…And I quote:
“Ski Rant: I know more than you do!”
And:
“Current conditions at a closed Utah resort. Support ski areas that are run by skiers, not by real estate developers!” Posted April 20th, 2008…
An old friend (Kendall) who is the man behind the Ski Utah Blog added links recently for both Ski Bum Poet and the Alta Ski Forum at AltaCam. I guess I’ll have to make sure and keep better ski logs here next season! Whether or not we make the move to the Finger Lakes, I’m hoping to still have a pass at Alta, so that shouldn’t be too difficult. Maybe I can even rant from other places as well…considering that after ten years and 1000 days of skiing in the Wasatch, I’ve skied in the west only a handful of times outside of Utah. Mike Doyle, here we come!
Thanks for the link(s) Kendall…!
Last ski season I had the opportunity to meet Mike Doyle (Skiing Editor from About.com) and his daughter Katie. We spent the day at Alta skiing around the entire area. I had a good time showing them a place that’s very close to my heart. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Mike recently, and I’m not even sure if they made it out west to ski this year…but I just received the following news that he’s won a prestigious Internet writing award! Way to go Mike!! Here’s the news:
The North American Snowsports Journalists Association (NASJA) honored three notable persons who have made significant contributions to winter sports endeavors and also bestowed their top awards in the field of snow sports writing and photography for 2007. The awards, this year presented at the Mt. Washington Hotel in BrettonWoods, New Hampshire, were revealed at a banquet on March 29, 2008 that was climax of the organization’s annual meeting.
The Carson White-Golden Quill Award, named after the group’s first president, honors an individual who has made a significant contribution to snow sports in North America. For 2008, the honor went to long-time SnowSports Industries America (SIA) president David Ingemie. Starting out as a marketing director in 1976 for SIA, he took over as president in 1981 and remains so to this day. This native New Englander guides the non-profit winter sports trade association from its McLean, Virginia headquarters.
NASJA’s 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring a lifetime of snowsports-related innovation, competition, design and other endeavors, was presented to Cecile Ryden Johnson, a well-known watercolor artist who created lasting works of winter scenery, sports and imagery from countless resorts and mountainsides. This nonagenarian, whose work has appeared in Skiing Magazine and in many television specials, is still active in the art world from her Washington D.C. home.
Bonnie MacPherson, the media relations director at Vermont’s Okemo Resort, is the recipient of the 2008 Bob Gillen Memorial Award. This award, named in honor of a former Ski Magazine editor and marketing wizard of Crested Butte and Sugarbush ski resorts, honors an individual who exemplifies the highest standards of professionalism in public relations and media communications. Ms. MacPherson came to Okemo via stints at the Mt. Washington Hotel, and Loon Mountain and Cranmore resorts.
The Harold S. Hirsch Awards, named after the ski clothing pioneer-creator of the White Stag Company, honors the best writers in the snowsports journalism fields of magazines, newspapers, columns and internet and for winter sports photography. The awards were underwritten by prize grants from the Head Ski Corp. and Sport Obermeyer, the ski gear manufacturers.
In Magazine Writing, Chris Solomon of Seattle, freelance writing for Ski, Skiing and the New York Times Magazines, captured the Hirsch trophy and some Head skis for his 2007 stories. He was a double winner at last year’s awards.
Claudia Carbone of Denver, Colorado, a former president of NASJA and Hirsch winner, took home the Columns honors for 2007 with pieces on Colorado destinations such as Wolf Creek, Keystone and Loveland.
Tops in Newspaper Writing for 2007 was freelancer Hilary Nangle, from Waldoboro, in the Great State of Maine, writing for the Boston Globe about her state’s ski destinations and equipment innovation. She is also a previous Hirsch recipient.
Internet Writing honors for 2007 went to About.com’s Skiing Guide Mike Doyle, from Stillwater, New York. Doyle, who is a first-time recipient, made the jump into cyberspace from stints as the IBEW union’s press secretary and traditional print media.
In the category of Snowsports Photography, Karl Weatherly of Ketchum, Idaho took top honors with attributes the judges describe as “the best sense of light and composition, excellent action, shot by someone with obvious expert skiing skills.” Karl’s photos appear on the Getty Images and Corbis websites and in winter sports magazines.
About NASJA
The North American Snowsports Journalists Association, founded in San Francisco, California in 1963, is the largest organization of its type in the world. Please visit our website at www.nasja.org for more information.
By the way if you’re interested, check out the piece Mike wrote on our day at Alta last year:
Skiing Alta and Snowbird on the Same Day?
And here is Mike’s Blog:
Just another killer MP3 in the AltaCam Podcast series for the 2007-08 ski season. AltaCam is releasing these interviews every two weeks all season, and then the out takes during the summer months o 2008! JB is fine tuning his interview skills with each new release. From old time legends to the most popular skiers in the industry right now, Johnny knows how to get the info you want to hear/read!
From the digg submission: “Another AltaCam exclusive MP3 interview and transcript. This time Johnny B interviews Sage at his home at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch mountains of Utah. Read about Sage’s journey from Alta, Wyoming to the Alta Peruvian Lodge dish pit in Alta, Utah to international ski fame!”
