Apr 15: You Wish

You wish you got up at 3:45am.
You wish you skinned 90 minutes (1700') up an icy slope.
You wish you stood under this cliff (shivering) as the sun broke the horizon.

You wish you saw Sarah send this one (half a second earlier).

You wish you had snow like this.

You wish you had April faceshots.

You want to know where this is?

You wish. Ha!

(Hint: head to Alta, and look UP.)

April 11: Spring Cliffs

Spring is trying to break through, but the skiing is still so good!
We made some beautiful deep turns, then focused on a few cliffs.

Standing under this cornice is not as scary as it looks. But approaching the steep blind lip of this cliff is scarier than it looks. (So said Nicole, Sarah and Cascade [pictured].)

And yes, as I was setting up my camera some backcountry-Bob tele-beater put that ugly turn in the foreground. *sigh*

We hit this a few times, and a couple other ones too.
Then it warmed up and turned into water skiing.

More snow due this week.

Mar 23: Big Jump

Justin and Hazen built the Pyramid booter, by themselves, in 2 days.

It looked rather beautiful as we approached it the next morning. (For scale, the vertical wall of the ramp is 12 feet tall.)

We worked from 9am until about 2pm, sculpting the ramp and smoothing the in-run. We had about a dozen guys shoveling, stomping and testing.

Finally, with a good crowd of supporters, Justin and Hazen enjoyed their moment.
Pete and Eric also put in a couple laps.

The real images are still processing.

Mar 8: Double Deep

16" on Sunday. Another ~20" Monday night. Today was deep.
I hadn't hoped to shoot, but the sun came out and I was glad I brought my camera.

The early bird, gettin' his worm.

I met EJ and we took a few laps.

Mostly under Wildcat.

Then it started to feel tracked

So we headed for fresher lines.

If you hadn't noticed, EJ has only one leg, but he still gets after it, hard.

You can read more about him here.
After lunch, in variable light, Cascade and I went up again.

The sun popped in for a few more deep turns.

The sun affected the snow a bit, making it barely thicker. Take a closer look.

Helluva day.

More tomorrow.

Feb 10: Double Shift

I had big plans for today, but no athletes to accompany me.
Instead of giving up, I packed 2 Pocketwizards and a tripod.

I did double work today. I was the photographer and the athlete, simultaneously.

I tested out my system on a simple safe line. It worked perfectly on this first set. Nobody would guess that this is a pocketwizard self portrait. Prettly slick.

On another set, it didn't work so well. These are consecutive frames. It appears I missed something in the middle.

I figured out my mistakes and got the system to work better on the other lines. It actually worked so well that I dare not post the photos. One in particular might be my new favorite of this season.
I will give a teaser though.
My clothes are so bright that my lines turn yellow.

And, yes, I hauled a beer all the way up there. After working 7 hours simultaneously at two different jobs, it tasted mighty fine.

Jan 29: Grab Bag

The skiing is warm and wet this week, so a couple of the guys are practicing some new grabs.

This super poppy booter is cleaned up to look nice.

Justin is working on a truck driver.

It's getting closer.

But it's still in the developmental phase.

A few more tries...

Much better.

Timmy is locked in.

It looks effortless.

Ariel joins later. Is this the running man?

Rad base graphics.

Jan 27: Big Time

4:30 wake up.
5:15 rendezvous.
6:00 trailhead, skins on.

7:30 first saddle, 1500 gain, 1.7 miles up. sunrise.

8:15 aspen glades and long shadows.

9:00 recon base, under the face.

10:15 final ridge. big exposure. a slip left would be bad (fatal?), running on hard steep crust.

10:30 final summit in view.

11:45 standing on the summit (left), 3100 gain, 3.5 miles. the line is rather implied by this angle, but i won't give away exactly how we sent it.

12:00 the entrance proves a bit tricky. (sorry Kate, can't resist)

12:05 Kate recovers and skis it to perfection. (this one is soft and I'm blaming it on the lens. the auto-focus totally bounced this time. I shouldn't have trusted it. I was shooting two cameras simultaneously at varied focal length, but it's a shame I didn't get this right.)

12:05 flying through the runout.

12:35 regroup at the bottom. Justin Sarah Kate Hazen. note the lines.

1:15 back at the saddle, we admire the tracks. Sarah put in the left line, super stylish, and earned photo of the day (not shown). Kate put in the upper-right chute (in shade). Justin's creeps into the bottom corner, direct from the summit.

1:30 back to the car.

7:45 bedtime??

Jan 26: Near Miss

We explored some different lines today, but I didn't quite get things right.

Making the most of the conditions, Sarah skis this line like a racer. But it doesn't....pop. I missed the angle.

I found a better angle for the second shot. Kalen puts in a sweet line. But I somehow missed focus. Slipped a button, or something. It's still usable, but it's not as sharp as it should be. The rocks are soft at full scale. Bummer.

The last line was a stretch. It was impossible to get the composition I wanted. In the end, I just put in in the middle and let it go. Sometimes I can fault the skier for missing the perfect line, but Sarah put this in precisely as I asked. I just couldn't make the shot.

We'll get it next time.
Big plans tomorrow. The images need to be better.

Jan 21: New Ideas

It's fun skiing new terrain, finding new features, meeting new athletes, and trying new ideas.

Snowbird was pretty tracked out, but we found a few small lines with clean snow. This one got hit just before we arrived, but Becky still makes it look good.

It's impossible to ignore that slash down the middle, so we looked for other isolated features.
Alan found this, but the rock and ice entrance was too sketchy to ski it well.

Becky found a few turns on the other side.

I can't help but put in a photo tip....
Check these two images, taken from opposite sides of the same line.
The first one, shot as a landscape (wide), stretches the terrain horizontally, diminishing the height of the drop. It makes it look small and flat.

The second one, shot as a portrait (tall), stretches the terrain vertically, increasing the height of the drop. It makes it look tall(er) and steep.

Include a chairlift in the background, (and a blue sky), and the second image is much more interesting.
Neither is very special, but it's good to compare images to see what works and what doesn't.

To get something special, we found one open patch and hit it two ways.
(Consider this a teaser for a concept I am working on.)

Another good day of skiing and shooting.
More tomorrow.