Doctors advise me to take the next three months off of any strenuous activity including skiing.

Brian Head is 100% open but with such a sparse amount of early season snow that I am very hesitant to ski without a solid deep base and some soft on top, if I do get out before the three month deadline.

I will post updated info about Brian Head and Wolf Creek as these will be the only places I will likely go this season.

Hope you have a great New Year!

Spent some time at the Grand Lodge, where the food prices are still way too high, but it has a great and much needed atmosphere. Local Businesses are hit or miss. Waiting to see if this winter, skier visits will rise to the 140k level.

The weather was beautiful, though you can really see and feel the change of seasons coming. Leaves were almost all gone and a little bit of snow was still left from the storm a week and a half ago.

Couple big trips planned for the season, but the best will be when Hayden comes up for a week and teaches private lessons for Tera, Jess, and the kids. 22 year old ski instructor who is in college and no longer instructing. Skied with him last season and he has a remarkable way with teaching and I offered to put him up and pay him what his day job does plus cover costs. Hell of a deal. And I get private lessons for everyone. Tera has decided to give skiing another shot this season. If Hayden can get her competent and to enjoy it, it is worth any cost.

Side note--I also get Hayden to ski with me in the afternoon after the lessons are done. And to hang out in the evenings and talk football and enjoy life. That is the best part.

Anyway, couple posts upcoming for the season. I am getting back into my groove. Feeling a little better. And planning for the upcoming season.

In their Press Release, they had a blip about Childhood Obesity. Got me thinking about how great the sport has been for my own kids and what the real impact of our love of skiing has been on them growing up.

It is not about the health aspects of the sport for us. It is about bonding and escaping the grind of the city. The smog. The crowds. The noisy chaotic lifestyle.

A day skiing is simple. It offers peace. You put away your blackberry. You have the snow that absorbs the noise of the world. And for me personally, it is my break from the reality of my life.

For my kids, it is a break from school and rules and classrooms and teachers. It is a chance to challenge themselves and to exhaust their bodies and senses.

Buy your season pass for Brian Head. In St. George, you can do it all this weekend at Findlay Subaru. I am excited to have another season on the mountain and excited that Brian Head is such a family friendly mountain. If you want to enjoy a family experience, skiing is my personal favorite. It is expensive as hell if you don't prepare in advance. But with a season pass and your own gear or even a season rental, it is pretty reasonable.

2010-11 was cut short due to the sinus surgery and accompanying meningitis. I am still slowly improving my health and working out trying to get my strength back.

Lots of squats and lunges. Working to stabilize my core and working out hard.

It makes me appreciate skiing so much more after missing most of the season. Thankfully it wasn't a torn ACL or a major injury that would impact me long term. This should be behind me shortly.

Will be posting some more information, stats, and the usual preseason stuff shortly.

Brian Head Resort 2011 - 2012 Pre-season Pass Deals

Free skiing and Snowboarding for the rest of the year, with purchase of 2011-2012 season pass

With each 2011-2012 season pass purchase you can ride free for the rest of this season. What a deal...that's over a month of free shreddin. Not only that, but right now season passes are at the lowest price they will be for the entire season. There is no better Brian Head deal!

2011-2012 Season Pass Prices
Until June 2nd

Buddy Pass 2 adult passes purchased together
$739

Adult 26-61 years
$429

Young Adult 18-25 years (out of High School)
$339

K-12 Student Kindergarten-12th Grade - Must Show ID
$199

Family Plan K-12 Student
$159

Valid with purchase of regularly priced Adult pass or Buddy Pass to make a family package. Must be a dependent child (i.e., you must claim them on your tax return).

Sr. Silver 62-69 years Must Show ID
$199

Sr. Gold 70 + years Must Show ID
$129

Freedom/Corporate Fully Transferable
$769

Iron & Garfield County K-12 Student
$129
Must show current student ID or enrollment papers - NO EXCEPTIONS

Iron & Garfield County Student Rental
$89

Adult Rental Package
$199

Child/Sr. Rental Package
$129

Prices Subject to Change: Passes are non-refundable, and except for the Freedom/Corporate pass, non-transferable

Get your passes now. I made the mistake last year and won't again. Cost me a couple hundred extra bucks.

On February 9, 2011, I went in for Sinus Surgery to clean things out and fix a deviated septum. During the surgery, the Doctor cracked the cribiform plate that separates your brain from your sinus cavity and I ended up with meningitis, an air bubble under my brain (pneumocephalus), and a cerebral spinal fluid leak.

