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…

Do the Dew: Winter Dew Tour hits Breckenridge

Last weekend, spectators got a chance to check out the Snowboarding Grand Prix at Copper Mountain. If you didn’t manage to make your way up to Copper to see death-defying leaps of life and study potential mechanisms of injury, you’ll have another chance this weekend in Breckenridge…

Top five ways not to crash while winter driving

It’s a hallowed skiing tradition, but probably not a favorite one: Miles and miles of skitards saddle up and drive into a blizzard, risking life, limb, and Subaru for a shot at once-in-a-season freshies. This results in highway pileups and automotive carnage galore — but ya gotta earn your turns, right?…

Yellowstone opening for winter use

In our sparsely populated neighbor to the north, Yellowstone National Park opens up for winter use today. If you haven’t been to Yellowstone in winter — or alternately have been turned off by the park’s summer crowds — it’s an entirely different world after the snow falls. Not only are…

The next big thing in ski tech is super small

Year-round backcountry skier and a professor at the University of Nevada-Reno, Kam Leang is on the forefront of innovation in ski and snowboard technology. He currently is teaching a mechanical engineering class where his students are incorporating nanotechnology into skis they’re building. One set will somehow fold down to fit…

Who took a chainsaw to your ski?

Skiers are a conservative lot by nature, telemark skiers even more so.  While skis have gotten shorter and have more sidecut than they did 30 years, the shape hasn’t changed too drastically from the first wood planks that people strapped on their feet millennia ago.There is one brand of skis,…

How to treat your Outdoor Diva this gift-giving season

Gentlemen,If you have a woman in your life who will make out with you on the chairlift and then give you a run for it on the slopes, I submit that you, like me, are a lucky, lucky man. Take care of that woman, hold on tight, and do everything…

A blind man climbs better than you

That’s no longer an insult: Boulder’s Erik Weihenmayer just crushed the Naked Edge, a 5.11b (that means f-ing hard) climb in Eldorado Canyon. None of this should be surprising, since Weihenmayer’s also the first blind person atop Everest and the first to top out on the 7 Summits. But seeing…

Shaun White, the world wants to know…

My friends at YoBeat.com have been “making fun of snowboarding since 1997” and they’re also up with the first footage from yesterday’s U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix Finals at Copper Mountain, in case you want to see what those double corks I’ve been talking about look like in real life. Shaun…

Fisher finishes 7th in qualifiers at U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix

This week’s Westword cover boy Steve Fisher finished in seventh place in qualifiers at Copper Mountain today, just making the cut for finals tomorrow. That skin-of-his-teeth finish underscores how hard his Olympic quest is going to be: He finished behind Shaun White, Louie Vito, Greg Bretz, Danny Davis and Scotty…

Crested Butte gets backing from Colorado Ski Country in Snodgrass fight

Not too surprisingly, industry trade group Colorado Ski Country USA will support Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s efforts to appeal the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to deny an expansion onto Snodgrass Mountain (see previous posts here and here), if the resort’s owners elect to do so, reports the Aspen Times. Writes…

The Weekend Snowdown: Sunlight, Telluride, Vail

It’s actually been warmer in the mountains than in the city this week, which made for better snowstorm conditions on the hills. Some resorts got more than others, but pretty much everyone got at least a couple inches. Which means this week’s edition of our high-country highlights is neck-deep in…