Last year was infuckingcredible in the Wasatch Mountains! That is, if you like powder snow. And I do! In sharp and painful contrast to this season’s grim start, last winter delivered. I remember passing on days because it ONLY snowed 12-14 inches. Now we are begging for anything (and it looks like change is finally on it’s way).

Another “award winning” faceshot from last season. Photo by Andy Jacobsen.

Each year a panel of athletes, reporters, film makers and powder snow aficionados get to watch the video highlights from skiing’s production houses. They vote for their favorite segments and athletes in a variety of categories and the winners are announced in Aspen.

(click above to find out more)

This year Andy Jacobsen and I were nominated for the “Best Powder”! This is Powderwhore Productions second year in a row with a nomination for this category. We didn’t win, but as they say “it’s just great to be nominated”. We were up against some pretty stout competition.

BEST POWDER
Tobi Reindl, Paddy Graham, Thomas Hlawitschka, and Sven Kueenle – Nothing Else Matters (Legs of Steel)
Wiley Miller, Tanner Rainville, and Parker White – After Dark (Level 1 Productions)
Noah Howell and Andy Jacobsen – Breaking Trail (Powderwhore Productions)
James Heim, Chris Rubens, Mark Abma, Matty Richard, Sean Pettit, and Eric Hjorliefson – All.I.Can. (Sherpas Cinema)

Here’s a little re-edit for those who aren’t quite getting their fill this winter.

Those who have compared our life to a dream are right… we are sleeping awake, and waking sleep.

-Michel de Montaigne-

I am living a dream. Few things in this life (dream) am I this certain of. I am living a dream and you cannot tell me otherwise. How do I know? Because, what you are about to see is too fantastical a journey to occur in the “real” world.

Only in a dream do 100 skiers from around the globe embark on a cruise ship to ski the Antarctic Peninsula.

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake.

-Erich Fromm-

We departed from Ushuaia, Argentina and spent two beautifully calm and clear days at sea crossing the Drake Passage.

Here’s what happens when a boatload of skiers pray for snow.

We arrived in a land of blue and white and every shade in between.

The boat was a mixed bag of guides, newbies, veterans, hippies, punters, bros, powder hos, yuppies and euros. Chris Davenport and Andrew McLean have been down there multiple times and they made great tour guides.

Our first stop on land was to visit these little buggers.

Several hours were spent watching mating rituals, dips in the pool and rocks being gathered for nests.

I do enjoy what it sounds like when doves cry, but not when penguins mate.

And finally, after days and days of travel, we went to shore to draw edges through snow. I was there shooting video and snagged these photos on the side. Filming conditions were very difficult due to howling wind, blowing wind and some gusty breezes. I almost wore a hole through my lens cloth. We skied every day possible and had 1.5 sunny days with mixed skiing conditions. Somehow, though, I still managed to come home with over 32 gigs worth of footage to play with!

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.

-Paul Valery-

Each morning was like being beamed off the Starship Enterprise. We were quickly launched from extreme comfort into the extreme. Phazers were not set to stun.

I was lucky to be with a great crew! Chris Davenport was in the leader roll and doubled as a stunt double for himself. Jim Harris put in the boot pack and took still photography. Matt Reardon was back from a broken leg last Spring, he rallied hard and kept us laughing. And Seth Wescott was the token split boarder and 2X Olympic Gold Medalist. We got along well, and why wouldn’t we? We were sliding on snow at the end of the earth!
Seth Wescott is wide awake, slashing the bottom of a very steep first run of the season.

Perhaps life is just that… a dream and a fear.
-Joseph Conrad-

I’ve never met anybody as confident and competent on the uphill and downhill as The Chris Davenport.

The classic skier with water and iceberg shot! Everything was steeper than it appeared from afar.

Some folks on the boat thought Seth and I were brothers. He is a very handsome man!

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.

-Gloria Steinem-
Chris takes a leap of imagination.

On our last day we found this incredible chute that dropped straight into a 500 foot pillar, then split in half and dumped onto the shore. Enjoy this sequence of Seth “gleaming the cube”.

Maybe my favorite snap of the trip. The only thing cooler would have been if an Orca Whale had swam by in the frame. We waited for a while to see if it would happen, but it didn’t. That was just being greedy.

A raw cut of Chris Davenport skiing one of the most incredible shots I’ve ever filmed!! It’s fun when you can get almost as excited about shooting something as you would from skiing it.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

-Carl Jung-

To visit such remote and harsh terrain during the day while slumbering and dining abord a luxury liner redefined contrast.

And here we find Jim Harris booting up from the watery abyss. I have done my best to do justice to the trip, but visit Jim’s trip report at TGR to behold mastery of the lens.

Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.
-Tupac Shakur-

Sometimes it takes more than a pinch, but a plunge to try and wake oneself from the dream.

Nothing happens unless first a dream.