So here I am, a little cracked out on Morphine, having headaches, feeling pretty crappy, down 20 lbs, trying to think about what the lifelong impact of having a hole that is tenuously closed solely by some scar tissue keeping my noodle separate from the outside world.

Reality is that there ain't a damned thing I can do by bitching about it and I am going to head to Brian Head for a couple turns next weekend if I can handle the altitude. My ENT Doc cleared me to start returning to normal activity and there is nothing more normal or necessary for me than getting another ski day in.

On the plus side, on Feb 5, we went to Sunrise and it was an Epic day. Best ski day of the year and one of the best I have ever had. Powder and Double Blacks all day with my son, brother, and friend Hayden. Skied til 4PM which takes a pretty special day at Sunrise.

Brian Head Resort Presents Mardi Gras 2011

Who: Fun-loving skiers and snowboarders

When: Saturday March 12, 2011 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (See below for exact times of various activities)

Where: Brian Head Resort, 329 South Highway 143, Brian Head, UT 84719 (BrianHead.com / (866) 930-1010)
What: Brian Head Resort Mardi Gras 2011

Ski/Board Poker Run 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.- Registration starts at 9 a.m., 3rd floor of Giant Steps Lodge. Show down at 3:30 p.m., 3rd floor of Giant Steps Lodge. Winner receives 2011/2012 Season Pass. No cost.

Just Jumps Jam 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. - Registration starts at 9 a.m., 3rd floor of Giant Steps Lodge. Two 20 minutes sessions starting at 12:30 p.m. in the Progressive Park, first two jumps on medium side. Great prizes from Tyrant Snowboards, Skull Candy and Smith Optics.

Mardi Gras Costume Downhill Parade - Meet at the bottom of Chair 2 at noon or catch up with the parade when they come by the top of Chair 3 about 20 minutes later. All participants will receive a bounce back coupon for a cheap mid-week lift ticket.

Mardi Gras Music, Limbo, Dance and Costume Contest - Behind Giant Steps Lodge 11 a.m. Winner of each contest will receive free lift ticket.

Beads will be given away throughout the resort all day

Discounts in Brian Head Resort food and retail outlets for those wearing a costume, mask or beads

No additional cost to participate in any events

I will be at BH on Sunday, but sadly, I am going to be in Vegas for a concert on Saturday night. Sounds like a blast though.

The Talons Challenge includes 13 gut wrenching Black and Double Black runs at Beaver Creek, one of which induced a near meltdown, urine incident in my ski pants, and possibly some tears.

For the 8th year, Talons Challenge will be showcasing the best steeps Beaver Creek has to offer. Over 24,000 vertical feet of Black Diamond and Double Black Diamond runs await on Beaver Creek’s legendary World Cup Birds of Prey downhill course, Grouse Mountain, and in Larkspur Bowl. Conquer all 13 runs and earn your spot on the Talon's Wall-of-Fame.

The event is limited to the first 1,500 registrants. Last year's registration sold out, so register early to make sure you secure your spot on February 26th!

Included in your registration fee are a free Bratwurst and either a Bud Light or a non-alcoholic beverage. All finishers will receive a Talons Challenge cap and a commemorative Talons pin.

A portion of proceeds from the event will be donated to SOS Outreach. SOS Outreach provides 5,500 kids with an adventure based youth development curriculum. More information is available at www.sosoutreach.org. Come out for a great day on the mountain and help make a difference in the lives of youth.

I skied Osprey about three years ago and it was like looking off of a vertical stack of 60's VW's stacked 2000 feet high. I thought there is no effing way I am gonna make it down this damned thing. You take it turn by turn, develop a rhythm, and get to the bottom, look back, and the lift line runs almost vertical.

Plus side--you don't have to hike to scare the hell out of yourself. The other place where I sat down (partially from altitude sickness and partially because I am a big fat wuss) was the top of Alberta Peak at Wolf Creek.

This sounds incredibly fun and certainly challenging.

In a chilly summation that fits these realities, one ski bum morphed into a ski area executive admitted to Evans, if you aren’t willing to make the sacrifices it takes or if you just can’t afford the Mega-resorts, “..tough shit…. Go find some place that’s not famous and make something out of it. We worked hard to make this place nice. Don’t come crying to me now because you can’t afford to live here.” Then he frets, “On the other hand, if we don’t have any new people coming in, we’re dying.”

