Recently, I took fellow OTE blogger Greg Benchwick’s advice and I headed out to Moab, Utah. This isn’t a rare pilgrimage for Front Rangers — it just usually happens in spring and summer, when dirt hounds can get their tires and tread reliably on trails without snow. A mention of…
It’s black-ice season on the trails (not to mention the Denver sidewalks) for the foreseeable future, and there are plenty of uphills that will put you flat on your ass if you try to climb them in your Chuck Taylors.Since 2001, Sweden’s Icebug has been solving that problem with sneakers…
As the Olympics roll into their final week, it looks as if things have settled down — nobody’s dying anymore, Bode rose from the dead, and the US has been racking up the medals (we lead the field with 25 total). But with 19 Colorado Olympians, how many Rocky Mountain…
Some Crested Butte locals are looking to breathe life into the state’s first resort, Pioneer Ski Hill, which closed over 50 years ago after a two-decade run. Located near CB South on Cement Mountain, the idea is to put in a new lift or two on the old run, but…
We’re finally seeing signs that the ski season may yet be salvaged. While we haven’t had an epic dump yet, the steady snowfall of the last few days had me enjoying multiple powder runs off Chair 9 at Loveland on Monday. Now there’s more good news: Arapahoe Basin will be…
Double-digit weekend snowfall at just about every ski resort in Colorado this week, and more on the way? My fellow skiers and snowboarders, our winter prayers have finally been answered!Unfortunately, our I-70 prayers have not…
The snow problems that have plagued the Front Range this season are fairly well documented at this point. While the snow has picked up somewhat in recent weeks, levels at the resorts are still below normal, and powder days have been few and far between. While the southwest portion of…
National Canadian paper The Globe and Mail is reporting today that Broomfield-based Vail Resorts is leading the bidding for Whistler-Blackcomb as current owner Intrawest angles to keep it in hand by restructuring its debt.”There is a standing offer on Whistler from Vail Resorts, but Intrawest isn’t willing to engage, with…
So, you’re in line for the lift, and your mind starts to wander. And granted, it’s not like you’re at the beach, where there’s a lot of exposed skin or thong-factors to distract you, but really, it’s said that men think of sex every seven seconds on average — so…
Any subsequent broadcasts of Shaun White’s victory lap in the Men’s Halfpipe Finals from Vancouver will assuredly be bleeped out, but anyone watching live last night heard the final instructions from coach Bud Keane: “Drop a double Mc at the end, do whatever you want and freakin’ send that thing…
What better way to cap off a nice day on the hill than making your way to a night-cap jam session with a Marker flying V guitar. That’s right, the makers of those bindings on your skis now have their hands in the music biz. OK, fine, Gibson actually made…
Bouldering — with its relentless focus towards pure climbing technique on rocks usually less than 15 feet off the ground — can be maddening to watch. But it can serve as an amazing rock-climbing test piece for problems that would otherwise, y’know, kill you. So it is with “The Game”…
Some of the best big-mountain skiers in the world will shred Crested Butte’s slopes this week when the Freeskiing World Tour makes its way to Colorado. It’s the fourth of six stops on the tour that judges skiers on their ability to ski uber-technical steep lines with mandatory airs…
This week Venture Snowboards announced the five finalists in its Protect Our Winters art contest, and voting is online now. The winning design will be made into a top sheet graphic for a limited edition run of Venture x POW boards in the 2010/2011 line, raising environmental awareness and benefiting…
Have you been checking out some of those rad backcountry ski videos and thinking to yourself, “Backcountry lines look like the bomb, but I’m not sure I want to fork over the dough for new gear or take the time to learn a new ski technique?” After all, traditionally, those…
Have you been watching ski porn type videos on You Tube featuring big air and tons of pow and wondering how they get that footage? Modern helmet cams, which also usually have an attachment mechanism for those riders and skiers who prefer to go sans lid, have come down in…
Not going to be able to make it to Bourbon Street in New Orleans this year for Mardi Gras? Not a problem, just head for the slopes in Vail where you can ski, chow down on some crawfish, and party on Bridge Street…
The Boulder Snowboarding Group is singing the praises of Vail’s big booters this Valentine’s Day weekend, taking its BSG crew to the 20, 25, and 30-foot hits in Vail’s Golden Peak Terrain Park for its Big Booter Lovin’ snowboard big air competition. The competition is open to all ages, with…
It has one of the more abrupt rises of any peak on the Front Range, and…
Nobody wants a wipeout to land them on the disabled list for the rest of the season, but for some reason we humans love to watch one another literally crash and figuratively burn. (Almost as much as we love to watch one another commit even more unseemly acts.)It follows that…
Uh-oh: Lindsey Vonn’s all-but-inevitable march to the podium in Vancouver might have just been derailed before it started. Today she revealed that she suffered a painful shin injury in training that could possibly keep her from competing at all.”It’s hard to focus on just being prepared for the Olympics when…
It pretty much goes without saying that you don’t need to make snow at home unless you have a mountain in the backyard, in which case you probably don’t need to make snow at home.Nonetheless, you can now buy a home snowmaking system from Connecticut-based SNOWatHOME for a few hundred…
