I’m not sure of the origins of the quote, “It’s always snowing somewhere”, but I know it’s not snowing in Utah (currently 94 degrees and sunny). So what the hell are we doing here? With the coaxing of Andy Jacobsen and Jay Beyer, Jonah and I decided Powderwhore should finally visit the Southern Hemisphere (I won the coin toss). We fly into Ushuaia, Argentina, which I had never heard of until 3 weeks ago. There is a sweet trip report from some folks that were there in July, here. The crew- Andy Jacobsen (primary skier, secondary camera, all around good time) Jay Beyer (trip captain, still photography, motivational speaker “it’s time to crush”)Dan Grolley (skier, skier, skier, lucky bastard)Noah Howell (primary camera, secondary skier, blogger, key grip) Dede O’Mara (primary skier, token female, babysitter) The next best thing to being on an adventure is packing for one. I love gear, the history it holds and the potential it provides. However, I’ve been on enough big trips that I’ve been baptized into the “light is right” religion (I sin grievously in the ski department). The gear. 
Our plans are loose, but we expect to do multiple overnight trips with possible glacier travel. Black Diamond is sending us down with some “Justice” prototype’s to swoosh around on (sexy red skis). They are a slight step down in size from the Megawatt’s (my fav of all time) and have a similar rockered tip design. Jacobsen and I have different versions to ski and report on. Can’t wait!The camera kit. 
We are bringing the 2 HD camera’s and Andy J has a backup for helmet cam. It’s tough to get several days of shooting out of the standard camera batteries. So, we are bringing 4 expedition Li-ion batteries that work to -40 below for 10 hours of recording time. I’ve used these on Denali, Baffin Island and the Chugach with great success. I might as well give them a plug, it’s Automated Media Systems. Not cheap, but a sound power source, much more so than solar in my experience. The clothing. 
Major love from Mountain Hardwear in the outerwear dept. Thanks guys! The new pants from Flylow are sweet as well. Dan has wanted me in his pants for a long time. I hope it was worth the wait. A few more things to pack and arrange and we’ll be off. I’ll try and post from the field, but hopefully we’ll be far from phones, computers and all that junk. Be well,NH
Monthly Archive for August, 2008
Hallelujah would be my word of choice to describe how it feels to finally finish up with “The Pact”. Each year the editing and post production process gets easier and more steam lined, which is great. However, “The Pact” is packed with several short “stories” that require much more time and attention than the standard “ski porn” segments of just music and hot ski action, but there’s still plenty of that. It’s always a labored birth to put these flicks out, but we are proud parents once again.V for victory! The endless hours of punching keys at the magic screens is over, for now. 
Jonah carefully handling the 500gig external drive that contains “The Pact” 
The next step is to make the hand off to Norman Bosworth at BCI Video. Norman is a seasoned pro in the video production world and he’s got all the skills and software to polish up our projects and make them pretty. I found Norm in the yellow pages when I was working on PW05 and he’s been helping us out ever since. We are a bit of a charity case for Norman, he cuts a a great deal on his services because he’s really psyched on what we capture and he wants it look as good as it can. Norman will work on color correcting, audio mastering, fine tuning the transitions, and authoring the DVD. This is usually a week long process. The movie length is 55 minutes. We worked with footage from almost 50 1 hour tapes shot from last winter. One hour of footage takes up aprox 13 gigs. The drive in Jonah’s hands is a 500gig drive that contains roughly 26 hours of footage. The Soundtrack consists of 25 piece’s of music from 20 artists. Our music was sifted through from over 130 CD’s sent to us from independent artists. More info on the progress of “The Pact” to come.
Hallelujah would be my word of choice to describe how it feels to finally finish up with “The Pact”. Each year the editing and post production process gets easier and more steam lined, which is great. However, “The Pact” is packed with several short “stories” that require much more time and attention than the standard “ski porn” segments of just music and hot ski action, but there’s still plenty of that. It’s always a labored birth to put these flicks out, but we are proud parents once again.V for victory! The endless hours of punching keys at the magic screens is over, for now. Jonah carefully handling the 500gig external drive that contains “The Pact” The next step is to make the hand off to Norman Bosworth at BCI Video. Norman is a seasoned pro in the video production world and he’s got all the skills and software to polish up our projects and make them pretty. I found Norm in the yellow pages when I was working on PW05 and he’s been helping us out ever since. We are a bit of a charity case for Norman, he cuts a a great deal on his services because he’s really psyched on what we capture and he wants it look as good as it can. Norman will work on color correcting, audio mastering, fine tuning the transitions, and authoring the DVD. This is usually a week long process. The movie length is 55 minutes. We worked with footage from almost 50 1 hour tapes shot from last winter. One hour of footage takes up aprox 13 gigs. The drive in Jonah’s hands is a 500gig drive that contains roughly 26 hours of footage. The Soundtrack consists of 25 piece’s of music from 20 artists. Our music was sifted through from over 130 CD’s sent to us from independent artists. More info on the progress of “The Pact” to come.
