Ski Mags Crash, Burn In Aspen

I am sick and tired of the dunderheads at the ski magazines who just don’t get it when it comes to Aspen. Despite caterwauls to the contrary, the powers that be who put together the rankings at SKI and Skiing magazines continue to treat the four mountains owned by Aspen Skiing Co. in the Roaring Fork Valley as if they have little or nothing to do with each other.

That means that rankings by the magazines invariably involve a series of non-sequiturs that have nothing to do with the cumulative snowbound experience. For Skiing, that means Whistler-Blackcomb in British Columbia are #1—and Alta-Snowboard in Utah, marginally connected and philosophically miles apart, are ranked together at #2. And this year, for no apparent reason, Skiing has grouped Aspen Mountain and Aspen Highlands—both owned by Skico but not physically connected—and ranked them #6, but have not included Skico’s Snowmass and Buttermilk in the same ranking.

Continue Reading 1 comment July 30th, 2006

All The Disciplines Of Dynastar

The Montenvers restaurant -- a mythical place that overhangs the " Sea of Ice " -- set the scene for a charged celebration of the Dynastar's champions from all disciplines: Legendary Kjetil Andre Aamodt, Jo Chenal, JP Vidal, L. Alphand, G. Chicherit, A. Ducroz, S. Wescott, the De Le Rue brothers (Xavier and Polo) , Loic Collomb-Patton - the rising Newschool star who shined at the X-Games and US Open, Half Pipe World Champion Mathias Wexcsteen , Antoine Diet - " prince of the backcountry ", as well as Stéphane Brosse and Patrick Blanc , Ski Mountaineering World Champions.

Continue Reading Add comment July 30th, 2006

TELUS Founder Sells To Whistler

Maybe it only seems like skiing and snowboarding are a pretext for the even better things in life like pounding one down to rock and roll. For eleven years at Whistler Blackcomb, the TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival has turned that notion into an art form, and now founder Doug Perry has sold out his 25 percent stake to Tourism Whistler and Whistler Blackcombwww.whistler2007.com. The deal got done July 21, 2006.

Continue Reading Add comment July 28th, 2006

1,000 Consecutive Days On Snow

If all goes smoothly, Rainer Hertrich will enter the Guinness Book of World Records tomorrow, July 27, by logging his 1000th straight day on skis. The 45-year-old telemark skier began his quest on November 1, 2003. To count as a day on the slopes you must “put on your skis and ski,” Hertrich said.

Continue Reading 1 comment July 26th, 2006

Bode’s At HEAD Of The Class

Bode Miller is hoping all his equipment problems from the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, are behind him with a new endorsement deal with HEAD skis.

Miller thus joins Caroline Lalive of the United States, Patrick Staudacher of Italy, Marco Buechel of Liechtenstein, Maria Riesch of Germany, and Johann Grugger and Christine Sponring of Austria on the HEAD alpine racing team coached by former Austrian HEAD alpine ski racing team member Rainer Salzgeber.

Continue Reading Add comment July 26th, 2006

Lynsey Dyer Goes To Jib Camp To Find Her Freestyle Flair

BLACKCOMB MOUNTAIN, British Columbia – Dyer finally did it.
It was amazing – a full rotation, hips and shoulders cocked, perfectly balanced and fluid – a smooth 360. Yep, there you have it, until this past week this pro skier friend of mine couldn't stick a damn 360. It only took her 15 years to finally get it.
Big-mountain skier Lynsey Dyer, 25 – who has been featured in films by Warren Miller Entertainment, Teton Gravity Research and Arris and Big Bang productions – and I (journalist person, also 25) drove 17 hours from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Whistler/Blackcomb, B.C., with a mission to learn a "3" at the biggest camp on the hill, Camp of Champions. If we couldn't learn it there with top-notch staff like Steele Spence, Matt Sterbenz, Luke Van Valin and Shidasha Holmstead, forgetaboutit.

Continue Reading Add comment July 25th, 2006

Steamboat On The Block In Good Times

American Skiing Company, determined to take advantage of a very good year at Steamboat Ski Resort, officially put the property up for sale in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission

Continue Reading Add comment July 16th, 2006

Base Elements

They sucker you in, don’t they, all those marketers and magazine writers who Crayola your dreams like your life is a sequence of panels in the funny papers? I know this for a fact or else how could one (or many) explain my presence opening day on a lift gliding above terrain that I (or they) once seen about only in pictures?

Fact is I live in just such a make-good, make-believe place, in a valley, near a mountain, by a river, in a dreamscape that I once only read about in magazines that spoon-feed adrenaline, caffeine, and sweet release.

Continue Reading Add comment July 13th, 2006

Aspen Skico's 'Boutique'

In the Roaring Fork Valley, Aspen Skiing Co. is the company store. With four mountains to keep going, retail stores, a deluxe 5-star hotel—the only one in Aspen—and sundry other investments, the mini-empire controlled by the Crown family is by far the largest employer in the valley.

There’s the usual grumbling from seasonals and part-timers, but that comes with the trails at Ajax, Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass. The fact is that Skico is a pretty decent corporate citizen, especially when it comes to the small matter of the environment. And that’s because Skico CEO Pat O’Donnell comes out of the Patagonia world, where corporate responsibility—and climbing—is right up there next to godliness.

Continue Reading Add comment July 13th, 2006

The Skier's 'Flu'

You’re not going to believe this, but skiers – at all but the highest levels - suffer from the same flaw. I call it the skiers “flu.” How do I know? Sure, I’m a two-time World Champ in the “you’ve-got-to-be-nuts” discipline of freestyle skiing, and I’m proud of it. But that’s not how I know about the skiers “flu.”
Here’s something else: I know how to cure the flu.

Continue Reading Add comment July 13th, 2006