Word from PW

Let’s get back to the skiing! This is the second round of our amazing trip to South America this past Summer. All the pics are from the point and shoot camera’s of Dede O’mara, Andy Jacobsen and Dan Grolley. 

We flew into El Calafate after our week in Ushuaia. A winding bus ride took us through the classic Patagonia desert landscape to the town of El Chalten.

The town had just been plastered with a 12” coat of new snow. Weather report for the next day was for blue skies! 

We woke up early and hiked in the dark until the light started revealing Fitzroy and friends. Andy Jacobsen’s face pretty much explains the disbelief we all had. We were about to get faceshots under blue skies and one of the most notorious peaks in the world. Not to mention it was all going down in a region of the world known for it’s relentless wind and poor weather.

I won’t be surprised if I never see anything as beautiful as this sunrise on Fitzroy. Photographer Jay Beyer and I sat in the cold shooting video and stills for 45 minutes. We were giggling like little girls and giving lots of hi-5’s. 

Our goal was to ski the foothill slopes in the foreground. We still had a long ways to go.

It was hard to stay focused on moving along. We would find ourselves just sitting and staring.

Jay Beyer with another ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ look that stuck to all of our faces throughout the day. 

Dede O’Mara tracking up some of the ‘best snow she can ever remember’. 

The wizard guide Paul Turecki skinning up for more. For powder and adventure, follow this man.

Dede with that smile you can’t wipe off, no matter how many faceshots she gets. Dan Grolley looking almost as cool as when he stuck his backflip over Fitzroy in the background. No pics, you’ll have to wait for the video. 

Another stunning shot of our playground for the day!

I made my mark in some Patagonia pow as Dede and Andy’s shadows look on. We captured some amazing video and I can’t wait to put it together. Including, Andy Jacobsen stomping a front flip over Fitzroy. However, we don’t have many good skiing pics to show. They were all shot by Jay Beyer and he’s selling them for the big bucks, not giving them away for blog fodder. Look for them in a ski catalog or magazine next year.

Paul Turecki milking the last bit of daylight, as we finished the day with a 2,000ft descent down to the climbers hut.

Home sweet home for the night! 

Chillin’, left to right; Andy Jacobsen, Dan Grolley, Paul Turecki, Noah Howell.

It’s tough going to sleep after a day like this. We didn’t want the dream to end. And it did, the wind came on strong through the night. Thanks to wind and warm temps, the snow didn’t even resemble what we had known from the day before. 

The only logical thing to do was head back to town…..

for a steak dinner…..

some bouldering…..(Andy Jacobsen)

and tatoos! Pretty handy for down days when your expert guide is also an artist of ink.

Dan Grolley with his first tatoo.

Next up Jay Beyer.

Jay is clearly more excited about it than Andy.

The artwork for mine. Can you tell I wasn’t too sure about this? We didn’t get any pics of the final flesh rendition, but it came out nice.

What other way would you finish the trip of ‘all time’ than with a fiery farewell sunset.

It’s fitting this post is coming to light during the national time of thanks. All of us on this trip knows and appreciates just how blessed we were to be there for such a rare single afternoon of perfection.

Posted by NH

We wrapped up the Front Range with the Colorado Springs show. A mix of Colorado College students and die-hard fans who make it out every year. Sorry no pics, Sunday is a day of rest for the camera.

Moving up the Interstate 70 corridor we set up shop in Breckenridge at the Three 20 South night club. 

With some time to kill we strolled the quiet mountain town. Looked like some sweet entertainment was going on in town.

They say modeling doesn’t come easy?

We continued our tradition of filling up on hippy food at Rasta Pasta before the show. 

The local bad boys, Mark Tieszen and Pete Gallup showed up to say hi and check out the flick. We couldn’t manage to arrange for photo’s due to contractual agreements with their sponsors. It was fun guys, see you this winter.

Moving down past Vail to Edwards, we stopped off at what has become one of our favorite venues. The staff here is really helpful and always glad to see us. Plus they tossed us free food and beverage.

100 strong looking on.

Some weather blew in across the pass to Steamboat. A fun crowd was on hand to support the program Everything Outdoors Steamboat. I must have been getting lazy with camera, no pics from Steamboat.

Final stop on the tour took us to ASPEN. We finally got to see where our good friends and fellow Powderwhores Will and Kate Cardamone call home. 

They quickly put us to work on the woodpile. Kate gettin’ after it.

Woodsman Will in full swing.

We cleaned up as best we could and headed into town for the show. I didn’t quite feel like I fit in.

The infamous Belly Up was our host for the evenings festivities. Jonah and I always get really nervous when it’s our first showing in a new town. We manage to convince each other that it’s just going to be the 2 of us.

So, it’s always great when 130 telemarkers show up to fill the house. Here Will C and Mary take it all in on the big screen. It’s always fun to have the local athlete’s come out. Kate and Will helped pass out the raffle prizes which raised money for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.

We packed up after the show and headed out to celebrate the end of the 30+ city road tour.

Turns out Aspen is a pretty cool town.

Crashing outside the Cardamone compound, our last night in the trailer. Thank God!