- Carl Sandburg-
After six days of skiing we headed for home. My only complaints about the trip were that it was too short. And that cold salt water isn’t softer on the ass from 30ft. I’ve been many places to ski now and there are few areas with this insurmountable amount of steep skiable terrain within ‘easy’ (maybe not on the wallet) access. Plop this random unnamed mountain below in the lower 48 and it would be a national park and John Denver would have written a song about it. Here it’s just part of the everyday scenery you give a slight pause to while you’re loading up your burger on the back deck.

Our passage back was not nearly as gentle as the ride out! The boat rocked and rolled for two days as we battled through hurricane force winds at times. Thanks to Mike Sahlman for the great GoPro footage from the upper deck.

They made us go below shortly after this footage was captured. Some of us obeyed and some of us stayed and reenacted THIS scene from Forrest Gump.

Eternal thanks to Doug Stoup and Karyn Stanley at Ice Axe Expeditions for conjuring up this inconceivable adventure, and even more for pulling it off!

And now the dream threatens to become a nightmare of a season. The Wasatch just recorded one of the driest Decembers ever! However, a trip like that has kept me full until now.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

- John Barrymore

Now wake up! Seals don’t wave goodbye.

Help support the dream and find the gear you need to achieve yours by clicking the banner below.

I have always been a slow reader, but I never imagined it would take me 13 years to finish a flimsy paperback.

‘Why would you want to ski that’? I remember thinking as Andrew Mclean was dryly presenting his steep rock lined descents at an REI slideshow. I was fresh out of the resort and diving into the glorious powder bowls of the Wasatch backcountry. It was exciting enough avoiding avalanches and exploring this new world. But something about the photo’s I saw and allure of these mysterious hidden lines struck me. I purchased a copy of the book and found myself thumbing through it fantasizing about lines. Kinda like I used to do with the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Only difference was these lines were real and attainable and sometimes just as pretty in real life.

The backcountry was a different place back in 1998 and big scary lines didn’t get skied until conditions were bomber. My skill level and confidence grew as I gained experience under the wings of seasoned veterans. We started ticking off the big classics like: S Superior, The Y, Stairs Gulch and Coalpit Gulch all in less than ideal snow conditions. Eventually the three star lines got the ‘check’ and I was content to let the others remain mysteries.

Fast forward a decade of skiing 100+ days a year in the BC. Many more of the Chuting Gallery lines had been skied in our search for new and interesting lines to film for Powderwhore Productions. I started getting out on some solo missions as well. In training for Denali I skied all the chutes in Wolverine Cirque in a day, ticking off 17 lines. King’s Peak went down in a day using lightweight leather boots and fish scale skis. And in a 14,000ft effort I linked up the “Super Coaster” by skiing Lone Peak’s NE Couloir, Coalpit Gulch, Twin Peaks East Face and Stairs Gulch in what was probably my favorite day on skis to this date.

The idea to finish all the chutes and lines didn’t come about until I was hired on to mule camera gear up to Wolverine Cirque. A friend was shooting a TV pilot. The concept was a series highlighting iconic outdoor enthusiasts. Andrew Mclean was the featured character. During a break in the action I mentioned that I had just traversed “The Ribbon” on Devil’s Castle at Alta with Andy Jacobsen and BJ Brewer. Andrew asked how it was and said that he had never done that one. I was surprised. The assumption had always been that Andrew had ticked them all. And if Andrew hadn’t skied them all, had anybody completed the book? My obsessive compulsive mind couldn’t let go of this newly discovered project.

I started to look more closely at the book and I still had 40 or so to go. It seemed that a serious effort could knock off the remaining lines in a few seasons. Over the next two years I began hunting them out with willing partners and often solo. The Wasatch had hit and miss seasons, but I was able to keep tagging lines in good conditions. Then as the last few remained the project slowed and became quite difficult. Skiing steeps is so condition dependent and I wanted to do all the lines in relatively good snow, not just hacking down to say I did it. The only one that was very forced would be the Great White Icicle, which is a WI 3 ice climb that hasn’t been “in” for many years so I didn’t feel bad about that one.

The winter of 2011 came around and I had 4 remaining chutes. I worked around our filming schedule and knocked them all off except the NE Couloir of the Pfeifferhorn. This one had become a real son of a bitch! I’d tried it several times and chosen out due to too much snow, not enough snow and not enough balls. All decisions I’m fine with. I really began to wonder if I could get it this season as it began winding down.

I’ll let the video tell the rest of the story.

I had a great group of partners to ski with and “show me the ropes” on this project. Thanks to all the following twisted folks for helping me safely get down the mountain: Darrell Finlayson, Jonah Howell, Andrew McLean, Jay Beyer, Andy Rosenberg, Andy Jacobsen, Todd Stuart, Judson Widner, Pete Rude, Dylan Freed, Jeremy Larsen, Courtney Phillips, Kyle Erkilla and Sam Cox.

