Macartney (Crystal Mountain, WA) along with numerous coaches and ski technicians who support this Team."You see exactly what we're going through every day," said Ligety, the 2006 Olympic combined gold medalist. "I don't think anybody has ever gotten a truly in-depth look at ski racing. It's cool in that respect. This portrays what we do.
Directed by Academy Award nominee Brett Morgen, the film takes you inside the locker room in every aspect of the being an elite ski racer, only their locker room is Portillo, Chile; Saas Fee, Switzerland; Soelden, Austria, on airplanes, long car rides and hotel rooms across the globe.
"This film spends more time on the characters and people, the personalities and the perseverance," said Scott Keogh, chief marketing officer for Audi of America, which has supported the U.S. Ski Team since 2007.
There is a noted lack of glamour as the film takes you through pre dawn wakeup calls to check lactate levels and stretch before riding a frozen chairlift to work. The athletes are candid, raw and provide an insight to their sport that cannot be seen in a two-minute race.
"There were numerous moments where people said things to us that shocked and surprised us at how open they were," said Morgen, who followed the Team from Chile to Park City and then to Switzerland and Austria. "It was very important for us to let the skiing tell the story."
Schleper provides a unique aspect to the film as she delves into the difficulties of juggling motherhood with working to achieve her Olympic dream. Following two missed seasons after the 2006 Olympics – one to a torn ACL and the other for the birth of her son Lasse, who turns two Saturday – Schleper battled back into the World Cup elite and successfully made her fourth Olympic Team.
I strongly recommend that you watch it when it repeats on NBC this week.
My comments to Jake after we finished watching it:
Jake, I have watched you ski since you were 5 and seen how much better you get every time we go out. If you really put your mind to it, dedicate yourself, and train hard for the next few years, one day, you might be good enough to make the US Ski Team and get a job waxing and tuning their skis.
I am a supportive dad. It is what I do.
]]>Wall Street financiers say they are going to put the Whistler Blackcomb resort up for sale while the facility is hosting Winter Olympic events next month.Creditors who have lent $1.4 billion US to the ski resort's owners, Intrawest ULC, have effectively seized control of the company and are attempting to auction off its assets.
Whistler Blackcomb, one of numerous ski resorts Intrawest owns in Canada and the U.S., is set to host major ski events at the Olympic Games next month.
On Tuesday, a notice of a public auction to be held Feb. 19, 2010, was published in newspapers in Canada and the United States, soliciting bids for a membership interest in Intrawest Holdings. Among the assets in the notice were "partnership interests in two resort properties located in Canada (Whistler and Blackcomb)."
In 2006, Wall Street hedge fund Fortress Investments LLC bought Intrawest in a $2.8-billion US deal. Fortress recently missed a $524 million debt payment connected to that purchase.
The primary lender on the Intrawest deal in 2006 was defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers. New York debt managers Davidson Kempner and Oak Hill Advisors also helped finance the deal, and a source familiar with the process told CBC News the major creditors are united in pursuing the auction process.
Typically, lenders are willing to work with borrowers to avoid foreclosure. But the lenders' inability to move the debt repayment plan along seems to have spurred this week's unexpected developments.
Most of these issues are symptoms of the economic meltdown. Especially the meltdown in real estate values. There is more fallout coming.
]]>We were going to leave around 4AM from my place and he stayed over. Unfortunately, at 1AM were will still up and hanging out and finally against our best judgment figured if we chanced going to sleep, we would oversleep and not end up going so we left then. I made it to Payson before I doubled over exhausted and he slept the entire way in the back seat of the Avy. A quick breakfast at the only restaurant on the planet that doesn't take credit or debit and is cash only, then off the rest of the way there.
I have never seen Sunrise so packed. The parking overflowed all the way down the main road about two miles, almost to the lodge. The base areas were completely packed. And on top of all that, the restaurant/lodge at the top of Apache got a bunch of water damage so there was no real place to stop up there. The food sucked, even by Sunrise standards. But we weren't really there to eat.
