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A sampling of this weekend's ski activities

The season is winding down. (Or up, depending on how you look at it.)

The way I look at it, there are some wicked cool things happening in the Colorado and New Mexico ski mountains this weekend. Don't pack up your gear quite yet.

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Resort Market not holding

The application for a large-scale base area development at Bridger Bowl Ski Area, outside of Bozeman, Montana has been withdrawn.

After hundreds of public comments in April and May of 2007, the Bridger Canyon Partners asked the Gallatin County Planning Department to table their Planned Unit Development in order to continue discussion and come to an agreement with the Bridger Canyon Property Owners’ Association (BCPOA).

The Bridger Canyon Neighborhood Zoning, established in the 1970’s by the BCPOA, shaped strict rules and regulations about development in this pristine canyon, particularly when it came to the proposed 452 overnight units, 75 recreational home lots, a commercial village, a recreational lodge and employee housing.

The Bridger Canyon Partners decided the timeline, including reasonable agreement with the BCPOA, water rights and permitting, coupled with housing downturn, makes the project unfeasible at this time and withdrew their application on March 26th. [more]

winter in the rockies

Paring 235 Snowtography Contest photos down to the top 5 wasn't as difficult as, say, a crazy ski stunt in Glacier, but it wasn't easy either, because "capturing winter in the Rockies" can mean lots of things and all, as the entrants proved, can be captured artfully.

After much rumination we decided on the following five photos. We hope you like them as much as we do.

Many thanks to our contest sponsors, Edge of the Word and The Dark Room, two awesome Missoula businesses that offered up as prizes a snowboard and camera. [more]

Exhausting Ourselves for Charity Since 1997

What could possibly motivate two-person teams to hike the ridge at Taos as many times as humanly possible in a five hour period? (Besides, maybe, being chased by a guy with a gun?) The answer may surprise you – the motivating factor is charity.

This is the 12th annual Ben Myers Ridge-A-Thon, folks. Originally established in 1997 as a fundraiser for an extreme skier from Taos to offset the cost of his cancer treatments, the Ridge-A-Thon continues in Ben Myers’ memory. This year, on March 28 and 29, all proceeds will benefit the Taos Community Foundation’s Emergency Medicines Fund. According to the Taos News, the EMF “provides vouchers for the purchase of prescription medications at wholesale cost from local pharmacies, with the intention of providing free prescription medicines to eligible individuals.” [more]

And Then There Were Three

It finally happened. One of the last remaining skiers-only strongholds has fallen. Now only three mountains, Deer Valley and Alta in Utah, and Mad River Glen in Vermont still ban snowboarders. On Wednesday, March 19, 2008, Taos Ski Valley opened its lifts to our single-planked brethren.

We’ve been talking about it on this blog since the season began and the folks at Taos announced their plan to allow boarders in March. Skiers were stunned. The announcement was the only subject of conversation at Taos on December 14. At the top of every run: “Those boarders are going to completely f*** up this run.” On the lifts: “Enjoy the smooth ride now. Snowboarders don’t know how to ride a chair without either jamming up the bottom or falling off the top.” Hiking the ridge: “Patrol is going to have to watch out for boarders up here. They can’t do this steep stuff. They’re just going to hurt themselves.” In the bar: “When the boarders get here, this place is going to be too crowded and noisy.” And on and on. [more]

Trip of a Lifetime

What do you do for vacation when you live in one of the best ski destinations in the world during one of the best ski seasons in many years? Go skiing, of course.

I just returned from a fabulous week of backcountry skiing at Sorcerer Lodge in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia. I’ve been planning this trip since last April and have wanted to return to BC since I had two fantastic back-to-back trips to Golden Alpine Holidays and Powder Creek Lodge nearly ten years ago. One thing’s for sure: I’m not waiting that long again. [more]

winter in the rockies

The West's winter wonders and the adventures they inspire make for great photography -- we call it snowtography. And so NewWest.Net and its Snowblog present the Snowtography Contest. Whether it's skiing or snowboarding, wildlife or snowscapes or snowball fights -- whatever -- venture outside and capture winter in the Rockies for a shot at cool prizes.

The online contest is sponsored by the Missoula-area businesses Edge of the World and The Dark Room and open to pro and amateur photographers alike, shooting in the Rocky Mountain region. [more]

warren's world

There are some men and women in the world who spend their entire life looking for the meaning of life.

I’ve spent my entire life looking for the free lift ticket.

After five decades of making ski movies I have to tell you that I have just been selling freedom all of those years. That’s because streets are straight and our bodies are round and we don’t belong in square houses or offices on those straight streets. [more]

A Little Harder Than it Looks

I’ve been skiing since I was four years old. I’m 28 now, and I’m just starting to get good at it. Why, then, did I decide to try snowboarding? Why did I decide to effectively revert back to a puerile state of snow-sport competence? Well, I thought it would be easy. I thought snowboarders snowboarded because they couldn’t be bothered to learn the art form that is skiing. I thought I would prove a point.

Not so. [more]

warren's world

Last month I shoveled a foot of new, light powder off of my porch here at the Yellowstone Club. An hour later, I was standing at the top of Pioneer Peak and 80 miles away I could see the Grand Tetons etched against a cobalt blue sky. I had walked a quarter of a mile from my home, climbed into my boots and skis, ridden two chairlifts almost 3,000 vertical feet and had seen no other skiers except my four guests and three of the 17 ski patrolmen working that day.

As I looked down the west side of Pioneer Peak several thousand acres of newly created runs had more than a foot of fresh snow on them and as a part-time guide mine would be the first tracks on one of them.

At a time such as this, I always pause to be thankful that I got my hands on a 16mm movie camera in 1949 and have been able to make a living sharing this kind of world with the people who for the last 55 years have bought tickets to my movies and thus supported my own skiing lifestyle. [more]

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