Tabla de contenidos para November 2016 en Powder

IT HADN’T SNOWED IN WEEKS. The routine—the runs, the bars, the buffoonery—felt redundant. It was time to go somewhere new. To explore beyond comfort zones—the unknown places where growth and perspective await. And, let’s be honest, to get the hell out of town and find some snow. I bought a ticket late one night. Liquid courage is still courage. The morning of the trip, I left my house at 4 a.m. The world was asleep; my world was headed somewhere else. Walking through an airport full of strangers, I went through the motions. The relief of dropping my ski bag at ticketing. The fear it would be lost. The conformity of the security line. Triple checking my pocket for my passport. The woman behind me, upon seeing my ski boots,…

We’re on a mountain, but at the moment skiing is a distant abstraction. I’m sweating through my shirt and pining for sunscreen, following Jennifer Burt as she leads the way through shoulder-high brush. “In retrospect, maybe I should’ve brought you up the trail,” she says. We’re at Powder Bowl ski area, north of Lake Tahoe, hiking up the middle of a run—if you could even still call it that. One of dozens of abandoned ski areas scattered around the Tahoe Basin, Powder Bowl closed in 1984. If Burt wasn’t here to tell me, I’d have been hardpressed to pick out the run from the surrounding forest. But that’s kind of the point. Burt, 40, a restoration ecologist, has been studying how ski slopes regenerate— that is, how they return to…

I’ve got buddies in Whistler, Tahoe, Snowbird, and Jackson Hole, and three weeks off for winter break. I can’t decide where to go. —Mike, Madison, Wi Well, there’s the obvious “wherever it’s snowing” answer. And then there’s the “which friends do you like to ski and hang out with the most” response. But this is less of a question and more of a humble brag isn’t it, Mike? You know there’s no bad call in that multiple-choice option. Since you’re clearly in college, planning on visiting friends who have most likely just gotten out on their own, allow me to take this opportunity to deliver a PSA. No matter whose couch you end up on, when you get there it’s very important that you follow these three basic houseguest rules:…

The lost boys and former circus freaks stand on Shuksan Arm, waiting for the light to clear. We’re on the lip of Beast Ridge. The glaciated face of Shuksan, the spine-striped ridgeline synonymous with Mount Baker, fades in and out of fog in the distance. I cannot see shit. Finally, the sun breaks through the soup and hits the top of the ridge. I push off over the edge, point my tips, and luck into the kind of sustained vertical, deep snow turns that make it feel like gravity is bending around me. This is the epitome of skiing in the Cascades: steep, snowy, solid, but still, somehow, scrappy. Weather-battered and variable, the 700-mile span of mountains splits the squall-soaked Northwest coast from the arid plains rolling toward the Dakotas.…

I. GUY WHO DOESN’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU ON THE GONDOLA: Yes, I’m acting like a dick with my hood up, goggles down, and earbuds in—but not because I have anything against tourists. It’s just that I know exactly what’s coming. “Are you from here?” you’ll ask. “How long have you lived here?” You’ll say how great it must be to live the ski life and how you wish you could, too, and I won’t mention how I live in a drafty woodshed, work three jobs, and suspect that my girlfriend is sexting an Australian named Simon who works with her at the ski shop. I have to clock in at the bar in 45 minutes where I might see you again and possibly also Simon, who will vigorously…

I n January, my younger brother plans to load his skis into his 2001 Dodge minivan and spend winter on the road. He has a short list of spots he wants to hit if the snow is right, but for the most part, his goal is to ski as many days as he can while spending as little cash as possible. His question to me, his wise, all-knowing older sister whose advice usually comes unsolicited: Should he buy the Mountain Collective pass? As a mobile millennial with an affinity for big mountain skiing in North America, yes—you two are perfect for each other, I told him. For urban-based skiers who have to travel to get the big mountain experience, opting for the $409 Mountain Collective is a good investment: You…

“CAN YOU SEE IT? The chairlift on the ridge?” Cody Barnhill steered the minivan north on Anchorage’s Glenn Highway. It was morning rush hour. The nondescript cityscape of an American suburb passed by the window: strip malls and pawn shops, dead trees that looked like skeletons, Vietnamese phở joints, beige one-story buildings with flat roofs and melting icicles. It was a view like any other neighborhood street, until you looked up. Beyond the city haze, dividing the streets from the clear sky, the front range of the Chugach cut across the horizon. Our destination, the chairlift Barnhill pointed to, was a local ski hill 15 miles outside the city. Hardly the extreme skiing paradise typically associated with Alaska, Arctic Valley offers 1,200 vertical feet of blue-collar cruising. Anchorage is not…