Started at around 10 because of the traffic and by 1, I still had not even clicked out of my bindings when we grabbed lunch. By that time we had skied all three mountains for at least a run. The runs that had been being skied a lot were in great shape. The ones that were less accessible or less used were like skiing concrete because the 4' dump from last weekend had been sitting for a week and compacting. Then you add that it was chopped up and it was horrible to ski.
There is a great midmountain lift that goes from halfway up Sunrise Peak to the top and is just off to the right of the midway lodge that had ZERO lift line so we did several laps on it taking Rustler and Superstition. Best skiing of the day was right there. Zach was a hell of a skier ten years ago so by the end of the morning, he was back where he could hang.
About 3, we got to the top of Sunrise and I decided I was going to poach Quakie and have Zach take Arrowhead and meet me at the bottom since he refused to go poaching with me. He made the right choice. Quakie was horrible. It gets direct sun all day and was almost untracked and just nasty. Difficult to ski. Small trees poking up. Bleh!
Bad news is that Arrowhead crosses with a run that goes to Sunrise base where I thought we were going but also goes straight down to the Cyclone base. I waited for Zach, but could not find him and I ended up at Cyclone while he was at Sunrise. Then vice versa. Then waiting and looking. Finally after about 30 minutes of waiting, I had time for one last run.
When we were walking in from the parking in BFE, I met a couple guys from back east and was BSing. One of them was a hard core New Yorker and he was just rolling up to the line at Sunrise as I was about to get on. I climbed over the rope, went to wrong way in line and pushed my way back to get to him and his three buddies. You guys mind if I take the last run with you?
Tony had a softside cooler bag at the top of Sunrise from lunch that he had to bring down and thankfully his buddy John said he would carry it so he could get one last major run in. The two of us took Rustler as hard and as fast as I have ever skied moguls in a late afternoon dim light where you could barely see the contours of the snow just mashing the pedal down. Stop halfway down, catch a little breath, mash some more. It was the best mogul run I have skied. Having someone to push you and make you work. We flew to the base area and were 4 chairs to late to make the last run of the day. I begged. I bribed. Hell, I tried to steal, but no way.
Always end the day with the best run. I wanted to do Lupe if we could get on the last chair, but that was left for another day.
Gave out the URL for the site and hope to get an email so we can trip up there again.
]]>Saturday was 15 degrees, sunny without a cloud, and almost zero wind. Plus four feet of fresh.
And even at that, we were done around noon because we had seen and done all there was to see and do. Roulette. Check. Face of Giant Steps and Engens. Check. Several laps on Dunes. Check. Hit all the usual powder stashes. Skied all the places we love to ski.
Here is how bad it was--after a perfect ski day, we were so thoroughly bored with Brian Head (5 years of 20 days will do that to you) that we spent Sunday SNOWBOARDING. First time for me, Jake and Jackson. Dude, I am sore. I really don't like falling on my face, but falling on my ass and worrying about broken wrists is worse. I am sore. Tired. Have a headache. Jake broke his goggles he fell so hard. And in general I suck ass at it. Jake and Jackson are much better than I am.
I hate to speak ill of a bluebird powder day, but I am just growing so bored of skiing the same terrain over and over. That said, Jarrett has been in lessons every trip this year and because he is an advanced intermediate and there are very few of them here, he gets either a private lesson or a lesson with 1-2 other kids at worst. He is really coming along.
Which brings me to another point. Jake talking trash. He tells me how bad I suck and how much better he is than me at the top of Engens. I say, tell you what, let's race to the bottom and see. Knee to waist deep pow, steepest place on the mountain (not saying much). I blew him away. So then he says, "Well I meant best form, not fastest." OK, we head down to the next big drop and we try again so I can see his form. He ate it about halfway down, total faceplant yardsale.
It helps having my brand new Nordica Zeros. I am not going to lie. Good gear helps a ton. Skiing the pow was effortless and there is no way to keep up with me when my skis are 20mm wider tip-waist-tail than his. But I ain't telling him that. I will keep my superiority as long as I can afford newer better gear which will be pretty much forever given his grades this year. He is a much better skier than student and that ain't saying much.