Here’s a quote from the directly from the interview transcript itself:
Sage: Well I grew up at Targhee. I was on the ski team right away. I went to school and our school had a program that brought us skiing once a week. And so that was the original.
When I first started going out on skis, my mom took me out and the school is taking me out. And then I was on the ski team by 5th grade or so. And so the coach at the ski team really taught me the fundamentals of skiing. But Targhee wasn’t a really good race hill because we get so much pow similar to Alta, Utah and Alta, Wyoming. It’s same thing. Gets dumped on a lot.
After a while, after learning the fundamentals of skiing, it was really fun to get racing. It was like am I really going to slip this four inches of powder off the soft groomer so that I can race gaits or am I going to go ski around. My favorite memory is just once I started. I had that knowledge of ski fundamentals. And then it was just cruising around, skiing powder, jumping off stuff. And there was lots of good stuff to jump off at Targhee.
Read/listen to the full MP3 interview or digg this story. There is also a thread started on this interview in the Alta Ski Forum: Sage Cattabriga-Alosa Interview & Podcast.
The 3rd in many this winter, this AltaCam exclusive is one you should definitely check out. Talk about some inspirational stories and classic times! Johnny B does a great job talkin’ life and powder skiing in Little Cottonwood Canyon with Alan Engen. Can you imagine charging untracked powder all day in the 50s and 60s when you were 16 years old? If that’s not enough to imagine, now think about following around Alf, Sverre and Corey Engen all day. Like I said, a classic interview that will go down in the legends of archived Alta Skiing web content.
Here’s a snippet from the interview transcript…
Alan Engen: You can see when the three of them would go out and ski powder, Sverre and Alf were always…they were skiing fools in the powder. Corey was struggling a little bit until it got all hard-packed and then Corey was just phenomenal in what he could do too. He was an Olympian and everything else.
Read/listen to the full MP3 interview or digg this story. There is also a thread started on this interview in the Alta Ski Forum: Alan Engen Interview & Podcast
A timeless photos from the Alan Engen Ski History Collection (Photo of Alf & Alan Engen making a double jump in front of the Alta Lodge. Photo circa January, 1949. Alan was 8 years old at the time)
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
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!
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 
I was chatting with my friend Brian today and we got to talkin’ about snow in the Wasatch, or a lack thereof as it stands now. I couldn’t help recall Thanksgiving of 2001 in LCC. Conditions were a lot like they are now. Grim. Then suddenly, instant powder. Enjoy…
Sunday, November 25, 2001
Sky Cover: Snowing Heavily
High Temp: 12 o
Winds: Moderate - NW
Expected Snowfall: 10-14 “
Today’s Report:
Skiers, this is what we all dream of and what makes Alta famous. What’s going on here right now only happens in Little Cottonwood Canyon. It was only last week that we were closed because we didn’t have enough snow. And now, we’re closed because we have too much snow. The storm we’re in right now is doing very good things to Alta. Once we have a chance to dig out a little bit, we’ll be able to come up with a solid opening time. At this point, we’re confident that our opening will be this week and we’ll make a specific announcement in this report and on alta.com tomorrow afternoon.
Since Thanksgiving, 82″ of snow has fallen on Alta. Today alone, the road has been closed, we’ve been interlodged all day and we’ve watched as 18″ of new snow has blanketed the area. And now, the National Weather Service is telling us that a lake effect band has set up and is pointed directly towards the Cottonwood Canyons.
Please be advised that at this time, the road into Little Cottonwood Canyon is temporarily closed for avalanche control work. UDOT tells us that the restriction is expected to last through the night. The town of Alta is also in Interlodge and is also expected to last through the night.
Right now in the town of Alta, it continues to snow hard, we have moderate winds out of the NW and about 20 degrees. In the last 24hrs., we’ve received 31″ bringing our total since October 1st to 111″. Settled snow depth at mid-mountain now stands at 76″.
Our forecast for the next few days looks pretty impressive. As the lake effect kicks in, we could see as much as 10-14″ tonight and another 7-10″ or more tomorrow. With the snow, we should see wind speeds in the moderate range with a low temperature tonight around 10 and high tomorrow near 15. The forecast for Tuesday through Saturday calls for cloudy skies with a chance for snow each day.
The above is a snow report I saved from Alta.com, Thanksgiving week 2001.
Thursday, November 15th was the scheduled opening day 2007 at Alta…but it ain’t happenin. October came in strong and hard (in fact I skied Gunsight to lower Greely Oct 21st, my Mother’s Birthday…and it was deep and fluffy), but we’ve been shut out practically this month so far. It’s how it goes in the Wasatch. But at anytime we can have 100 inches in 100 hours once again.
Discussion on AltaCam about opening day: Alta not Opening on Nov.15
Here’s the note on the Alta.com homepage:
“Our optimism for a November 15th opening hasn’t been supported by Mother Nature. Our first storm in 2 weeks gave us 5 inches of snow and cooler temperatures so we can now make snow at night. Pray for another storm or two. We’ll open as soon as conditions allow. Keep checking alta.com for updates.”
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