Ski Bum Poet

I’ve got some exciting news for Altafarians. Until now you’ve only been able to get yer hands on one of these classic t shirts while in Alta skiing it up, well Altaholics.com is now open for business! Buy Lee Cohen’s famous Altaholics Anonymous shirts online, quick and easy. The magnate himself has set up the store, and will be fulfilling your orders for the time being. So have at it. Here’s the story…

In December 1983 Alta got it’s one month record of 244 inches and members of the Creek Road House were in the midst of enjoying a most gratifying streak of voluntary unemployment.

After continuous days of faceshots and copious amounts of blower pow I turned to my buddy Duff and said “We are such #!*!# Altaholics.” We knew we had something. It took a year to do it but after much babbling the first Altaholics Anonymous Tees were finally made. -LC

For more info & to buy some shirts visit Altaholics.com…

Alright havin’ a little fun again with the old GravityFed classics. These articles I find and post are from back in the day, as they say ;). I always get excited when I stumble upon one of the great custom stories that were submitted to GravityFed pre-dot com bubble burst of 2001…and this is exactly what happened tonight. I found the old story, added it to GFed, then I posted to digg and Propeller. Here’s the snippet from digg.com:

The “Essence of the no pole movement.” This is an article pulled from the deep archives of the early GravityFed Network. It’s an entertaining read, and true look at a sub-ski culture, within a sub-ski culture at Alta. I wonder if these characters are still charging around the Wasatch!

Read the article at Gravityfed or digg this shizzle.

If you’re a gear head than chances are you’ve bought online a handful of times. And if you’re a web shopper you’re likely pretty good at finding the deals and gear on sale. Well here’s a site to note for all you savvy money saving gear head hippies out there: OGEBlog.com

OGEBlog is the official weblog of the Outdoor Gear Engine, a database that (at time of post) has over 300,000 product skus from over 60 of the Internet’s best outdoor stores. The mission of the site is simple. To offer up day-by-day pricing on the gear you need. With the tagline of “Price It, Buy It, Get Outside!” who woulda thunk that was it. But it is. It’s a gear search engine, and it’s sweeping the civilized world! No but seriously, here’s the word straight from OGE, Inc.:

Our site helps you compare prices. Don’t waste your time surfing the web looking for the best value. This is a price driven service from Wasatch gear heads. Through proprietary technology, OGE will display updated pricing each day for gear from the best outdoor merchants on the web. Bookmark OGE so you can find your gear quick, and get outside. more info…

Here are a couple of features on the web that support this killer service:

• PRWeb News: Outdoor Gear Price Comparison Service from OutdoorGearEngine.com
• Squidoo Price Comparison Lens: Compare Prices on Outdoor Gear

Oh and this is probably the most attractive part of the blog. With 60+ stores in the OGE database, there are a constant flow of sales, promotions, freebies, closeouts, coupons and frankly anything else that can save you some bucks on yo stuff…posted to the site. If you buy gear online, subscribe to their RSS Sale feed and you’ll save:

Subscribe to the sale category (the gear on sale category currently has 126 articles). Smart gear heads will find killer savings hitting this feed a few times per week.

OK so far so good with the AltaCam podcast series production schedule this season (hmm no season yet, though…that could be a problem). Two weeks ago we rolled out the Adam Clark interview, and now we’re featuring Johnny B’s interview with Caroline Gleich. Listen as Johnny Bernard and her talk skiing from the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Powder days and much more.

Caroline Gleich: Have I ever needed ski patrol? Oh, yeah. One day at snowbird, three years ago, the Galande Competition. I was skiing down, the in run in the morning, it is an early morning training at 9:30 on the frozen coral reef. And some 190 atomic powder pluses, I wanted to ski those so I could get some extra lift off the jump.

