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Possible Lift Expansion in Silver Fork

Published
by
noahhowell
on December 8, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

A few weeks ago news came out that Solitude is seeking to expand into Silver Fork. See details here.

I don’t claim to know the answers to the question of growth and expansion. The idea that I do have a voice that might be heard on the issue is nice, whether it’s true or not. My guess is it will make no difference, but it felt good to do something so I wrote a letter and sent an email (see below).

Here is the contact info for the Forest Service District Ranger and Supervisor if you wish to voice your opinion whether it’s for or against.

Cathy Kahlow District Ranger 
Uinta/Wasatch-Cache National Forest
Salt Lake Ranger District
6944 S 3000E
Salt Lake City Utah 84121
EMAIL= ckahlow@fs.fed.us

Brian Ferebee Forest Supervisor-bferebee@fs.fed.us
Uinta/Wasatch-Cache National Forest
Federal Building
125S State Street
Salt Lake City Utah 84138
EMAIL=bferebee@fs.fed.us

I’m writing in regards to the proposed Solitude lift expansion in the Silver Fork drainage. This is a great area to ski in and I’ve been enjoying it for 10 years or so as a backcountry skier. I also ski inbounds at Solitude several times a year. 

I’m not sure how the process works, but it’s my understanding that these are public lands which will be allocated for different uses by the USFS in a way that, as your slogan states “cares for the LAND and serves the PEOPLE.”

There is a huge billboard advertising Solitude at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon that says: KROUDS (we don’t even know how to spell the word). And this has been my experience with skiing at Solitude, there are no crowds of PEOPLE except for the Christmas and President’s Day holidays. There is no cry from the skiing public, the PEOPLE, to expand into Silver Fork that I am aware of. Where then is the motivation for this expansion coming from? If the lift lines were long and the slopes overcrowded it would seem worth considering, but this is not the case.

I’m just a skier who enjoys the many options, lift served and backcountry, that do exist in a fine balance in this tiny mountain range.  There is within me a huge concern with the fact that a few more lifts here and there will drastically change the ’solitude’ that exists away from the lifts and the areas they serve. My vote, as one of the PEOPLE, if I have one, would be not to add a lift in Silver Fork. 

Please let me know if there will be any public hearings I can attend, or what process I can be involved in with this important decision. 

Thank you for your time, 

Noah Howell

So it begins!

Published
by
noahhowell
on December 3, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Training days at Alta. 

X-Country into Yellowstone

Published
by
noahhowell
on November 30, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 9 Comments

Not much to ski here in the Wasatch at the moment. However, I wanted to get out for an adventure. There’s a little window where vehicles and snowmobiles are not allowed in Yellowstone National Park. I thought it would be a fun time to ski into Old Faithful on the snow covered roads for some exercise and to film some scenery and wildlife.

I arrived late and headed into the park via West Yellowstone. 

I found out that despite the road being closed to the public they were still plowing if for service vehicles, rangers, construction etc.

There was enough snow on the road or on the sides to put my rental gear to use (thanks to Kirkhams Outdoor Products in SLC).

Darkness came after only 5 miles or so. I spooked some large mammals on the road! 

Yes, I was a little spooked as well, but felt fine continuing. That was until the point where I heard a large pack of wolves having some sort of wild rumpus and they were in the direction of my travel. I set up camp next to the river.

It was cold, Yellowstone cold! And the wolves kept howling wildly every half hour or so making for a really restless night. I had borrowed a friends Glock 9mm which provided me with a nice false sense of security.

The sunrise in this place was what I had dreamt it might be.

I was behind scheduled miles, but I traveled slowly and filmed hoar frost melting on grass, steam off the river and the locals.

In talking with a park ranger I found out the road to Old Faithful was closed. The road north to Mammoth was pretty melted out and so my plans were changed. 

Made it into the Madison Junction by mid day and just spent the afternoon melting in the hot springs.

Not a bad spot to watch the sunset.

That night was really clear and very cold. Since I was at a dead end I decided to head back out the next morning.

14 miles back to the car.

Short but sweet trip and I was able to gather some good beta on returning next year for a longer period of time, hopefully with better conditions for traveling. 

I shot some vid and I’ll try to put it together for the web this week. 

The price you pay for brand new rental boots that haven’t been broken in.

