Engelberg, Switzerland - February 13th and 15th, 2012

Headed over to Luzern, Switzerland for ten days in mid-February.  In between trips to Sweden, Germany, a pitch black restaurant in Zurich called the Blind Cow, and the epic Fasnacht festival that doubled as the best 30th birthday party ever, I managed to make it over to Engelberg twice.

The first day was great - but it hadn't snowed for a couple of weeks and the off piste terrain generally felt like skiing on a chalkboard.  On the second day, however, the 2-4 inches in the forecast magically turned into 2-4 feet, resulting in the deepest day I've ever had. 

I took an absurd amount of video, and had a hard time cutting footage out, even though most of it didn't come out very well.  Visibility wasn't great on either day, but during the snow storm on the second day, it was just about impossible to differentiate between the pow I was slapping on the ground and the pow that was falling from the sky and slapping me in the face.  The lack of a fish eye on the Contour didn't help, either, because it prevents the viewer from being able to at least see my ski tips. 

But enough talk.  Enjoy the video, which features a 9 minute techno song and guest stars Scot and Dean Osgood.  Additoinal footage staring Kelly O'Hearn and Nikki Roux is available upon special request. 

Switzerland, I miss you already.

Sugarloaf, Maine - 28 & 29 January 2012

Checking in again with some video footage from the 28th and 29th of January up at Sugarloaf, ME.  A chronic lack of snow continues to plague New England, but Sugarloaf allegedly pulled down 8-10 inches on the 27th, so we made the 3.5 hour drive after work.  The snow reports were more or less accurate, but unfortunately, some freezing rain followed the snow, effectively ruining anything off piste.  We made an effort to explore a few areas, but generally were met with some pretty heavy junk to push through.

The weather was great though - blue bird skies - and Darren's slopeside condo was pretty spectacular.  A couple of issues continue to plague my videos, however.  For example, when I jump off something, it looks like I am jumping about 6 inches.  I swear to God, there is one clip in this video where I make a 3+ foot drop followed immediately by a 6+ foot drop look pretty good, but you would never know it from watching.

Anyway - at the end of the day, we all have needs.  For the guys on this trip, we felt the need to ski, so we headed up and we had a pretty damn good time despite the iffy conditions.

Enjoy the flick (especially the last scene, which stars the one and only Gene Connolly)

Gulf of Slides, Mt. Washington, NH - 22 Jan. 2012

Headed up to the Gulf of Slides on Mt. Washington this past Sunday with Scott Osgood for our first backcountry trip on skins.  We had great weather - windless blue bird skies and weather around 20 degrees Farenheight at the base of the Gulf. 

(looking up at one of the main slides in the Gulf)

The only downside was that we were less than 48 hours removed from high winds and an eight inch snow fall.  So although the sun and warmth surely helped stabalize the snow pack a bit, there was definitely a risk for some wind loaded slabs.  Tuckerman Ravine has a similar aspect to the Gulf, and the avalanche forecast for the ravine varied between Moderate and Considerable.

Cannon Mountain - 14 January 2012

A weekend of changing plans - at various points I was planning on heading to Sugarloaf and out into the Backcountry, but ended up taking a day trip to Cannon Mountain on 14 January instead.  Cannon pulled in about 9 inches on the 12th and 13th, and it was in decent shape, but not really enough snow to play very much in the woods.  Also - as you can tell from the second to last scene in the video - the mountain seemed to enjoy pointing its snow guns at the chair lifts. 

Most of the actual "skiing" footage comes from the Global Warming glade (my favorite part is where I plow right into a tree) and the Taft trail, which Cannon allowed to bump up for really the first time in my memory.  The groomers were pretty icy, and some of the other trees we ducked into were pretty rocky (I almost made it two full days this season before I tried to ski something with my new planks that clearly did not have enough snow.  Typical.)  None of this takes away from my love of Cannon though - its still the best NH has to offer by far.  Just needs a bit more snow.

One other highlight from the weekend - I was able to break out my skins for the first time ... in my front yard.  Pretty cool sensation to be climing up hill on skis and not sliding backwards at all.  Can't wait to try it for real.  Was 'thisclose' to heading up to the Sherbourne trail today on my own to try them out, but Wildcat and Blackmountain only have a 16-20 inch base, and didn't want to drive four hours by myself only to have to side step down the trail because of rocks.  So I decided to run errands and do work instead.  Carpe Diem, right?

Anyway, enjoy the flick - short and sweet this time.  Played with the stabilizer this time - so I think the bouncing is significantly reduced, but I am still having some conversion issues - the resolution on the final product isn't nearlly as good as the raw HD footage.  I'll figure it out eventually.

Here is the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRGw8vfDg4&feature=youtu.be

Jay Peak/New Years in Montreal

Headed up to northern Vermont and Montreal for the final days of 2011 and the first days of 2012 in an effort to find snow and a bar without a cover charge for New Years Eve.  We had marginal success on the first count, and although we technically failed on the second count,  it has to rank amongs the best New Years Eves I've ever celebrated anyway.

Great trip all around, and decent snow for the first time out this year.  Mother nature needs to get her act together soon though if we are really going to get Kyle to move back to the East Coast.

Enjoy!

PS: Here is the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq4j49QWrfA&context=C3ce495eADOEgsToPDskI92Pt8HULvwWXO2hoDW4cd