Fret not. Though the dropout mentality has all but vanished from the American psyche and college grads deep in debt go straight to the real world, Evans reports those dead-end jobs that ski bums once pounced on are now filled by immigrants. Still drunk with that idea of unfettered freedom and self-actualized happiness, they are the new bums on the block.

It is a sobering reminder of one of the biggest changes happening in this country. We have two major factors at work. We have an income disparity and a class disparity and I am not sure which is more damaging.

Imagine the days long ago when middle and upper managers (perhaps not major execs, but at least line management) lived and worked in the same place as the lower level employees. Sure there were nicer suburbs and there was a difference in economic prosperity, but I cannot imagine is was as pronounced as it is today.

We see it as more and more companies move their offices away from the factory location to glitzy urban lofts. The workers build your product in some suburban location or perhaps an industrial district but the goal of managers is to leave that site and move to "corporate". It is to distance yourself from the working man and achieve an elite status.

John Edwards during his VP run in 2004 often gave the "Two Americas" speech of one where the "Haves" are multimillionaires that get $400 haircuts, fly on private jets, and bang repulsive groupie mistresses while their wives have cancer and the other where working Americans vote for these elitist pricks to run things and tell them they cannot have salt on their fries or toys in the happy meals or transfats or smoke...

The reason that there are no ski bums left, despite the iconic status afforded ski bums among the Baby Boomers that spend the big money and own second homes in the Aspens of the world--

The Rich don't want them there.

How do you coexist in a town where a pint of beer costs $9 with the folks that work menial labor to subsist and live the dream and make mere pennies from the resort serving the wealthy patrons? There is no housing because the dive Apartments have been torn down or turned into Luxury Condos. Ordinances block urban camping. There are no campgrounds. So to scratch out an existence in a resort town, you have to live an hour down mountain and drive each way for a job that pays just over minimum wage, all so that you can earn a season pass that would cost a months salary to a minimum wage worker that you can never use because you are working all the time.

What is interesting is a new trend that my fellow Blogger Wil at 120 Days of Pow, now defunct, highlights. Mobile professionals choosing to take their laptops and blackberries and work remotely over broadband from the resorts. These folks earn six figures and can work from anywhere. They have the flexibility to enjoy the lifestyle and the money to exist in a resort town. My buddy Erich did it at Tahoe last season. Wil was at Steamboat three or four years ago.

It is classic Gentrification at work. Scarcity of these locations and of housing created artificially by zoning laws written by people that already own and have the money to be in charge whose concerns are keeping out the riff raff and keeping their own property values high.

You could write the same article about many sections of Oakland that are becoming less and less black to the chagrin of locals.

This is the price we pay for a booming economy and growing population as well as zoning laws that restrict growth and environmental laws that prevent ski area expansion. We have a fixed quantity of land and a cabal of folks that control it and want to keep the bums out.

I am not sure that is a bad thing in many ways, but it is a change in character of what the towns and the industries were. Reading about a Black poet lamenting Oakland's loss of their culture or skiers talking about ski bums being pushed out by rising real estate prices and mobile urban professionals is just the sad fact of life.

Gotta post this. Powder Day in NYC.

Pagosa Springs, CO - A 35-year-old Tucson man died while snowboarding at Colorado's Wolf Creek ski area on Saturday when he plunged off a 40-foot cliff.

Christian Rea was snowboarding with friends in Wolf Creek's Waterfall area on Saturday when they encountered the cliff. One of Rea's friends tried unsuccessfully to warn him to go around the obstacle as Rea dropped off the cliff, landing on his head and rupturing an artery in his neck, according to Mineral County Coroner Charles Downing.

Downing further explained that severing the blood supply to Rea's neck killed him quickly.

Peace to his family. Tragic way to end the Christmas holiday.

Unfortunately, I am working this week and my boss is on PTO so I am covering the work hotpager. Given my work ethic and love for my job, there is no way that I would sluff off from my duties to ski on a mega-powder day...

So I take an early, long lunch starting at 11 and hope to get a half a dozen laps in during my normal break. First run I drop into Engens and it is sickness. Hammer down, I am 3/4 of the way down the face and I hit a snowboarder's rut, my ski digs, my binding comes open, and I face plant yardsale style.

Except no ski. White skis on a powder day are probably a bad idea. I hike a full 30 yards up the steepest part of Brian Head poking my pole into the snow like I am doing an avalanche training session. Nada.

45 minutes, Jake, Jer, and Jacko lap me and finally a guy looks 50 yards down the hill at the bottom and sees what looks like a ski. He heads down and sure enough, I wasted every bit of energy and stamina I had saved up climbing and digging and postholing and working... my ski left without me.