More Tour

Published
by
noahhowell
on November 26, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Ok, so we left off in Leadville and headed to Asssssspen from there. This is home to Chris Erickson, Jake Sakson, Will Cardamone and Nick Devore. Everybody was in town except Nick who was off at school in AZ. All the guys had waited to watch the show on the big screen at Belly Up. 

It was fun to see their reactions and hear the home town crowd of 170 cheering for their local boyz. 

The CAIC raffle was stacked, including a pair of BD Zealots. They raised $$ to keep current avalanche information rolling in from the mountains.

We always seem to end up at Little Annie’s when we go to Aspen, must be the cheep beers and shots. Chris Erickson, Will Cardamone and the brothers Howell.

No you are not mistaken, those are ketchup/mustard shots.

Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?

Goes down smooooooth…….

Sorry guys I had to post those pics, too funny to hide in the vault.

We had a nice little show in Glenwood Springs the next evening at the local rec center. I forgot to shoot any snapshots of the event, but picture 60 people drinking free Big Sky Beer and watching the show. 

We headed over Kebler Pass into Crested Butte in front of a storm and spent the next day enjoying the town and the snowfall.

Hit up the coffee shops.

And the library.

Then it was showtime at The Pub. Great building, bar and staff, thanks for having us.

The legendary MacMillan Brothers and local ripper Sydney Fuller brought their friends out for the evenings festivities. Not a bad turnout despite a negative ad campaign from the local theatre.

We headed out of town riding a similar storm to the one that brought us in. 

Next stop was a visit with our sister and family in Albaquerque New Mex! 

It was a nice break from life on the road even though we pulled some muscles playing Wii. Swayze days!

Here is Hannah modeling the latest PW fashions. I guess your famous now you sweet cup of chocolate milk you. 

After a day off we shot North to Santa Fe for our first visit with official PW tour. The local shop did a great job of spreading the word.

And an even better job at popping the free beers donated by, yes you guessed it, Big Sky Brewery. We played FLAKES across the street at the funky little Jean Cocteau theatre. New towns are always a surprise, so it was nice when 80 extremely excited folks came away highly stoked for winter. 

Turning North en route to our home in SLC, we stopped into another new town for our final show on the road. Pine Needle Mountaineering in Durango stepped up to offer their sweet shop as a venue.

We turned this….

Into this….

There is Nick Devore on the big screen, he also made an appearance in the flesh. Big thanks to Luke for spreading the word and rallying the local tele crew. 

Jonah came down with his annual road illness, so we booked it home asap.

Safe and sound, but tired and well worn from the road we pulled into SLC mid day and uneventfully celebrated the end of another great movie tour with a high 5. 

Thank you to everyone who helped make this the most successful and well attended tour to date!! 

I could go a long time without seeing this movie again, but we do have one final show in our backyard on Dec 4th at Harry O’s in Park City. This will be a fun show with  most of the “FLAKES” in attendance. Tickets are $10, show starts at 8pm with doors at 7pm and two reggae bands to follow. 

Be well,

NH

On Tour with Flakes in Colorado (part 1)

Published
by
noahhowell
on November 18, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

Wow! Just arrived home from 2 weeks on the road and it’s nice to be back in SLC.

Behold a photographical recap of our shows ranging from huge blowouts to total busts and everything in between. Yes, this is going to be a long one. 

Started off with a bang in FT Collins at the New Belgium Brewery. This show has grown steadily each year and 200 folks came to see the movie, or was it the 2 free beers, or was it to support theDiamond Peaks Ski Patrol? Over $1,700 was raised to keep the only backcountry ski patrol in the U.S. operating. 

Here I am welcoming and warning the crowd that, yes some of the snowflakes were harmed in the making of this film.

This has become a fun pre-season and pray for snow event for us and the community of Ft Collins. Thanks to Shawn and Lucas for helping put this together.

Nest stop, Boulder, and home of THE Megan Michelson.

We moved to a nice new venue this year saying farewell to the Dark Horse. Great call!! The warehouse at Avery Brewery housed a mad throng of 260!!

 

Flylow Dan and I with our best mannequin impressions.

Considering a new larger venue for next year, but a warehouse full of beer is tough to beat. We’re thinking we can get a bigger screen and more chairs so we can keep it here.