Jackson on the other hand just quietly goes about shredding.
]]>Record storm in AZ last night.
I am debating going to the condo tonight or taking the ski bus to Sunrise tomorrow. Still 50-50.
]]>Brian Head, UT â Several new lodging/skiing/boarding packages and multiple promotions offering 50%-off adult lift tickets have been introduced at Southern Utahâ s Brian Head Resort, the best-kept skiing and snowboarding secret in the Southwestern States and one of Americaâ s "Top Family Getaways," according to the Family Travel Forum.Just opened in December 2009, The Grand Lodge at Brian Head is offering its Ski Packages starting at $189 per night based on double occupancy ($94.50 per-person). The package is valid Sunday thru Thursday and includes accommodations for two in a Resort Queen or a Resort King room, two Brian Head Resort adult lift tickets per night stayed and two appetizers per day at The Lift Lounge & Patio. The package is offered through 4/11/10. For these and many other events and packages, visit www.grandlodgebrianhead.com or call (435) 677-9000. Enhanced with the most modern of amenities, the new, 100-room Grand Lodge at Brian Head pays homage to the majestic beauty of the southern Utah landscape with stone, timber and log walls, rough-hewn wood, wood beam ceilings, stone fireplaces and bronze metal and granite accented furnishings. Guests can enjoy an indoor pool with cascading waterfall, indoor and outdoor hot tubs, a fitness center and the Red Leaf Spa. The Lodge is pet-friendly, offers complimentary parking and all rooms are non-smoking.
Long-time Brian Head lodging favorite, Cedar Breaks Lodge and Spa is offering a Stay 3 Ski Free package, a three-night package with check-in on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. It includes accommodations in a newly remodeled King or Junior Villa and four all area lift tickets for just $114 per night based on double occupancy ($57 per-person) â for a total, three-night-package price of $340. Last night to check in with this package is 4/6/10. More information is at www.cedarbreakslodge.com or 1-888-AT-CEDAR. Cedar Breaks Lodge has been serving Brian Head visitors for over 13 years, and its accommodations include 118 comfortable Villas with seven different floor plans perfect for couples and families up to eight people, underground parking, 24/7 front desk, (two) restaurants, a cocktail lounge, indoor pool with a spacious deck, steam room, dry sauna, (two) fireside hot tubs, gift shop and the Cedar Breaks Spa. At Cedar Breaks Lodge guests will find all the amenities and service second to none that will make their next visit to Brian Head memorable and enjoyable.Each package requires a deposit with a 72 hour (prior to the arrival date) cancellation policy, does not include tax or gratuities, and is subject to availability.
Brian Head is offering steep discounts: A $39 package for first-time-beginner skiers or snowboarders 13 years-old or older. It includes a 2-hour morning lesson or 2-hour afternoon lesson, a lift ticket and rental equipment. This offer is good January 22, 23 and 24, 2010. The ski area is also offering 50%-off adults lift tickets Monday through Friday during non-holiday periods for those presenting a police, fire or military ID at the ticket window, for everyone purchasing 8 gallons or more of fuel at KB Express or Terrible Herbst locations in California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah (www.terribleherbst.com), and for all Snow Jam Preferred Card holders (www.brianhead.com/special_offers). Those purchasing a Dixie Direct Book and presenting their Dixie Direct membership card (www.dixiedirectcard.com) at the ticket window will receive a "Buy one Get one FREE" Brian Head Resort lift ticket. (Holiday periods: 1/16-1/18; 2/13-2/15)
Check the place out. I love Brian Head and it is a great place to learn or just enjoy a few days on the snow. Not steep and deep, but with the current storm coming, it is still incredible skiing.