There is a spirit to Alta. Perhaps it is because generations of skiers have been able to pass on their love for the mountain. It may be because there is a bit of a “purist’s” feel for those who choose to ski here. Whatever the reasons, Alta is a place that many local and destination skiers choose to call home. FRIDAY 11:30 AM: Land at SLC Airport 12:45 PM: Drop bags at slopeside lodge 1: 15PM: Ski like the devil until 4:30 pm 5:15 PM: Hot tub/swim at lodge pool 7:00 PM: After cocktails in cozy bar with fireplace, sit down to a 5 course dinner, included in your lodging package 9:30 PM: Bed! SATURDAY 7:45 AM: Enjoy great breakfast with a choice of hot and cold cereals, fresh fruit…

PROFESSIONAL SKIER, GRAPHIC DESIGNER, FILMMAKER, and, in his own words, “technology geek”—all encompass the essence of Nico Vuignier, the 25-year-old Swiss skier who lit the internet on fire last winter with three unique and creative video projects. From swinging a cell phone around his head (“Centriphone,” his edit that has more than 4 million views) to skiing with road flares (“Torched”) and using black chalk to create a moody black and white park piece (“PBK1”), Vuignier’s edits are the culmination of a modern day, techsavvy skier with a creative, visual mind let loose at his home near Crans-Montana, in the Swiss Alps. He is a self-made skier made for the selfie era. “Not only is he an amazing skier—he’s won Red Bull Linecatcher—but he’s also a really smart and strange—in…

“If everyone skied, there would be no more wars.” That’s a famous quote from Hannes Schneider that gets thrown around by skiers every so often. I used it myself in one of my first Intros for Powder. It’s also a go-to whenever someone asks why skiing is important. It’s quaint and convenient. It’s also hyperbole at best, self-righteous and aggrandizing at worst, and patently untrue. Humans are stupid. We fight wars. We always have. If everyone skied, the Alps would be like the Middle East. So why is skiing important? For me, it comes down to a lesser-known quote from a no less wise man. Five years ago, in our 40th anniversary issue, editor-at-large Matt Hansen wrote, “Because it is one of the few things you can do from…

THE BUMP What’s the long-term impact of cutting ski runs? 50 POINT OF VIEW The best deal in skiing for travelers. 54 THE CHAT Mexico isn’t paying for this wall, either. 56 SWEET JANE Don’t forget the dishes, TP, and beer. 58 KEEP YOUR TIPS UP Ski Town Tinder: You should probably swipe left. 60 COMING THIS MONTH TO POWDER.COM  LATITUDES—Where do you want to ski? A travel guide for every place with mountains. POWDER FILMS: From travel shorts to feature-length films— time to get out the popcorn with Powder Productions. WONDERLAND: A digital feature on a skier’s quest through Alaska.…

ALONE ON TOP OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, we sink forward in our boots and feel the sun burn our faces. We stare out at rows of pyramidal peaks veined with unspoiled couloirs and wide open bowls. I consider counting the mountains, an old habit more about meditation than mathematics. My mind itches. There are a lot of mountains. My host, 25-year-old Carter McMillan, and I are at Sunshine Village. It’s one of three independently owned ski areas operating in Banff, which was established in 1885 as Canada’s first national park. Lake Louise Ski Resort is barely visible to the northwest. Mount Norquay is off to the east, obscured by the limestone fins and spires of the Northern Rockies. Banff, population 9,300, sits low in the valley at Norquay’s feet. The…

THE LIGHT SHAPES OUR DAYS. NARVIK, NORWAY, IS A TALE OF CONTRAST. DECEMBER AND JANUARY ARE A PERPETUAL DAWN. ON AN EVENING IN APRIL, THE SUN WAS UNWILLING TO SET, LINGERING ABOVE THE MOUNTAINS A FEW FJORDS AWAY WITH THE STUBBORNNESS AND VIGOR OF A CHILD AVOIDING BEDTIME. At 9 p.m. I stood in an area called Mørkholla—“The Dark Hole”—about a 30-minute skin from the chairlifts near the top of 4,000-foot Tredjetoppen at Narvikfjellet Ski Area, which, though it has just a few lifts, has the best lift-accessed skiing in Scandinavia. Kids from the small harbor town slapped slalom gates while others lapped the gondola or went for walks along the cat track with their dogs. We saw a few other backcountry skiers, but it didn’t require much effort to…

The Who: Terry really wants to click his poles against my poles, in mid air. This is not sexual innuendo. It’s a trick he just came up with. We’re at the top of 230 vertical feet of muddy, slushy bumps at Wilmot Mountain, Wisconsin. A bleak gray sky stretches out across the equally bleak gray, and very flat, horizon. Below sit two freestyle kickers, the first so straight up it feels like hitting a stack of railroad ties. The second is the sender—the glory shot for all to see at the second annual Midwest Mogul Mash. Terry—like all 51 competitors, ranging in age from 6 to 58—is determined. “There’s only one way I know how to ski bumps,” he says, “and that’s to attack!” But here’s the thing: It’s not…