10/7/12


Prepping for New Zealand, I feel like giving a shout out to those good folks that are keen on collaborating with your narrator.  Thank you.!



So psyched on the future with Surface skis.
Their support for grassroots ski culture is phenomenal.
Taking a fresh pair of Live Frees over to Aotearoa.  (here come the magic doors ;) 


Hyperlite Mountain Gear.   The name sums it up.  To have a ski mountaineering, expedition worthy ruck, that you still use biking to the post office, or on an all-day trail run, 
says a lot about their versatility.
(both are going to NZ).  The one on the right is a hybrid of their Expedition and Ice Packs (with some custom mods).  Plan being to develop a ski specific pack this winter.





And the kind folk over at Patagonia, for getting in on the Middle Earth action. ;)




In the future, if anyone wants to collaborate on:  an art project, a ski mountaineering route, a slog, an idea for a video, a research/ science project, some beer drinking, basically anything that is cool or interesting, please let me know..
(around Cooke City or elsewhere)

10/4/12


What's it like to ski tour in Kamchatka?

One morning I had a pack of wild dogs sneak up on me. 
It was right around dawn, and we were making a long ski traverse between 2 volcanos, 50 km from the nearest road. A thick fog slowly gave way to epic alpenglow, and three or four wild dogs (huskies/ hyenas) from behind..!

Or the time we had to bushwack through a remote air-force base; around a runway, with a fleet of MiG figher jets just a five iron away. Jumping into the bushes when a jeep would pass; there’d have been trouble if they’d have found us.! Hardly speaking a lick of Russian as we did…

Or when we were invited to tea with some Itelmen shamans. ‘I feel like I’ve known you my whole life’. ! (via translator ;)







Not quite Cooke City.  But close!

10/3/12

eye of the needle

Read the Wall Street J for the first time this summer today. (always appreciate getting my hands on a Weekend edition around these parts). Between a few final editing sessions on a video piece I've been putting together about ski touring in Kamchatka.  (wrapped it up) 
While it Snowed.  Yes, the Talk of the Town today around much of the northern Rockies.

Around 3:30 I rode my bike up to the post office in Cooke, then figured I might as well go for a jog up Republic Creek/ Peak.  

Gotta love a nice spontaneous outing.  And a good view of the Tetons.  
There's been a big fire between here and there for most of the summer, so it was cool to see them again.
In the foreground (only just distinguishable) is a feature they call the Eye of the Needle.  It's a big rock arch, perched on top of a mountain.   Psyched to explore it via skis this winter.




10/1/12



Spent the last day and a half out East, preparing you know where, 
and marveling at the local Geology (among other things).  
Robert Carson's recently published book about local land, its physical structure, substance, history, and the processes that act on it, IS fascinating.  Check it out.