Downhill slope: Mother’s Saloon

This is our first serving of a semi-regular post about a mountain bar of note…or at least disrepute.We stop in Georgetown for a beer on our way back from Loveland. Downtown, the normally reliable Red Ram is shuttered, with a for-sale sign in the front window. So much for that…

The Ski Train stuck in the station

I got my first view of Denver from a train, my first view of a Colorado ski resort from another train. But now it looks like the revived Ski Train to Winter Park will never leave the station: Yesterday, Iowa Pacific called a halt to the season…

Ski glider injured on 14er near Breck

Officials from Summit and Eagle counties spent yesterday rescuing a man from Quandary, a 14,000-foot peak south of Breckenridge, after he fractured both legs in a ski-gliding-gone-wrong accident, according to the Summit Daily News…

Carry all resort maps on your phone

Earlier this month, Eric Peterson wrote about a new iPhone app that turns your phone into a virtual reality display of the ski resort. The video demonstrating its function makes it seem pretty high tech, but it also looks a lot like info overload.Most skiers, however, do like to have…

Top five extreme Santa videos

So it almost goes without saying that Santa Claus isn’t known for being the dude with the most wicked moves on the mountain. He’s better known for superlatives involving his stomach, his speed in a flying sleigh, and his generosity with his stash. But as the following videos attest, Mr…

Locals Only: Last-minute gifts for the ladies you love

“We are a local store that could use a leg up this season,” writes Marily Macdonald, marketing coordinator for the Outdoor Divas shops in Boulder and Cherry Creek, just as I’m heading out the door to scrape the snow off my car and scrape together the last of my last-minute…

Local Boards for Locavores: Unity Snowboards

When Breckenridge team rider and Summit County local JJ Thomas took 3rd and stepped to the podium after the Dew Tour Superpipe Finals at his home mountain on Saturday, he did right by both the Summit Unchained “Buy Local” campaign and his new sponsors at Unity Snowboards.Unity hooked the 2006…

New ski research: Skiing drunk is safer than snowboarding high, kinda

Well, maybe only if you’re Swiss: A study built from questionnaires given to 782 injured skiers at trauma centers and 496 uninjured skiers in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland found that drinking alcohol was not likely to contribute to injury, but indulging in marijuana did.Keeping in mind that this…

Useful Eye Candy: 3dSkiMaps

I happened upon 3dskimaps.com on the intertubes last week and think it’s one of the biggest innovations in ski maps since, I dunno, folded paper…

Shredding the suburbs: A first descent in Virginia

The recent East Coast storm motivated one Teton Gravity Research follower to grab his short skis and trek 300 yards from his house in search of face shots. He found what he was looking for next to a stoplight on a newly constructed road. Here are nine photos and a…

Can Twitter slay I-70 traffic?

We’re going to find out when GoI70.com officially launches.Developed by the I-70 Mountain Corridor Coalition, the site is currently in beta-testing mode, with hopes of unsnarling the assorted traffic jams, jellies, and marmalades that are all too common in Colorado’s high country…

Sick video: First recorded ski-BASE jump in Glenwood Canyon

Last Tuesday, freeskier/BASE jumper/announcer Ted Davenport, adventurer-of-all-trades Matt Hecker, software salesman/Base jumper Collin Scott, and photographer/BASE jumper Jacob Fuerst became the first people to be filmed ski-BASE-jumping off of a 460-foot wall in Glenwood Canyon — see the sick embedded video from ESPN.com above. Davenport, Hecker, and Fuerst actually became…

Q&A: Danny Davis, Dew Tour Superpipe champ

Snowboarding judges are notoriously stingy, especially at the beginning the season, and even getting close to a perfect score is pretty much unheard of, so Danny Davis’ 96.50 in the pipe at Breck for the first stop of the 2009-2010 Winter Tour on Saturday is something to talk about. Last…

Who should save you in the mountains?

Last weekend, three climbers went up and attempted a climb of Mt. Hood in Oregon. Luke Gullberg was found dead from a combination of hypothermia and minor injuries sustained in a fall. His companions, Anthony Vietti and Katie Nolan, were nowhere to be found, and an exhaustive search was undertaken…

Locals launch their way into Dew Tour through Open Qualifiers

The Dew Tour is downright democratic compared to the X Games and other invitational pro snowboarding events: Any Fred Shred or Insane Jane who fights their way through the Open Qualifiers gets to throw down in Prelims, against the likes of Shaun White and Kelly Clark (last year’s Dew Cup…

Classic Climb: The Naked Edge

On Monday, my colleague Ted Alvarez posted a video link to Erik Weihenmayer ascending the Naked Edge. The Edge, as many people call it, is a truly striking line that grabs the eye of every climber entering Eldorado Canyon. From the road at the parking lot, it looks much like…

Don’t miss: Snowboardcross Olympic qualifying at Telluride

Here’s an Olympic event you’re not going to want to miss. No, it’s not biathlon. (It’s hard not to appreciate the combination of skiing and shooting a gun, though, isn’t it?). Check out Snowboardcross at this year’s Vancouver Olympics. This relatively new Olympic event puts four snowboarders on a course…