Will had his hands full with some “fresh” roadkill. 

We didn’t want to test out how ‘fresh’ the road steaks were.That was our cue to hit the road back to SLC.

The tour is a really fun part of this “job”. We are lucky to work with such great people all along the way. Sufficiently warn down and out from 29 days on the road out of the past 2 months. It felt really good to be heading home to transition into our favorite part of the job, the skiing and filming. 

Thanks to everybody who helped out along the way. It takes a lot of planning and effort to pull this off effectively and we really appreciate everyone for coming out to support what we are doing. With your help we are able to keep dreaming the dream. With close to 8,000 people attending PW events we have helped raise over $30,000 for local non-profit organizations. 

See you all next year!

I am always up for doing college shows, since I myself never truly went to college, unless you count the 1 day I tried it out and realized I didn’t want to pay to take naps. So we packed up and headed north to Utah State University, the show was at the ORC (Outdoor Recreation Center).

The ORC is a cool little place where students can rent cheap gear, so they can get into the outdoors. The best way to get students to a show is throwing in a meal with their ticket, I think more people were there for the food then the movie. On the menu was sloppy joe’s, cheesy potatoes, and apple cobbler, it tasted better then it looks.

The only thing sweeter then the apple cobbler was this little future telemark skier.

The show ended up being our largest college show to date, we sold out. 

We’d like to thank Paul and all the ORC staff for making it such a fun show.

We left off last week in Bellingham WA. Since then we’ve banged out 6 more shows. 

Seattle was the next stop. The movie played at EVO gear’s shop in the Fremont district. They bought a few kegs for the event and they went quickly with the thirsty crowd. We even had an appearance by one of the top alpine skiers in the world, but we won’t embarrass him online by revealing he’s a closet tele wanabee. There was some talk about getting him a cameo appearance in next years flick.

We added a new stop to the tour, but we might drop Spokane for next year.  Unfortunately only a small group showed up for what we will call a very intimate showing. Everybody won a raffle prize or caught some schwag. Jonah was excited about the show!

Starting in Whitefish, Montana would host the next 3 shows. The Great Northern is always fun and packed. Still a bit like the wild west up there.

Our good friend Ken Wensel put us up in town and rallied 80 of his friends for the show. He wanted to join us on tour, but the per diem was too low. 

Next up was Missoula where we teamed up with Big Sky Brewery for the burning dog pray for snow party. This is an outdoor event where we showed the movie on the side of the brewery.

I don’t believe there is scientific evidence that burning stuff like skis or pine dogs will bring snow. It has proven to be a good time though. This was a large fundraiser for the Missoula Avalanche organization.

A crowd of 600+(not counting these 2 guys) looked on as Chris Erickson skis the Wasatch pow on the big screen. 

A little diesel fuel goes a long way. I don’t think this would fly in many other states.

Big Sky Brewery sent us on our way with a sweet parting gift. How many cases does it take to constitute bootlegging? 

The burning of things and huge outdoor venues continued on to Bozeman. The fairgrounds held the party this time with galande quaffing, 2 bands and The Pact viewing. 

With over 1,000 in attendance this was the biggest single crowd to ever view a PW flick.

Thanks to Molly and BJ Brewer for letting us make a mobile home park out of the front yard.

Last stop on this 13 city leg of the tour was the lovely Jackson Hole. Small crowd due to the baseball game, football game, or because Desperate Housewives was on?

The road was starting to take it’s toll, but we were shown the finest hospitality possible and we’ll be back soon.

Jonah and I are now home restocking the schwag and gear. We leave tomorrow for 4 stops in CA/NV. Come out and join us if we are swinging through a town near you. Click here for tour dates and locations.

Posted by Noah Howell

Thanks to everybody who came out for the World Premiere of “The Pact” at Brewvies this week. We had 5 shows with over 800 in attendance and raised nearly $3K for the Utah Avalanche Center.  

We did run out of seats for 3 of the shows and tapped the house of PBR, but other than that the nights went smoothly.

Some players from the past came out of the woods to check out the flick. Josh Madsen and Todd Stuart praying for peace and snow.

The bashful and lovely Ashley Howell selling PW gear.

And her even sexier hubby, Jonah, pushing product. Sex sells!

Manny the friendly gear mannequin will be joining us again this year. Freshly outfitted with the latest toys from Black Diamond and pants and jacket from Mountain Hardwear, you just need to sign up to win.

We will be working with a non profit at almost all of our 30 city tour stops. The product from our sponsors will be raffled off to benefit the local organizations. 

Thanks to Joni for outbidding everybody else for this huge strip of tix. I believe it paid off nicely for her when she won an Avalung pack from BD.

This is me pointing out that the movie will be playing on the large white screen.

The packed house awaiting “The Pact”.

The bouncers making sure nobody sneaks in without a beer. Good job Guy, Craig, Josh and Jay.

It’s always a really fun week and a great start to the tour. We’ll be on the road heading to a ski town near you soon. Come out and join us if you’re in need of a good dose of winter.

Thanks to Darrell Finlayson (MTV Cribs segment) for all the pics.

Posted by Noah