]]>The bomb is the size of a soup can, bright orange, stuffed with two pounds of pentolite—a chalky mixture of TNT and an even more powerful explosive compound known as PETN. Ross Titilah, a 31-year-old ski patroller at Big Sky Resort in southern Montana, ties the bomb to one end of a short nylon rope and triggers the igniter. Ninety seconds until detonation. The other end of the rope is attached to what’s known as a bomb tram—a sort of ski lift for explosives that stretches from one fin of rock to another high above the entrance to a steep gully in Big Sky’s experts-only area...Big Sky is one of the more awe-inspiring resorts in North America, centered around a solitary pyramidal mountain—Lone Peak—which can be skied right from the summit. I arrived following one of the winter’s biggest storms, which dropped more than a foot of snow amid fierce winds. The easiest thing to do, when faced with an unstable snowpack, is simply keep most of the mountain closed. Sometimes this happens. But a patroller’s job is a tricky juggle between mitigating natural dangers and satiating skiers’ desires. To an avid skier or snowboarder, there’s nothing more joyful than flying through steep, untracked snow—precisely the scenario that’s most uncertain in terms of stability. The compromise is that, after a storm, the patrol activates the most slide-prone areas by detonating powerful explosives.
High on the flanks of Lone Peak, in the moments before the bomb hanging from the tram is set to explode, Ross and Steve instinctively scan the surrounding slopes, reading the terrain with practiced eyes. “Flagged there,” says Ross, indicating a line of evergreens whose branches have been sheared off on one side where previous avalanches have swept close by. “Point release,” Steve says, motioning with his chin to a spot where a cliff band, warmed by the rising sun, is naturally shedding the new powder, sloughing little waterfalls of snow.
There’s a flash, and a bang—and, for a second, nothing. Then, from down in the gully comes a loud and disconcerting whooomp, as if an overloaded bookshelf has snapped its supports and dropped onto the shelf below it, which is close to what has happened. Abruptly, what had looked like an inviting ski run is transformed into a tumbling, churning mass of snow, blasting down the hill—avalanches often exceed 90 miles per hour—leaving in its wake a billowing cloud of snow mist, gorgeous and daunting at once.
This is a relatively small slide. The vertical crown face at the top of the avalanche path—which indicates the depth of the snow slab that broke away—is only a foot tall. Some slides at Big Sky have 13-foot crowns. Still, it’s easy to see how, if a skier is caught in an avalanche, escape is virtually impossible. Once the slide is over, though, the slope is considerably safer; it’s like a rubber band that has snapped, its tension dissipated.
Have a quick read. Interesting stuff about the folks that keep us safe.
]]>Seriously loved the movie. Jake, Jackson, Jarrett and I watched it on our Christmas trip to Brian Head. Just awesome and interesting historical perspective.
The film had some controversy about Warren Miller's appearance reported courtesy of the best ski magazine on the market (and maker of my favorite t-shirt) The Ski Journal:
In September Warren Miller Entertainment (WME), the company that produces the annual Warren Miller films, filed a compalint against Level 1 Productions in the U.S. District Court of Colorado for trademark infringement. Miller sold his company and use of his name in 1988, and in the complaint WME cited a 1995 agreement between itself and Miller in which WME owns the exclusive rights to the name, use of voice, and the likeness of Warren Miller in all media.Along with the trademark complaint, WME also entered a motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent more showings of the film. The motion was quickly denied in court, and Berman has continued touring his film despite the ongoing controversy.
For his part, the 84-year-old Miller has been outspoken in his support of Berman and in his distaste for the actions of WME. In October Miller released a statement distancing himself from WME artistic endeavors. "I would like to clarify that I am not, nor have I been involved with Warren Miller Entertainment (WME) or their ski movies for quite some time," he wrote. "It has been six years since I have had anything whatsoever to do with the films bearing my name."
"I stopped working with WME because our ideas on what the ski films should be weren't on the same page," the statement continued, "and they demonstrated that they didn't want my involvement in making ski films any longer." Miller also called some of WME's assertions "absurd" in his statement, and that he believes WME has no valid claim against Level 1.
