Posts Tagged Ski

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November 1, 2014 by Michael Behar

SKI | NOVEMBER 2014

The Enforcer ThumbnailThe Enforcer Download PDF

Mt. Baker general manager Duncan Howat wants you to enjoy the überdeep backcountry powder his resort? is famous for—but only if you do so by his rules. 

The powder arrived late to Mt. Baker Ski Area last season. Clinging to the craggy slopes of the North Cascades in Washington State, the 1,000-acre resort—founded in 1953 and locally owned and operated—is just 50 miles from the sea. When moisture-laden storms barrel off the Pacific Ocean, they slam headlong into Baker, dropping the goods. During the 1998–1999 season, Baker recorded 1,140 inches of snow, the world record for a single winter. That was when local riders wouldn’t even look at their boards unless overnight totals had topped a foot. It was so deep that employees had to dig trenches beneath lifts to prevent the chairs from running aground. Continue reading →

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November 2, 2013 by Michael Behar

SKI | NOVEMBER 2013

Sky-High Vacations? Download PDF

Recreational marijuana is legal in Colorado. Is that good news for ski resorts?

Last winter, about 1.3 million people traveled to Colorado to ski or board. All in all, it was a decent year, with visits to winter resorts up about four percent over 2012. And yet, with an ongoing drought, an aging skier population, and a recovering but still uneasy economy, Colorado ski towns and resorts are always trawling for new tactics to attract business. Is pot the answer? Continue reading →

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September 24, 2012 by admin

SKI | October 2012

Your Brain on Skis Download PDF

What happens in that six feet between the couloir walls depends on what happens in the six inches between your ears.

I’m at Silverton Mountain, Colo., crippled with fear. Standing on the lip of a heinously steep couloir known as Meatball — a six-foot-wide chute hemmed with serrated crags sharp enough to disembowel an SUV — I try contemplating a line but soon sit down in the snow. My guide has toured me through some of Silverton’s most formidable terrain and I never flinched. Now I’m paralyzed.

Fear arises in the brain from tiny, almond-shaped bundles of neurons called amygdala. Ignited by an external trigger — a precipitous couloir will do — the amygdala dumps adrenaline into the bloodstream and jacks up the pulse. It fires without permission, a subconscious hijacker channeling primal instincts: fight or flight. I choose flight, but my guide offers an alternative. “I’ll go first,” he instructs. “Then you follow, making your turns exactly where I do.” I reluctantly agree, and the demanding cognitive effort it takes to mimic his every move quells my anxiety.   Continue reading →

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October 31, 2009 by admin

Ski | October 2009

Allison Gannett Download PDF

Saving Our Snow

Alison Gannett, a 43-year-old world champion extreme freeskier who lives in Crested Butte, Colo., was supposed to meet me at her place this morning. But last night, a fast-moving storm dropped nine inches of fluff. Gannett calls at 9, panting. “Let’s meet at the North Face T-bar at 11:30.” I get there five minutes late, and wait awhile before I realize that she has already split. North Face accesses Crested Butte’s double-black-diamond and extreme backcountry terrain, where Gannett has been doing laps since first chair. My cell phone rings again. “I’m headed to Third Bowl,” she says. “See you in an hour.” After taking a few runs myself, I arrive back at the lift just as Gannett comes tearing through and—without slowing down—plops herself onto the next T-bar just as it rounds the bull wheel. I scoot on beside her. “I’ve lived here 20 years and just skied two new lines I’ve never done before,” she announces. “Both of them scared the hell out of me.”

Gannett cannot sit still. She swings her skis, fiddles with her goggles and fires off text messages from her iPhone. During the two days we’ll spend riding the lifts together, she never removes the pole straps from her wrists, like she might leap off should the lift stop for more than 30 seconds. It wouldn’t be her first time hucking a 50-footer. Though retired from competitive freeskiing (“I stopped after knee surgery No. 7”), Gannett leads ski-mountaineering expeditions. In 2001 she was among the first group to ski the northwest face of Hanuman Tibba, a 19,500-foot Himalayan peak. In Crested Butte, she teaches avalanche safety clinics and runs a steeps camp for women. Continue reading →