Archive for March, 2010

Pfiferhorn Area Tour 3/28/10


2010
03.29

I get a call at 6am. I hustle out of bed thinking its my alarm clock which was set for 5 am. Its Dan. “Jon where you at? i’m at the mouth of big !” I am in bed. After some deliberation we decide to meet at white pine a bit later and take the day from there. The skinning was on glare ice for about 3 miles or up to redpine lake, then it was windblown suncrusts. We decided we might as well just go head up to the pfifferhorn. Dan and I had been up there once before in the winter and skied the ramp down and cut back into maybird gulch. We were confident we could do at least that even with very poor snow conditions. We got to the top dressed in light touring gear because we expected a very hot calm day. Well turns out there is a sustained 30 mph wind. Time on the peak was short but sweet, we decided to leave, we were about to ski down the ice ramp when it occured to us that we could ski somewhere else. The NW couloir was in seriously hanus condition. I have been scouting a ramp that avoids the rappel. Not today. We decided to flip skis and if it landed base up we would ski down into hogum, graphic up we ski into maybird. Base up it landed.

The ski off of the top of the Pfifferhorn was terrible. but acceptable because hopes were low. After tomahawking on the traverse to the peak west of the pfieff I was ready to roll out. We stopped at the steep seemingly windblown north face and after Dans pole blew away we dropped in. Shockingly the wind crust was not a crust at all, but a beautiful deep chalk up top. I navigated a line down a ridge cruised out into the opoen and I realized that the snow was just fantastic. I continuted to milk the smallest turns possible each turn taking in a view of the pfieff and hogum fork, and steep beautiful powder dropping straight away under me. Every turn I pushed the smallest sluff down the slope about 5 feet adding to the excitement. Dan skied when I finished and made some amazing turns lookers left of mine milking as many of his own turns out as if he knows its almost summer.

(poor) skiing from the summit of the pfifferhorn

My 'gash' down the slope. 116 consecutive uninterupted fall line turns. A few under it and around another 100 above them snaking down the ridge. Well over 200 for the pitch!

Dan really enjoying his day at this point

We got to the basin, and were both shocked by the quality of skiing, when we thought the day was mostly about the exersize. We at lunch and I proposed we ski the plinko apron (sitting under nohows recent descent of the northwest cliff of the pfiffe. Dan was game so we went back up for more powder. This apron we skinned most of the way and set a boot pack up about 300 vertical extra. The apron was big, steep, and untouched. Dan had the privilage of taking first tracks. I went second and tried to milk as many turns as possible, but midway thought my legs almost exploded and if they did i would have crossed dans tracks and would owe him a 6 pack. so i aborted and put a few big turns in at the end. Exiting the basin the mountains get bigger. We had the entire spot to ourselves. Fantastic skiing up here, good thing we had 3500 ish feet of skiing to go down through creamy trees, hot powder, corn, hot corn, and other less fun types of snow.

"MY FEET HURT"

Run two a pfiffe apron

dan with some natural sluff raining down behind him

SICK

STILL SICK

Our two upper runs for the day. What a waste of a day to only ski TWO RUNS! :)

All in all this day is going to rank as a good one.

The times they AREN’T a changing…..


2010
03.27
photo 2010

photo AltA 2010

photo AltA 2005

In 5 years a lot of things have changed in skiing. Videos have crazy new things that are new and cool every year. Well all but one part of them, the feeling of deep powder skiing. The photo from 2005 is why i fell in love with doing the same thing alot. Skiing powder. The photo in 2010 shows by chance, from literally the same spot on the mountain, the same exact feeling. Both taken by different photographers, but both taken to capture the same feeling.  Both with the skier in the same position. DEEP LEFT TURN.  Also in each photo the color of my clothes or the brand of my goggles or  the skis i am on or the person it is makes absolutely no difference. Well as long as they dont fog, keep me comfy and dry enough to get back on the lift wanting more.

Now i just realized that maybe someone 5 years before me took a picture of the exact same spot, because of the exact same feeling and so on and so on. Not many things are timeless especially with insane outside cultural influence. But man its fun to really just hang out for a while enjoying the same things you used to.

BADASS PHOTO OF THE WEEK


2010
03.27

NICK GREENER SICKBIRD FWT BIRD '10

Here is a shot of Nick Greener taking off on his way to stomping this air and claiming the coveted sickbird award at the FWT stop at Snowbird Utah 2010. We saw another guy attempt this air and land on the second cliff, luckily he survived.

CONGRATS LARS !


2010
03.23

Lars Chickering-Ayres just represented the skierboyz hard Following another skierboyz victory with Dylan Crossmans win on the FWT stop at kirkwood. Lars skied northwest baldy fluid twice and took that double drop like everyone else who skied it invisioned, but reality would not let them execute.  Stomping an insane line infront of your crew  and a whole ton of stoked spectators is priceless. Congrats! Continue the stoke with a few photos of Lars from the coalpit headwall. photos are all from orange hat dan curran. Great Job!

First light on the "dresden face" "needle" and the "coalpit" coalpit is far right

Skinning the needle

Lars headed down, 1700 vertical between him and the floor of the headwall

Lars' first turn. The ridges dividing the football field width snowfields are massively rocky even on deep snow years, didn't seem to phase him.

After thousands of vertical skiing trees and gullies, coalpit gulch exits over a 70' waterfall. Here Lars shows the group the straightline to mandatory left turn.

TREW, SAGA, LDC REQUESTS


2010
03.19

BADASS PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Orange Hat Dan and Buffalo roam down "Little Chute" circa late april 2007

Please reply to this if you have any of this outerwear, and tell us what you would like to see changed about the suits. Or if you dont have any of these outfits, maybe there is something you would like to see on outerwear that doesn’t already exist. Maybe we can use this as an open forum to get some controlled feeback to the companies, rather than 10000 random posts on various internet forums.

Ill start since we have all 3.

TREW: The crotch zipper on the bibs needs to be much longer. And they need a belt on the bibs. Slim down the pant cuffs because when I ski tour in the pants, they make the most annoying swooshing ever (but thats from their indestructable cuffs).

SAGA: Our size medium suit has small pockets and openings. I can feel wind come through the main zipper when its ultra windy and cold.

LDC: The suit is big, bulky and heavy, they use buttons, zippers, velcro, magnets for closing the suit, i think they should pick two. I get rather annoyed when the tiny buttons on the pant legs come undone, and i have to take my gloves off to button them back up.