So, the answer still surfaces, “Why would you want to ski that”? A wise man I worked with once told me he’ll keep doing what he’s doing until he finds something more fun to do. I’m going to borrow that line for now.

Find the gear you need for your next adventure and help support my dreams when you shop Backcountry.com through the link below.

When Andrew and I made plans for Spitsbergen last spring, the idea was to kite and ski outside of town and see what we could find. This sounded like a great enough trip in itself. Shortly after we had decided on this plan, Doug Stoup a friend of Andrew’s from Ice Axe Expeditions threw out the invitation to jump on the boat he chartered to sail and ski fjords in the same area. I believe in luck, karma and Jesus, but I’m not sure who to thank for this one. This seemed too good to be true! Sure, we might as well since we were going to be in the neighborhood.

Andrew guided clients and I shot video during the trip for our upcoming Powderwhore Production. Here is a highlight video I put together as a thanks to Doug and Ice Axe Expeditions. Doug’s help and hospitality went way above and beyond what was asked. He put us up in his storage unit for 9 days, provided sleds and food for the land based exploration and helped us out with logistics and beta. The least we could do was put together a promo vid from the incredible trip. Enjoy!

Shop Backcountry.com via the link below to find the gear you want and help keep me from getting a real job!
CLEARANCE SALE at Backcountry.com – While Supplies Last

Great new product I’ve been using the past few winters! Makes a great gift for those hard to shop for ‘fancy pants Nancy boys’.

This is the beginning to my segment in our movie TELEVISION. I grew the beard out for 6 weeks while I was in AK and we shot the segment in Jonah’s front yard when I returned. We scripted some of it and made the rest up as we went along. Jonah thought it was a really stupid idea and maybe he was right, but it was fun to do and got some chuckles on the movie tour. At least I got to put some of my high school drama skills to use. Enjoy!

My first encounter with the goat was waaaaaay back in the late 90′s when they had a store front outside of Heber. I went into what appeared to be a cool gear shop, but they told me I couldn’t buy anything. They said I had to go online to order and I thought that was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. I didn’t even own a computer! Now they are one of the largest online retailers of outdoor gear! Guess it wasn’t such a dumb idea after all.

They have been supporting me as an athlete for several seasons along with Powderwhore Productions projects. Several PW athlete’s have been lucky enough to join the team and we are all thankful with the financial support and access to discounted gear that BC.com has provided. In return they ask us to participate with gear reviews, answering questions and add photo’s of the products we use. Click here to view athlete profiles. They asked me to put together a short highlight vid that they could use for promotional purposes. Here are some of my favorite clips from last winter featuring Andy Jacobsen, Chris Erickson, Nick Devore, William Cardamone and myself.

Click HERE to enjoy!

The idea of skiing at night with lights first started when mad scientist, Andy Rosenberg purchased a high powered mtn bike light for use on dawn patrols. After working in the office all day I borrowed it for an evening lap at snowbird. I was skeptical you could get enough juice out of these small portable lights to ski at speed in the dark.

Geared up for initial test run in the restroom of the Hidden Peak warming hut.

After one run I was sold on the idea and it made me think we could even film with them. Rosenberg sent me in the direction of the Trail Tech HID lights.

These are light weight, really bright and have rechargeable lithium Ion batteries. Jonah wouldn’t approve the purchase with Powderwhore funds (he was more skeptical), so I offered to pay for it and if it worked out PW would reimburse me. After our first night out I cut myself a check from PW and we ordered another! The results were pretty cool and very different from the night skiing we had previously seen, where it’s done with generators and it’s mostly just one turns from the skier.

Click HERE to view the ‘dream sequence’ from our last flick ‘FLAKES’.

Jonah and I shot that segment over the course of 3 nights with the light strapped to the camera he was shooting. We came home with some good footage and tons of ideas on what else is possible with these lights. Sounds like I’m selling the product, but we have no affiliation, just psyched on the product and it’s potential.

Jonah has been chomping at the bit to start working with footage for the next flick. He put this nice little edit together from our trip to Bryce and Cedar Breaks. There wasn’t enough snow to really ‘ski’ much, so it was primarily ‘one turn wonders’ as we call them or ‘buttering the muffin’, where you come in hot and smear one turn. This is something we frown upon for video and rarely do, but it was our only choice due to the terrain and snow depth. That type of shot works well for still photo’s (a picture tells a thousand lies), but it’s a real challenge for video. Enjoy the vid and hopefully we’ll get some snow and we can do some real skiing.

video HERE.

Happy New Year Everybody! Enjoy the 2010 winter season and all it’s beauty. This is a short edit from a recent trip to Yellowstone over Thanksgiving.

“And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.”

Quote and soundtrack from the movie American Beauty

click HERE to view