And on my sixth jump, I had a funky take-off and I landed on one foot, tried to bring the other foot to match it, to ski the run out and I wrecked and I tumbled like 600 feet down the landing hill and ended up in the fence…

This is a nice entertaining interview from two class acts in Little Cottonwood Canyon

Read/listen to the full MP3 interview or digg this story.

Here we ago again. It’s the dawn of another ski season in Alta and AltaCam just released its first podcast of the 2007-08 ski season. Have at Johnny B’s sit down interview with ski photographer Adam Clark. I’ve known Adam for a while and he’s a stand up guy and true professional. He couldn’t be denied at 21, when he started shooting skiers in Alta professionally. Now he’s killing it, to wit:

I traveled to British Columbia, Washington, Alaska, this last winter. Winter is pretty much done here in Utah. Monday evening, I fly back to Alaska for a 35-day Denali Expedition. I’m going with Clark Fyans, Chris Davenport, and Nick DeVore. We’re just going up there to ski. Then after that, I go at the end of July to New Zealand, and then straight from New Zealand to Argentina, trying to finish up the Levitation Project’s ski and snowboard movie.

Not too shabby, eh?

It’s been over a decade now in the mountains of Utah and WAY beyond that Adam has dropped jaws by visually documenting mad expression throgh movement. He has the true Endless Winter traveling the world and skiing some of the most inspiring terrain anywhere. Thanks Adam for giving the subscribers of the AltaCam podcast series a glimpse into your passion for life.

Read the full MP3 interview or digg this story.

The title of this post was a recent subject line in an email to my wife Danette. I was emailing her more details of a rant I’d started yelling across several rooms of the house this morning.

It’s about moving back (for me) to the Ithaca area. Not that we’d never, ever neglect the powder. We’d be back Rob Rowley style for months at a time. Baby Ellie needs to learn to turn Alta style. At any rate, enjoy…

On moving back to central NY..

Can’t trust the machine. Rotten food consumed by helpless babies with families that can’t afford to pay for anymore than the big grocery store brands. Time to farm it up. Be sustainable. Don’t rely on semi-trailers hauling rotten spinach and meat 2000 miles to make you sick, or die.

We’re going to farm it up and big time. Here is a preliminary 3-year plan. This outlines our migration to the heartland of my youth. A place with forests and lakes.

Year 1:

• Potatoes & tomatoes galore to get the soil conditioned
• Install coup and bring 12 Hens on board, with one Rooster
• Prune legacy fruit trees and berry bushes
• Get annual herb garden in the ground
• Dig root cellar for Potato stock
• Fence in 1-3 acres for livestock
• Establish relationship with local food co-op
• Register booths at ALL market’s within two hour drive
  

Year 2:

• Purchase rootsy flat bed truck for market trips
• Embrace more heirloom varieties in garden
• Bring sheeps and goats on board in fenced acreage
• Expand free range chicken farm for co-op
• Build outdoor clay oven
• Sing to fruit trees and berry bushes with Ellie
• Harvest first season of sheepwool and goat milk
  

Year 3:

• All of the above, plus add annual summer trip to Alaska, where I’ll return with 65 lbs of smoked and frozen wild Salmon
  

ETC.

I’m back. What the heck just happened? Not sure but it was kind of like anything I get in the weeds with. The more I get behind, the harder it is to catch up. Well I’m still here and Ski Bum Poet is still alive. Just a leave of absence is all…

The single best thing that’s happened to me (aside from my wedding day) in my life happened on August 16, 2007. This is when our daughter Ellie (Ellen Opal Marcoccia) was born at 2pm! Life was instantly different the moment I held her in my arms. Danette was an absolute trooper…nearly a 24 hour labor with a flawless delivery. I know.. I know… The news is late to the blog but I’ve been scramblin’ since, what with sleep deprivation & busiest time of the year at AvantLink and all.

Ellie is just over 6 weeks old already. She’s starting to coooo and smile and I get a kick out of every mood and expression she has. Here is a photo of her at one month old workin’ out. This little squirt rolled from belly to back at two weeks!!

