Week In Review May 19: Twitter War and Aiguille du Midi Cable Car Fire

Week In Review May 19: Twitter War and Aiguille du Midi Cable Car Fire

published: May 19, 2013

Go Vote for Ingrid

You’re up against Leticia Bufoni, a skateboarder. Those guys have their own video games and shit. How do you hope to win this thing—pray the audience mistakes you for a snowboarder? I hope to stay in this thing just purely from the heart and soul of all the skiers out there. Leticia is amazing, but the outpouring of support from skiers has been incredible, so hopefully that counts for something. And if anyone happens to mistake me for someone much cooler, that's fine too.

published: May 17, 2013

Learn the Ropes and Live to Ski

With the four-day camp costing $995, Augustine says it was out of his budget. But it seemed to reflect his goals as a skier: A field-intensive course that would include instruction on how to handle big objectives in the high alpine, including skills for being on rope, belay, crampons, dynamic snow and weather conditions, and dealing with exposure. Wanting to achieve that next level, he applied for the scholarship. Four months later, Exum told him he’d won.

published: May 17, 2013

A Climate Change Call To Arms

This past April, 1,200 ski resort executives and representatives from lodges, hotels, and ski clubs from around the world converged in Snowmass Village, Colorado for the annual Mountain Travel Symposium. The summit’s goal is to advance the larger mountain travel industry, with talks and panels discussing every aspect of the travel business, from marketing to sales strategies and operations. Among the guests invited to bring some outside perspective to the summit was Erik Blachford, a venture capitalist who learned to ski on the slopes of Quebec’s Mount Avila and who has since become CEO of Expedia, Butterfield & Robinson travel, and TerraPass, a carbon offset company, while investing in a milieu of tech and travel companies and serving on the boards of companies as well as nonprofits like ecoAmerica.

published: May 16, 2013

The Jaded Local Reviews Greg Stump’s Legend of Aahhh’s

Greg Stump came to Mammoth last week to show his new film. I didn't really know what to expect—it seemed like it's been years since the first announcements about the project, and I'd heard no shortage of conflicting rumors about Stump himself. So I grabbed a ski bro and we went to the show.

published: May 15, 2013

West Coast Session 7

Last week a group of 60 skiers, filmers, and photographers gathered at Mount Hood, Oregon for a week of skiing at the seventh annual West Coast Session. The Session, hosted each spring at Timberline Ski Area and Windell’s Camp, is one part terrain-park training camp and one part end-of-the-season celebration, with a friendly team video contest tossed in for good measure. For some attendees, it’s a chance to relax and hang out with friends after a long winter of filming missions, photo-shoots and, competitive circuits. For others, it’s a chance for a big break—this might be the most exposure they get all season. Above all, everyone is here to have a blast enjoying the prime-time late-spring conditions on Mount Hood, and it’s this mentality that has built a small but tight-knit community of skiers that return every year for the event.

published: May 14, 2013