Happy New Year

Eric from Red Resorts snapped this pic of me skiing the Powderfields yesterday, and which I appropriated from http://www.redresort.com/. With new snow everyday and mild temps, our snowpack keeps deepening and consolidating, to the point that most of the mountain is now skiable (other than the super steeps and a few  lines that have been bombed [...]

Powder for the People

We didn’t get any new snow overnight, and I’m exhausted after 4 days of hard charging, so am taking a day off skiing to rest and reflect. I won’t minimize the challenge of managing risk on a mountain as hazardous as Granite, and I certainly appreciate how a ‘soft’ closure of most of the terrain [...]

Boxing Day Update

Jordy – Sunshine Powder!
For third day in a row it’s been top to bottom epic powder skiing at Red. Today the sun was shining, and the snowpack has consolidated enough to make a whole lot more of the mountain skiable (all the moderate angled open lines are in great condition, but it’s still marginal on [...]

Merry Christmas

Steve – Face-shots every turn.
With 39cm of new snow and the Motherlode chair operational at last, all my Christmas wishes have come true. Skiing conditions at Red have suddenly gone from marginal to epic, and I can’t wait to get out there again today for more incredibly deep turns. The forecast is calling for a [...]

Opening Day @ Red

8.50am this morning at Red.
The lifts finally started turning at Red Mountain this morning. Unfortunately only the Silverlode chair was operating, but nevertheless a crowd of keeners were out and having fun. There were powder turns to be had on the few pitches steep enough to keep moving, but Silverlode is beginnner-only terrain, and I [...]

Garmont Radium Review

Following Lee’s query, I thought I’d share some more detailed opinions on my new Garmont Radium boots after 5 days of skiing in them.
Skiing
When skiing they are noticeably stiffer and more responsive than other AT boots I’ve used – Megarides, Denalis, Lasers, and Concordias. When buckled down they really are close to downhill boots in [...]

Deep Freeze

Damn it’s cold out there. -20 degrees is just plain absurd.  On Sunday Jordy and I skinned and skied down Main Run on Granite. I was a bit concerned on the way up, particularly in the Bowl, as there was no base whatsoever on top of the rocks. But by picking our line with care, skiing fast [...]

Storming in the Kootenays

The art of being a skier (a metaphor for life itself) is to be in the right place at the right time. The storms roll in off the Pacific in relentless successsion, and by utilizing internet forecasts and the experience garnered from doing this for a while, we bring it all together to ski powder. [...]

Storming!

From the National Weather Service Spokane WA, for the mountains 
just to the South of the Canadian border (usually the most accurate 
and certainly most detailed forecast available for Red Mountain).

“THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NOW IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY MORNING
THROUGH SATURDAY EVENING.
STORM TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 12 INCHES IN THE VALLEYS
AND 1 TO 2 FEET [...]

Where’s the Snow?

Downtown Revelstoke
Winter hasn’t really kicked in here in the Southern Kootenays. I was riding my bike in Rossland on Friday, the first time I can recall riding in December. But the storms have arrived a little further North, so after an evening of Backyard Booty in Nelson, Andrea and I  followed rumours of a dump [...]