Boulder is home to some of our sponsors like Zeal Optics, Scarpa and BCA. We swung by to pick up some new lenses and swag for the raffles, thanks guys. 

Shan Sethna is pretty much single handedly responsible for our mega-event in Denver at the Oriental Theatre. Can you find Lemon Boy? He’s much nicer in person than on the interweb.

We blew the doors off it this year with 650 folks cramming the theatre to set a record as the single largest event this venue has ever housed. Friends of Berthoud Pass raised over 3K thanks to everybody throwing down for raffle and silent auction items. 

What a night, but it wasn’t over yet. Jonah and Megan empty their glasses and cheers to the upcoming season. 

Not sure what Wren and I were up to here.

Or here…..

made sense at the time….

What happens on tour, doesn’t stay on tour, it gets blogged. Wren and Megan were onto something here. Sorry for posting this gals, but it’s too funny not to. 

The next night was a great show at the new location for Wilderness Exchange near downtown Denver. I blew it and forgot the camera, but the place was packed 150 deep and we had to turn folks away. Great looking shop with the latest gear and a consignment area downstairs.

Up the I-70 corridor we went to the newly liberated town of Breckenridge for a show at 320 South.

Dan hit the road with us to display and promote the new line of gear from Flylow. Nice display! Dan has become a good friend of ours over the past few years, it’s fun to hang out and talk about the ski industry and our little start up companies.

 

With the recent legalization of marijuana in Breck, we could only speculate that folks just plain forgot to come to the show. However, a good time was had by those in attendance and almost everybody won gear from the raffle. 

Days in between shows often end up at coffee shops using the internet to take care of business. Not sure what Dan is measuring here, but you can bet whatever he does will be swayze like the rest of the Flylow line. 

The show must go on, next stop, Avon. We’ve had large shows (over 100) in the Avon/Vail/Edwards area over the past years, but only 10 folks showed up for the flick.

I attempted to draw in a crowd with my pole dancing skills. Nobody was impressed.

 Jake Sakson drove down from Aspen in his new ambulance which he is going to convert to Bio-diesel and live out of for he winter. Now that is the ski bum spirit! 

The police swung by to see what was going on. 

Jake had everything in order and there wasn’t any trouble. But later we got to see a guy step out of line and get tasered. I was going to take some pics, but it didn’t seem right. Interesting night all in all. 

First trip to Leadville was not a disappointment. The Scarlet Tavern was incredibly hospitable to the 90 or so guests who came out to shake the snow globe and see if it wouldn’t snow.  

We ran on two screens with a few minor glitches. Thanks for coming out everybody, see you next year.

I’ll try and get part 2 up tomorrow after skiing! Going out with Jason West if we can drag him away from his little girl. 

NH

First Turns of 2010 Season

Published
by
noahhowell
on November 2, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

With a week off from touring the country, and a fair amount of new snow, it seemed like a good time to kick off winter 2010. 

Jonah, Darrell and I hit up Alta, which seemed like they had more snow than anyplace else. Nothing new there.

Don’t be fooled, it wasn’t that deep just blown in wind drifts.

This is more representative of how thin it was. I’ll stop bitching and whining about it now.

After all, it’s always nice to get out and breath deep, move some muscles and know you are alive.

What lies beneath?

Jonah decides to find out.

Fat skis help keep one from finding land mines.

It actually was as good as it looks, but only for a few turns.

Nice day for some beacon drills, dialing in the new HD helmet cams and reminding the legs that soon enough they are going to be called into highly active duty.

Darrell was really excited and couldn’t hold back the excitement of being back on snow! I guess?

We were not alone, but then you never really are in the Wasatch Mountains. 

The snow has settled and melted some and we are back on the road with the tour. Colorado here we come!

Colorado-

Ft. Collins 11/4 Wed 7pm New Belgium (500 Linden St.) $10

Boulder 11/5 Thur 8pm Avery Tap Room (5757 arapahoe Ave. unit B1) $10

Denver 11/6 Fri doors open 7pm show at 8pm The Oriental $10 in advance buy here $12 day of show

