Powder Photo Archives
6/26 – Tioga Pass had been open exactly one week when we set out to ski Mount Dana on Saturday. Too bad that week was in late June—most everything off Tioga is done—but the Dana Couloir wasn't a bad way to cap off the season. We booted up a thousand feet of sun cups before hitting scree and after a couple grand of scrambling along a ridgeline we reached the 13,053 summit. We shared it with a couple hikers, but the frenzy of butterflies and spanning views of Mono Lake and Tuolumne Meadows more than made up for it. The monstrous sun cups and sketchy wet releases from the summit to the saddle were a far cry from conditions we found inside the couloir. The northeast facing chute, set far back in a canyon, is known as one of the classic ice climbs in the area. But we found a thin layer of corn atop a groomer-smooth firm base. Mammoth local Hans Ludwig claims we found the last remaining quality stash in the accessible eastern Sierra. A thousand feet later the skis were off and the fun was over. If you aren't ready for summer, down climbing loose scree in ski boots is just the trick. -Tess Weaver
Word to the wise: When you’re lost in the woods without a compass or map and your gut tells you to go north and Colin Puskas tells you to go south, go south. This guy knows his way around mountains. The 26-year-old Calgary native has positioned himself in Banff, an idyllic base for a guy with a sled, a truck, and a desire to ski a new mountain range every month. Though he’s skied extensively in North and South America, Colin’s happiest at home in the Canadian Rockies. Fortunately for us (or we’d still be buskwalking to the car), we lured him to Central Oregon last month, for a late season ski in the Three Sisters Wilderness. Within a pitcher of Mirror Pond, Colin had successfully persuaded everyone at the table to move to the Big North. CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERVIEW
Driving up to Teton Village a few days ago hoping to get some turns, I was struck by a realization that heretofore I’d had difficulty accepting: There’s actually not that much snow in June. Attempting to ski, it seemed, would be a pathetic and gratuitous attempt by some winter junkies (i.e. my brother and I) to fend off the inevitable arrival of the hot and stickies (i.e. that period between Memorial Day and Labor Day oft referred to as summer)...CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY
Salomon teamed up with Windell's Camp to host the 2nd annual Salomon Freestyle Team Camp- the one time a year the entire team skis, chills, and torments the Salomon staff together. CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE STORY...
Alyeska Resort squeezed out one more weekend of their healthy '05-'06 season. On Saturday, June 3rd Simon Evans and I arrived at the tram at aleisurely 1:30pm. We missed the sunny skies in the morning as we were greeted with gray-bird, but we still couldn't complain--we were skiing lift served in June.
Despite thethe milky light, visibility was good and the skiing was smooth and forgiving. Due to the warm temps the change in snowpack was drastic compared to last week. The melt was actually creating new lines and features that weren't around last week--slivers of snow to straight line, bottleneck chokes, technical linking of snow patches, dirt patches and bushes to gap, and even the kickers and cat tracks made for some fun jumps. -Jason Scheben
Alyeska's Big Easy ski and snowboard camp is slated for early summer. Go to alyeskaresort.com for details and dates.