Word from PW

We have some really different ideas for next years PW flick. I’m not going to give anything away just yet, but one of the concepts includes covering a telemark freeskiing competition. Alpine Meadows has great venue’s and tends to have good conditions so we decided to rally the PW crew and try to capture it. Jonah could cover this on his own with a little help, so I decided to throw myself back in the ring and compete after a 4 year hiatus. Conditions are still scary as hell here in the Wasatch so it was a good idea to get out of town for one of the greatest competition/parties in this little sport of ours. Here is a little recap and some photo’s that hopefully inspire others to come out next year, or maybe they will just embarrass some from coming back (I hope not).

Paul Kimbrough hitched a ride with us and had a great showing at the comp with a 4th place finish. He skied the most difficult line that nobody else would touch. Some say he deserved to be on the podium, but such are the ways of judged sports like this. Paul K (aka the dread pirate) ready to throw down at the show down.

Mandatory competitor meeting in Tahoe City the night before. The judges go over the guidelines and answer questions.

Megan Michelson’s mother gets the award for best host. Not only did she open up her home for gangs of smelly hippies to invade, she rented out two of the neighbors houses and fed over 30 of the competitors! Thanks Evans!!

The qualifier comprised of a handful or so jr men and jr women, 12 women and 37 men. Judges grade from 1-10 on 5 categories; Line you choose to ski, fluidity, agressiveness, control, form/technique.

The level of competition was stiff and so were the conditions. It hadn’t snowed in weeks and the area had seen really warm temps. The venue was thin and full of exposed rocks. Paul K gets in the zone.

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Chris Erickson and William Cardamone took the train in from Aspen to demonstrate their telemark skills.

Some really solid skiing from the day one qualifier set the top men and women apart from the field.

Top 5 men in order-

Paul Kimbrough, J.T. Robinson, Chris Erickson, Ebon Mond, Will Cardamone

Top 3 women in order-

Megan Michelson, Kate Cardamone, Paige Brady

The day of the finals started out nice, but the weather moved in.

There was a final and super final run for the few who made the cut. I fell in a ‘no fall zone’ in the qualifier, so I spent the day filming and drinking with Jonah. We gathered some great footage, but didn’t get too many pics of the skiing action.

And the winner is………

The women’s field ended with Megan Michelson in 1st, Kate Cardamone 2nd and Paige Brady in 3rd.

The fella’s finished up with Chris Erickson as the top dawg, Will Cardamone in 2nd and  J.T. Robinson 3rd.

After all the butterflies and testosterone have been spent, the party begins. Free your heel, free your mind, free your clothing. The following pics speak for themselves.

Yes, it was a bit crazy!

The competition scene never fails to be an amazing gathering of committed individuals from ski towns far and wide. It was nice to catch up with some of the veterans and meet some rippers new to the scene. Looking forward to seeing everybody there next year!

Posted by NH

Thank you to everyone who entered the Grand Raffle. There can only be one winner and here he is.

Matt is one lucky man. We’d like to thank our great sponsors for providing all the sweet gear.
Black Diamond (skis, bindings, backpack, shovel, probe, poles)
Mountain Hardwear (jacket and pants)
Ortovox (Beacon)

It’s pretty crazy here in the Wasatch right now. Not only is the Avalanche danger scary, but we just don’t have all that much snow. I know it’s pretty silly for me to be bitchin when the skiing is actually really fun, but it’s just not the Wasatch that we are used to.

All photos courtesy of Jay Beyer.

We’ve been whining and complaining about what a dry winter it has been. Last weeks storm changed things dramatically for those of us here in the Wasatch. Extremely dangerous avalanche conditions have existed, but we played it safe in tight mid elevation trees. We are so grateful to finally ski some classic light and fluffy pow and bank some of the deepest footage we’ve ever shot. Here is a little taste!

So, this has been one of the slowest starts to winter I can recall. Pretty frustrating if you’re committed to making a ski film from a production company named Powderwhore. Maybe we should have gone with something else that would have put less pressure to deliver the, all up in your grill, blower.

Snow has finally started to fall in ernest and lines are filling in! We headed out into Days Fork today to check things out.

The mountains were in and out of the clouds.

Paige Brady always seems to know the perfect time to visit the Wasatch.

Paige is so strong on the uphill and the downhill, it’s great to ski with someone so motivated.

The first line into Days brought smiles and washed away the fear that winter had abandoned us. Actually Paige is always smiling.

Andy Jacobsen quickly drops in with a little weather window.

Skiing Pow is #1 in his opinion

Paige followed and skied really well despite forgetting to lock down her free pivot bindings. Hate it when that happens.

I filmed from above and then cleaned up the leftovers

Tagged some rocks, lost some base, but skipped to safety! Notice the avalung is out, that will come into play shortly.

Here’s where things got interesting. We had put in 5 tracks on this NE facing slope without noticing any avalanche concerns. The slope was skied one at a time with everybody pulling up in safe zones. We wanted to move down the ridge to the next are so we skinned back up a sub ridge which was a very safe terrain feature. Andy Jacobsen was breaking trail and we were once again spread out working to ’safe’ zones (trees and below cliffs) while skinning. Jonah and Jay were going to wait below (that one’s for you Jay).  The ridge became too rocky to ascend so Andy cut out into the small bowl we had just skied. Paige and I waited and watched and Andy made the ridge without incident. I started out and crossed a thin rocky area when heard the slope ‘thud’,  and then watched it release in a big way. I yelled avalanche and tried to work back to the ridge, but it was clear I was too far out onto the slope which had fractured about 250ft above me. The avalung was easy to grab and place in my mouth, I bit down hard and swam. Right at that moment I was submerged, grazed some trees and surfaced roughly 300ft down from where I triggered it. I yelled ‘I’m OK’ and Jay came down to make sure. He was convinced I was jacked up having seen me strained through the trees. Nothing but a bruise on my elbow and the loss of both ski poles for making a poor call.

Looking back we should have just avoided that aspect for the day, our vision was clouded by the drought we’ve been having. No excuses though, rule #1 is don’t get caught and we failed. Got away lucky on this one.

Thanks again to Jay Beyer for documenting the day with the lens.

Posted by NH