Hallelujah would be my word of choice to describe how it feels to finally finish up with “The Pact”. Each year the editing and post production process gets easier and more steam lined, which is great. However, “The Pact” is packed with several short “stories” that require much more time and attention than the standard “ski porn” segments of just music and hot ski action, but there’s still plenty of that. It’s always a labored birth to put these flicks out, but we are proud parents once again.V for victory! The endless hours of punching keys at the magic screens is over, for now. Jonah carefully handling the 500gig external drive that contains “The Pact” The next step is to make the hand off to Norman Bosworth at BCI Video. Norman is a seasoned pro in the video production world and he’s got all the skills and software to polish up our projects and make them pretty. I found Norm in the yellow pages when I was working on PW05 and he’s been helping us out ever since. We are a bit of a charity case for Norman, he cuts a a great deal on his services because he’s really psyched on what we capture and he wants it look as good as it can. Norman will work on color correcting, audio mastering, fine tuning the transitions, and authoring the DVD. This is usually a week long process. The movie length is 55 minutes. We worked with footage from almost 50 1 hour tapes shot from last winter. One hour of footage takes up aprox 13 gigs. The drive in Jonah’s hands is a 500gig drive that contains roughly 26 hours of footage. The Soundtrack consists of 25 piece’s of music from 20 artists. Our music was sifted through from over 130 CD’s sent to us from independent artists. More info on the progress of “The Pact” to come.
This is a Wolverine:
This is the definition of a cirque: a deep steep-walled basin on a mountain usually forming the blunt end of a valley.
This is Wolverine Cirque:
If you’re not familiar with Wolverine Cirque, well actually I don’t believe that’s a possibility. If you’ve seen a ski film or read a ski mag then you’ve seen it, you just might not know it.This is the most filmed, photographed and skied little piece of side country in the Wasatch Mountains. It’s a beautiful playground of short, but steep terrain that sees huge amounts of snowfall and skiers due to it’s quick access from both Brighton and Alta.
A few years ago I got a last minute invitation to join in on an expedition to Alaska for an attempt to climb and ski Denali. In need of some steep ski practice and aerobic conditioning, the Wolverine Project seemed like a good training day. The idea was to climb and ski all 16 chutes. There are more than 16 lines and numerous variations, but I based the project off the 16 named chutes from“The Chuting Gallery”.
Parking in upper Little Cottonwood Canyon, I started climbing at 6:45am. The plan was to start onPatsy Marley atthe northwest end and work counterclockwise. I started with “The Huge Chute” at 8:00am. Conditions were a skiff on stiff, not that fun, but it held an edge. The boot pack was already set up “Granny’s”, so I used that as the stairway for the first 10 shots. Next up was “Tips and Tails” which didn’t live up to its name, it was very filled in with plenty of room for turning.I passed on “Bombay” chute due toa 10ft overhanging cornice. In it’s place, I skied the ?? chute, which doesn’t appear to have a name in “The Chuting Gallery”. Most of these East facing chutes had some avalanche debris of sorts, the chatter chunks kept me on my toes. “Granny’s” starts to wrap to a Northerly aspect and the skiing improved. Cloud cover kept the temps of the myself and the snow cool. I descended “Graceland” next, which was the best snow of the day, the ribs and ridges allowed me to avoid debris. The steepest line named “Roman’s” was next, it had a super steep entry and it made me wish I brought my whippets. The edges held and the spiciest dish was out of the way. That was #6 for the day, which I finished up at 9:30. “Zoot Chute” is another northern slope that had a sporty entry with exposure and good turns once in the gut. The halfway point came with #8 “Bronco Couloir”. All the remaining chutes were virgin territory for myself. I knocked off “Big Bang and Pressure Drop” in terrible frozen debris. Forquicker access to the remaining east facing chutes,I traversed across and put in a new boot pack up “Slipstream”. The top of Mount Wolverinemarks the entry for “The Scythe”, one of the longer and better lines of the outing. However, I bonked hard on the way down and for the first time of the day I had doubts that I would finish all that I had piled on the plate. As I made my way down #12 “Scratch and Sniff”, the sun finally broke through and helped soften the turning conditions. Another 514 steps (yes i counted, several times, it’s a bad habit of mine when I’m tired) put me on top of “Slipstream”, which I skied directly down and refueled from the cash I had left earlier in the day. A second wind luckily blew through and I busted out the last three chutes “Ragtime”, “Newt Chute”, and “Sushi Chute” in an hour, all of them had soft turning snow with some rollerballs. Traversing back around it was fun to look at all that had been skied during the 6-hour project and I felt like I knew the cirqueintimately.I rested briefly and booted up “Granny’s” one last time in hopes of getting the west side of Patsy Marley in OK snow . I know I didn’t have my skins on, but it sure felt like it as I skied down in the sticky and grabby snow, just what my quads wanted. Sitting down at the car felt really really good. Another wonderful day in the Wastach Mountains, check.
Stats-
7 Hours 56 Minutes
8,890ft up
8,890ft down