Doug Abromeit, retired director of the Forest Service National Avalanche Center, died suddenly on Sunday near Sun Valley while he was riding his mountain bike with friends. The cause of death is still uncertain, but he was ahead of his friends and when they caught up they found him lying on the ground still in [...]
snow
Even at the frozen roof of the world in the mighty Himalaya, global warming is evident. The snow line in the Mt. Everest region has moved uphill by 590 feet. Glaciers in the region are shrinking, some by as much as 13 percent in the past 50 years, and precipitation has declined, according to a [...]
More than 70 million people living in the western United States rely on the Rocky Mountain snowpack for their water, and a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey does not bode well for long showers: Since the 1980s, the snowpack has dropped 20 percent. “Until the 1980s, the northern Rocky Mountains experienced large snowpacks [...]
The recent online series, Trip, features Swiss free-skiers Nicolas and Loris Falquet skiing through snow colored with yellow, blue and umber dyes, all apparently non-polluting. It’s beautiful, slow-motion cinematography that captures the complexity of snow, with vivid contrasts between storm layers, cornices, powder, and slabs. It’s also a timely metaphor, because the color of snow [...]
Four snowboarders and a skier riding the backcountry at Loveland Pass, Colorado, were killed in an avalanche Saturday afternoon, according to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office. One person survived. The crown face was about four feet high and 500 feet wide and ran in the Sheep Creek drainage. The avalanche hazard was rated as [...]
Fails are just so much funnier than near-misses, but when something this sobering comes along you need to see it. Canale Holzer is one of the many steep couloirs plumbing the Dolomites, in this case down the north face of Sass Pordoi in the Sella Gruppo. I’m not familiar with the Holzer — I’ve skied [...]
Airborne dust has been shown to speed up snowmelt in the Colorado Rockies, but there’s more to the global dust and snow story, according to a NOAA-led study showing that dust and microorganisms from as far away as the Sahara help spur the precipitation that California counts on for its water supply. The CalWater field [...]
Grassroots Powdersurfing got its start building skateboards. But since Utah’s long winters usually mean a six-month joint-custody arrangement between skateboarding and snowboarding, founder Jeremy Jensen and his crew started working on a way to blend the two sports in a way that would offer the freedom of skateboarding, but on the snow. The end product [...]
It was dumping, as it so often does in Utah, and though we were ostensibly testing skis during an industry on-snow demo at Solitude, the only things we really were evaluating were snow density and the effect of extremely low humidity on snow’s ability to float back into the air and hit you in the [...]
You know snow, sure you do. But how well do you know snow? Can you look at a snowflake and decipher how and under what conditions it formed? What the temperature was when it branched? Or the humidity? This video describes the early life cycle of a snowflake, and it’s pretty darn cool. Even though [...]
Dig out? Why dig out? Photo: Caviahue, Argentina, by Jordan Manley
Say hello to a stellar dendrite — stellar from “star-shaped” and “dendrite” from tree-shaped. Of the many types of snowflakes, these are the most beautiful and among the best for creating the conditions we love so much. All those little arms interlock with the arms of other flakes to keep each other slightly apart — [...]
Last year brought the fourth-warmest temps in more than 115 yearsand the third lowest snowfall since the start of satellite tracking in 1966. It was either a rude awakening or the nail in the coffin, depending on how closely you’ve paid attention to the effects of climate change on snowfall. Overall, our winters are 2.2 [...]
The chairlift is the perfect ski vehicle. Not the tram, not the t-bar, not even the gondie. No, the chair is ideal — it provides a moment to get off your feet, look around, and talk, all while staying connected to the fresh air and other elements. Imagine how different the ski culture would be [...]
The Daily Bike, May 24, 2013
Boy Scouts to Allow Gay Members
The Daily Bike: Mountain Bike Enduro World Series Kicks Off
Overlandia: Driving a 1936 Rolls Royce Across India
15 Seconds: Driving Indian Creek, Utah
The Man Who Skied Down Everest Climbs it at 80
National Avalanche Legend Doug Abromeit Passes Away
Smokey Is Fighting Fracking and the Feds Don’t Like It
Prickly, Beloved Mountain Gazette Print Version Shut Down
Historical Badass: Alpinist Alex Lowe
Volunteer Fired at Saguaro National Park for Reporting Graffiti
Sierra Club Joins Lawsuit Against Mountain Bike Park
Driver Busted After Bragging on Twitter About Hitting Cyclist
The Daily Bike: Les Granges du Galibier, Giro d’Italia 2013
