Tag-Archive for » karhu-athletes «

One week out until a bunch of our office heads up to BC for a week of hut touring and shooting photos. VMT guide and Karhu athlete Evan Stevens sent us this update to start off the week, with more snow starting to fly just in time:

Well, the high and dry has set in up north in British Columbia, which means it has been dumping down south. I don’t mind so much, because it means its time to get back into the alpine and ski the BIG lines in more stable snow. When things set up right, you can really tuck your way up into the mountains inhospitable nooks and crannies, and do some amazing skiing.

Here is a video from last week of me and a bunch of skiers from the Reno area…enjoy!

Category: Ski Tags: -9658-160, 74a-class, 74div-class, a guide's life, atom, december, facebook, include-data, karhu, karhu-athletes, november, our-partners, pressure, september One Comment

High Pressure, High Routes

• admin

Our recent trip to Salt Lake City for Outdoor Retailer gave us a good chance to catch up with many of the Karhu athletes and ambassadors near and far, chatting about upcoming plans, getting out for some skiing, gathering product feedback, brainstorming on new ideas, and much more. We had to split to Vegas for the SIA show immediately after, but a few of the crew hung out in the Wasatch for more skiing. The storms have long passed, but Evan Stevens stayed on and took advantage of the recent high pressure to tackle some Utah classics:

All of you VMT devotees…I am in Utah right now, so some trip reports from down there. The word at VMT though is snow, and more snow. Probably close to a meter in the last week, with Dale telling me that there was close to 30cm of new snow this morning and more on the way.

Some folks in Salt Lake City see the high pressure on the weather map, hold their breath and hang up their skis. Others like Andrew McLean charge 10 in 10 days, or myself, I try and get after some longer higher tours that I haven’t done in a while, especially since I live in British Columbia these days! Back home in BC, the storms are rolling in, with lots of weak layers being preserved by the more northerly colder temper regime (I am snow geeking out here!). But part of the beauty of the high desert is the strong high pressures and rapid stabilization of the snowpack in these warmer temperatures.

Blah blah blah. You can log on to the Utah Avalanche Center website, and see for yourself, the decreasing avalanche danger. Not that it is fully greenlight out there right now (is it ever?), but things are pretty good and I am slowly building my confidence in the snowpack here and ramping up some tours in some bigger areas.

Sunday we started off with a tour from Big Cottonwood Canyon to Mill Creek via Reynolds Peak, the Wilson Chutes and Gobbler’s Knob. Lots of ridge walking in the sun, and great settled, soft and consistent powder on the north facing shots. With a car stashed in Mill Creek, we got to ski out over 4,000′ down the NW side of Gobbler’s in amazing snow as well. I’ll let the Google Earth image and the photos do the rest of the talking.

Google Earth image with our tour drawn in

Walking along Gobbler’s Knob Summit Ridge

Richard drops into the Wilson Chutes

Looking 4,500′ down the last run of the day to Porter Fork!

Today (Monday) we decided to tackle the crown jewel of the Wasatch, Mt. Superior, with some skiing in Cardiac Bowl and a long and beautiful ski out Mineral Fork. We went for the long ascent of the East Ridge of Superior for the added ski mountaineering aspect of the day and summit climb. Once again some great north facing settled powder and some billy goating on ridges and entrances so we can sneak into Mineral Basin where hardly anyone had been. Maps and photos will give you the full picture instead of my babbling…

The East Ridge of Superior. Classic.

Hiking up the East Ridge.

Dreamy and creamy turns down from the Summit of Superior.

Poking around to find the entrance into Mineral Fork

Mineral Fork void of tracks

Get out there and enjoy it while you can, I have 4 more days until I head back up to the land of snow (Canada). The weather forecast says at least 2 more days of high pressure here in Salt Lake though… hmmmm.

Category: Ski Tags: -9658-160, 74a-expr, 74div-class, a guide's life, facebook, google, high-pressure, include-name, karhu-athletes, north, photos, september, Ski, trip reports Leave a Comment

Monday Stoke

• admin

Sorry for the radio silence, but after two weeks on the road in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas for the Outdoor Retailer and SIA tradeshows, we’re finally back in the office. There’s a huge backlog of emails, messages, blog entries, and skiing to be done, but here’s a little “good to be home” stoke.

We caught up with Karhu athlete JT Robinson at OR, freshly home in UT from a trip to Japan with Sweetgrass Productions. JT described some incredible powder during his trip, and Sweetgrass just released a little teaser from their January filming with a couple shots of JT in it. Without further ado, your Monday stoke:

Category: Ski Tags: 74a-class, 74div-class, events, facebook, general-stoke, include-name, january, karhu, karhu-athletes, monday-stoke, september Leave a Comment

Storm Diaries

• admin

The skies opened up last week in a deluge of unimaginable proportions, at one point dropping 7” of rain on Snoqualmie Pass in a 24-hour period. The avalanche danger spiked with the weight of the saturated snow on some weaker layers underneath, and the roads and ski areas all closed. A few Summit locals passed the time stranded at the Pass by documenting the road conditions (“bare & wet”) with summer-like enthusiasm.

Post-storm, the snowpack appears to be much more homogenous, eliminating some lurking layers that threatened large slides throughout the season. However, the changing conditions during the storm unleashed unprecedented destruction in a number of places. The moderately sloped main run of Hyak ski area the Pass, a regular touring site for early season or high avalanche danger, slid to the ground on Wednesday with massive amounts of mud, taking out a couple lift tours and hitting at least two homes at the base.

The rain has now passed here, and we’re setting up for warm temps but sunny skis for the near future. Skiing should be nice and soft, but we really need some new snow to fill in the holes and creek beds, and cover all the rain runnels for touring.

Further north and east, Evan Stevens sent us the update from Valhalla Mountain Touring that the lodge seems to have weather the Pineapple Express with all snow. Glad to hear, as we’re heading that way in March, and the snow keeps piling up there:

While the coast has been getting rain of biblical proportions, the interior of British Columbia has been getting pounded by METERS of snow. We have had avalanches run that have not run in anyone’s living memory. Up at Valhalla Mountain Touring, we have been braving the weather in the safe tree skiing right out our door, and not stepping any further away. Making ski decisions in times like this in the backcountry is easy, avoid anything even remotely close to avalanche terrain at all costs! The clear weather is here, so now we will get to see what kind of damage mother nature has caused. Here is a bit of a video diary from last week, enjoy!

Category: Ski Tags: -9658-160, facebook, february, include-name, karhu, karhu-athletes, storm-diaries, today One Comment

Getting Deep at VMT

• admin

Storm season is in full force, and the interior of BC continues to do well. Karhu ambassador Evan Stevens keeps sending us reports to drool over, and we’re getting excited for a trip up there in March. Here’s the latest from Evan:

It might sound like a joke, but lately the snow has been coming in by the foot, not by inches. The storm hose is pointed right on British Columbia, and the cold smoke just keeps piling up at Valhalla Mountain Touring. We are in full swing here, with the 3rd straight week of operations, and this week has a bunch of friends from UT and CO up here to ski the pow. But instead of ranting and raving, and storytelling, I will let the pictures from the last 2 days do the talking.Get up here! We still have some spaces for this winter! All photos by backcountry.com‘s Tommy Chandler.

(Me checking out the snow as the season starts, keeping it safe.)

(Jasmin testing out the snow on yet another storm day.)

(Lindsay Yaw asks for the snorkel.)

(Me trying to get above the snow, but that is hard to do right now!)