So, it’s on once again with nearly a two month hiatus from my rants. Just in time considering another season of Pow is upon us in Utah. (It’s actually white outside right now with about 3 inches of snow. Awesome contrast to the yellow Aspen tree leaves!) Sorry Google for the blank days! Afterall, the big G is probably the only entity reading this thing. Haha!

I did hear of the Michael Vick Dog Fighting and Cruelty news story when it first broke out…whenever that was. I think like two weeks ago. I thought it was pretty shady and lame this day in age, to get your kicks from not only watching dogs kill one another, but also doing the killing yourself when your dog doesn’t make you money. Gosh what kind of people do that?

I don’t know what the status is of this case. Frankly, I don’t even really know who Michael Vick is. Not the biggest NFL fan here. But I do know that I got a kick out of VickDogChewToy.com…a thrown together site selling dog chew toys that resemble tough guy Mike. Hahaha. I may have to grab some of these to keep around as xmas gifts, etc. for friends that were just as disgusted as I was over this story.

You can buy the official Michael Vick Dog Chew Toy online for $7.00. (I don’t get a cent for that referral, BTW.) Let your dog chew on Michael Vick…

read more | digg story

Thought I would take the time to advance some awareness on an unfortunate situation in York, PA. (Lincoln Highway in Hallam) This stems from a letter to the editor my sister wrote to the York Blog.. an online publication of the York Daily Record/Sunday News. My sister is fighting the inhumane captivity of black bears so I am hoping to raise awareness of the situation. It’s really a shame that this type of captivity is allowed to continue. The stance taken by some (it’s apparent already from one of the comments on the blog post) is that the bears were orphaned and therefore the ice cream store owner is actually doing a good thing. Bah to that! What a joke. How about a humane cage with water and maybe a little grass and some trees. These bears should be removed from the ice cream shop and put in a real zoo..or a refuge. Here’s a snipet from the letter to the editor:

“Their living quarters consist of chain-link walls, a cement floor, and a rickety shelter that seems far too small. Their daily lives consist of lying in the sweltering summer heat of Southern PA, being on display for the public 24/7, having $0.25 handfuls of food pellets thrown at them occasionally, (despite other objects) and yes, a little, pink, rubber ball to play with to entertain the kids…”

Does this concrete floor and cage (pics below) resemble the American Black Bear Habitat? What a shame..

Read the Full Letter | digg story

Many reading this blog probably know where Cecret Lake is in Little Cottonwood Canyon. At least you’d know if you spent any time in Alta during the summer months. Well I found another Cecret Lake…and it’s inspired a renaissance in the passion of fishing I had growing up in central New York (Finger Lakes Region). When I was young I could leave my house on my BMX bike and within a few miles in every direction, have at large and small mouth bass, walleye, bullheads/catfish, and all sorts of pan fish. During the spring and fall rainbow trout runs, we’d retire the spinning reels and rods and grab the fly rods. Those rainbows were pretty easy to pull off their beds…and when you add up a strong current and 3-4 lb trout…DANG that was a fun fight.

At any rate, at my Cecret Lake in the Uintas I recently caught an amazing cut throat using a wolly worm tied to a size 8 hook on the only pole I own right now. It’s a 6 foot Ugly Stik by Shakespeare. I could barely get a 10′ cast with the fly, but that’s all I needed for this pristine inlet about 15 feet wide. I could see these big brown blobs just hanging out at the end of the current from the inlet. Didn’t take more than 5 minutes to hook one. It was the BIGGEST cut throat native…yes, it was native…that I had ever seen…22 inches. Let alone catch!! I took this female home. My pregnant wife wanted fresh mountain run off native trout, so I gave it to her. I won’t be taking many from my Cecret Lake, but I am sure hooking them at will in the evening hours. Want to know where my Cecret Lake is in the Uintas? So do 50 thousand other anglers in Utah. Sorry kids