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Feature
Dhaulagiri Diary
Puja, Fixed Ropes and Acclimatization
by Fredrik Ericsson
The weather is good and time flies by here in Nepal. Life in base camp (BC) is simple and easy going, mostly focused on food. After three days in BC I went up and had my first taste of Dhaulagiri, The White Mountain.
 Full Story
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A Sawtooth Scene
Walking the Line in the Heyburn Couloir
by Jonah Cantor
There was this one picture that kept appearing on the tabletop throughout the months that I lived at Johnny’s place. A mountain with two summits dominated the 8x10. An impressive hatchet-split feature tore the saw-toothed summit towers in two. To this, Johnny would point and proclaim with reverence, “The Heyburn Couloir.”
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Meltdown in the Nea-Coolers
The First Traverse of Alaska’s Neacola Mountains
by Joe Stock
“Coolers—huge, unskied coolers," Derek said, describing the allure of the terrain in Alaska's Neacola Mountains. That's all the motivation I needed to round up Andrew Wexler and Dylan Taylor for a spring trip to complete the first traverse of the Neacolas, a ragged sub-range of the 600-mile long Aleutian Mountains.
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Back-talk with Mike Marolt
High Altitude Turns on China's Mustagh Ata
by Aimee Furber
Many backcountry skiers count their vertical in feet. Aspen's Mike Marolt counts in meters—like the roughly 3,700m (over 12,000 feet) of skiing he just savored in April on China's Mustagh Ata. Backcountry caught up with Marolt following his return from the Tibetan Plateau.
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The Passengers
Letting Go on Baffin Island
by Tim Beaman
We have lost control. After five months of planning and preparation, we have, in a moment, totally relinquished command of our fate and placed our trust for the safe success of our adventure in a stranger whom we only just met at the airport. If you want to call the small strip where they land planes at Clyde River an airport.
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Telemark Touring Evolves
Black Diamond's new 01 telemark binding. A firsthand account....
Just get through the first thirty minutes or so. That’s what I tell myself… I’m not entirely convinced that after the first hour I’ll be in the clear as I hang with each of their steps. Shuffle, slide, shuffle. I’m in for it. full story
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G3 TARGA Ascent delivers power to backcountry telemarkers
New telemark binding features innovative pivot technology to conserve uphill energy, and a 3º built-in wedge to enhance downhill performance. full story
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Plinth Peak
British Columbia
Jack and I approached the gate on the Meager Creek forest road near Pemberton, BC with a hacksaw in hand to cut the chain barring our passage if necessary. Yet someone else had beaten us to it, despite the fact that in the middle of the chain was a removable screw link neatly hidden behind the gate. So we continued down the road towards Plinth Peak, a 6,800’ vertical face that had been haunting my dreams since I first saw it almost a year before.
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Sajama Session
Bolivia's Quick Fix for Thin Air
May 23. Jim Gile, my brother Steve Marolt and myself arrived in La Paz, Bolivia, after a nine-hour flight to climb and ski Bolivia’s highest peak—the 21,600’ Sajama. Although our objective was primarily a training expedition for our second attempt at skiing Mount Everest, this 10,000-year-old extinct volcano, which sits as the jewel of the Cordillera Occidental range in the Puna De Atacoma desert, is a perfect fix for high altitude skiing junkies like us.
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Cowboy Corn
Old Boys and Outlaws Take on the Tetons
Piloting the land ship at a comfortable 60 miles per hour up the Wilson, Wyoming side of Teton Pass, Peter belts out a few lines of the Ian Tyson country track playing in the tape deck, while his hired man Patrick Gilroy points out some of his winter's skiing exploits on folds of earth south of the road. Read More |
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Mistaya
Mountain Hop
The message is coming from my feet, and it's painful. A month after sustaining Stage III frostbite on four toes they are now bionic thermometers telling me the temperature is dropping considerably... Read More |
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| Point and Chute
A mountain birch jabs at my throat. I dodge to the left but its white fingers grab my pack, snapping me backwards. I skin forward a few feet and maneuver my skis through the maze of spruce and hardwoods. Read More
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The Rock:
Newfoundland. It's an apt name. In 1497, John Cabot called it the new world. Vikings hit its great northern peninsula 500 years earlier. But what was once a western hinterland is now eastern North America’s last frontier for the 21st century ski bum.
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Opening Day
“Steve!” I shout frantically into the phone, hoping that he can hear his answering machine.
It’s eight o’clock on yet another dreary October morning in northern Vermont. But this morning is different. Read More
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Shear Force
Ok, so I knew the whole time I wasn't close to death, but it did get the adrenaline pumping. I heard it before I saw it Read More |
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