Moral of the story--I paid the price for my lack of work ethic. Thankfully when I came back, it was exactly as dead as expected over the Christmas week and I didn't get fired. YET!

Brian Head is not the steepest and best mountain in the world, but on a day like today, after a hot tub session, there is not much better. Runs on Engens and Devo's were spectacular. Snow is heavy and wet so tomorrow will be like concrete, but today was worth the drive last night.

Let me start this off by saying at the resort we teach skiing to children ages 4+, and snowboarding to children ages 8+. Why the difference? I used to joke that it took an extra 4 years for a child to build up the proper angst and disrespect for their elders to properly snowboard...

It's at this time checklists such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs come in handy. I have attended the ACE 1 training and never finished the certification point. Does this make me an expert at teaching children? Not at all. It's taken several years to feel confident in teaching young children and I still learn more each season.

Back to the basics of the questions received now. Most of these parents tell you their child is 4 or 5 at this point, which serves as a great indicator for how the conversation will continue. Attention spans are still short at this age. Depending upon the child basic needs can be an issue yet to be clearly spoken. While the child can walk, their physical strength may not yet be up to the point of competency when skiing. (If you don't believe me, try laying on flat ground, rolling to your feet, and standing up. Even adults have issue with this one.) Even with these limitations there is still one overall challenge that tops them all; parents.

The real challenge of teaching skiing isn't the kids, it's the parents. Overall kids this age are just excited to be playing in the snow, making snowballs, sledding, falling in, eating, or building snowmen. The introduction of a snow sport just provides yet another avenue of excitement for the children. Which is the key take away from snow sports; to have fun outdoors. For younger children, associating the concept of skiing with a fun time out in the snow is the most important step to creating your future Olympian. Many parents have difficulty understanding that a great ski day may include putting on the ski boots and building snow forts. Yet their kids have already started to bridge the concept of skiing with a fun time outside.

Let me add my take on this... Start out with the basics of what ruin a ski day for a youngster. The Maslow's Hierarchy is important because before you can actually enjoy skiing or riding, you have to not be miserable.

First, "I'm cold." Imagine that you are your average parent and you decide that Jr. needs to learn to ski as a five year old. So you pony up the $125 for ski school and send Jr. off for the day. Why would you waste the entire day if your kid is going to spend most of it back in the lodge because he is cold from the cheap ski clothing you bought at Walmart?

I am not knocking the value proposition of Walmart for buying your average coat for your little kids. The coat that your kid wears from the house to the car and from the car to school and during the 15 minute recess and back to the car and between the car and home. You are not at home where your kids are building a snow fort the 5-10 days per year when it might snow wherever you live. (I live in Phoenix and it is 78 right now on Dec 13, so suck it!) Assume that it is going to be cold.

So let's assume that you don't want to drop $100 for a good ski coat for your kid that they will outgrow shortly. Then make sure to layer well. And even with the best ski clothing, you still want to layer. Bring that extra sweater. Stay away from cotton sweatshirts and stuff that soaks up water. Being cold sucks. Being wet and cold is worse.

Next worst, "I'm Hungry." Bring snacks. Most kids programs feed the kids and provide hot cocoa during the day, but there is never a bad time to have a pack of a high carbohydrate snack. I personally love peanuts and cashews for snacking, but ideally, a good trail mix is awesome. You can get packets at the gas station on the way up.

Finally, "I'm tired." Make sure that Jr. gets a good night's rest the night before and if you are going multiple days, make sure they are in bed at a good hour after skiing, if they don't crash immediately upon leaving the hill.

Warm, fed, and rested.

Now, back to the original point of the post--it is very difficult to do more with a 5-6 year old than simply try to get them some familiarization with the snow, the cold, and a little bit of snow time. Whether Jr. is on skis or a snowboard, the first several trips add very little for kids under 5-6 if they are not successful and don't enjoy it.

Remember that the physics of snowboarding for smaller kids is a lot different than the physics of skiing. For fear of offending all my snowboarding friends, if your kid thinks he is the next Shawn White, check out Tanner Hall. Skiing isn't some lame, old person's sport despite how hard Jake Burton has marketed his sport to line his pockets. If you lack the physics to snowboard as a 6-7 year old kid, you are far better off skiing than snowboarding. Time on snow is time on snow. And there are a lot of places and things that skiers can go or do that snowboarders can't. It is never bad to be able to do both and then choose based on conditions. Of my adult friends that ride, many were skiers when they were younger and still enjoy skiing as well.