So shameless plug for Ski Journal, Swift.Silent.Deep, and Warren Miller whose blog entries are awesome as evidenced by this quote:
If you are to believe Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who also received an Academy Award for his documentary about global warming, everyone should immediately sell any ski or snowboard equipment they own and give up their futile search for powder.]]>To that scenario I say, “Forget it, Al!” All weather is unusual and the snow will show up and everyone will forget all of the doom and gloom of last winter...
After many years of traveling the world, everywhere I’ve filmed the weather was always unusual. Do I think the unusual weather conditions during the last decade are based solely on internal combustion engines?
A resounding, “No!”...
So get out in the garage and tune up whatever you will be riding on this winter, get your body in shape and try not to get freaked out by Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore. Even though he did invent e-mail and the science of global warming in the office of his air-conditioned, 22-room home, that is fortunately a very long way from any ski resort. Or, at least, it’s a short flight in his private jet.
- Download maps for offline usage:
- Pan/zoom/locate yourself on the mountain
- Record GPS tracks
- View tracks overlay
- Live track animation
- Ski track analytics/stats
- Ski track summary
- Distance skied on blue trails, your maximum, average speed and time spent on the blue trails.
- Distance skied on black trails, your maximum, average speed and time spent on the black trails.
- Distance skied on green trails, your maximum, average speed and time spent on the green trails.
- Number of lifts taken
- Number of runs skied
Sounds pretty cool if you have a blackberry. I am gonna try it out next ski trip but they do not have maps for Brian Head yet. Will update when I have tried it.
]]>I thought you may be interested in an awesome new social media program from Ski Utah called “Throw Down Your Best Ski or Snowboard Style!” The program is an effort to promote its annual White Sale (an amazing sale where you can score sweet deals on lodging, ski/snowboard rentals, lift tickets, and more in Utah)!The “Throw Down Your Best Ski or Snowboard Style!” asks you to submit your epic photo or video showing off your big ski action or snowboard style. To check out the entries so far, please visit http://www.brickfish.com/BestSkiOrSnowboardStyle. The Grand Prize winner for the “Throw Down Your Best Ski or Snowboard Style!” program will be selected by Ski Utah from the top 150 highest scoring entries, to receive a 5-day winter getaway to Utah for two with lodging at Resorts West, lift passes to 3 Utah ski resorts and free equipment rental. In addition to the Grand Prize winner, Ski Utah will also be rewarding one Best Wipeout or Trick winner, one Best Style on the Mountain winner, and one Most Viral winner.
The “Throw Down Your Best Ski or Snowboard Style!” program began on January 7 and ends February 4. To learn more, please visit http://www.brickfish.com/BestSkiOrSnowboardStyle.
Good times. Check it out.
ASPEN — The Aspen Skiing Co. had a “relatively busy holiday period” and is running slightly ahead of last season's business pace, spokesman Jeff Hanle said Wednesday.The number of riders hitting the slopes at the Skico's four ski areas was up about 3 percent from last season, Hanle said. The week before Christmas was down slightly, he said, but the week between Christmas and New Year's was “gangbusters.”
Expectations were modest for pre-Christmas business because the holidays fell on Fridays this season. When that happens, more people travel after Christmas, according to tourism officials.
Customers also seemed to open their pocket books a bit more. “In-resort spending” on ski school lessons and at mountain restaurants was also strong this season, Hanle said.
While Skico officials welcomed the gains, Hanle acknowledged a reality check is in order. Skier and rider visits were down 8 percent during the holidays in 2008, diminishing the favorable comparison this season. Business still lagged behind a typical holiday period.
“It certainly wasn't the best Christmas ever,” Hanle said.
The Skico's season-to-date business through Jan. 3 is also about 3 percent ahead of last season's level.
This is good news in that things are not only stable, but improving slightly. The bad news is that a modest year over year increase in visits does not translate into an increase in revenue because in order to attract folks, most of the businesses at resorts have cut prices.
This is doubly bad because the effect of decreased ski related revenue hurts the resort, but lodging, meal, entertainment, etc., spending is all down meaning far lower sales tax revenues in most of these communities. Add in lower property tax revenues and the situation is very dire.
Again, all we can do is hope that business picks up.
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