Denver 11/7 Sat 8pm Wilderness Exchange $10

Breckenridge 11/8 Sun doors open 7pm show 8pm Three20South $10 21+

Avon 11/9 Mon 8pm Loaded Joe’s $10

Leadville 11/10 Tue 8pm Scarlet Tavern (326 Harrison)  Free show

Aspen 11/11 Wed 8pm Belly Up $10

Glenwood Springs 11/12 Thur 7:30pm Glenwood Springs Community Center $10

Crested Butte 11/13 Fri 8pm Pub of Crested Butte $10

Durango 11/16 Mon 8pm Pine Needle Mountaineering $10/$5 for students

Golden 11/14 Sat Backcountry Bash info here

New Mexico-

Santa Fe 11/15 Sun 7pm New Mexico Film Museum at the Jean Cocteau Theater $10

6pm reception at Sangre De Cristo Mountainworks

The Latest On Tour

Published
by
noahhowell
on October 27, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Posted up pics and TR from last weekend in Nevada/Cali.

www.powderwhore.com/news

On Tour

Published
by
noahhowell
on October 11, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Been on the road with the PW show, posting over at http://www.powderwhore.com/news/

Fun Day on MT Oly

Published
by
noahhowell
on September 29, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

So the motor driven toys are put away. Time to hit the hills and get the legs ready for winter.

Derek had a fun route idea on Mt Olympus so we gave it a whirl. He blogged about it with some cool Winter/Summer photo’s HERE.

Moto trip to Hanksville

Published
by
noahhowell
on September 27, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

I was lucky enough to survive one epic moto ride this summer, so why not push my luck. The proposed route was a fully inspired breathtaking loop through the diverse central part of this lovely state called Utah. 

Our 750 mile route took us 3 nights and 4 days

Our 750 mile route took us on 4 days of ATV trails, singletrack, dirt roads and deer paths and a little slab.

Our fearless leader and slave driver posted a trip report here.

I’ll add a few of my favorite moments from the whirlwind adventure.

Riding the 157 in American Fork

Ready to rock and get rocked riding trail #157 in American Fork

 

Guy on the bumpy goodness that is Squaw Peak Road

Guy on the bumpy goodness that is Squaw Peak Road

 

Fixing flat in Left Fork Hobble Creek

Fixing flat in Left Fork Hobble Creek

Derek apparently gets off on this sort of thing

Derek apparently gets off on this sort of thing

Fixing flats can be fun as long as you have the right tools, somebody that knows what they are doing and you keep the dirty jokes coming.

Fast and fun ATV track above Strawberry Res

Tom on the Fast and fun ATV track above Strawberry Res

 

Refueling bikes and bodies at the marina

Refueling bikes and bodies at the marina

Survived a slippery dark descent into French Hollow for our first night

Survived a slippery dark descent into French Hollow for our first night

 

Settling down under the tarp for the evening

Settling down under the tarp for the evening

 

Warming up after a cold night by blazing some great trail at sunrise

Warming up after a cold night by blazing some great trail at sunrise

Bob deep into the Skyline ridge section

Bob deep into the Skyline ridge section

 

King tweaker giving me the 'we don't have time for photo's, we must ride stare' in Joe's Valley

King tweaker giving me the stare down in Joe's Valley

 

Blazing saddles up a steep and rocky atv climb

Blazing saddles up a steep and rocky atv climb

I will never forget Rock Canyon. Ouch!

I will never forget Rock Canyon. Ouch!

 

Neither will my bike. This is the after photo of the aluma-weld repair

Neither will my bike. This is the after photo of the aluma-weld repair

Not pretty, but it did the job and I was able to finish the trip.

 

Still riding the big and loose rocks of Rock Canyon

Still riding the big and loose rocks of Rock Canyon

We stayed close to each other in case somebody needed help

We stayed close so we could help each other out

Sometimes you just have the camera out at the right time

Or,at least get pictures of it when things go south

I think this was the only time on the whole trip that Bob went down? The man is silky smooth on two wheels.

 

Not out of the woods yet

Not out of the woods yet

 

Heading out of Ferron into the swell

Heading out of Ferron into the swell

Chasing the light through the sandy washes

Chasing the light through the sandy washes

Trying to knock out 200 mostly off-road miles a day doesn’t give you much time take it all in, but this just stopped us in our tracks.

 

Give a Guy a few days on a bike and then just get the hell out of the way!

Give this Guy a few days on a bike and then get the hell out of the way!

 

Crossing deep under I-70

Crossing deep under I-70

 

Relaxing after a long day

Relaxing after a long day

 

The 'RED TRAIL' was a rude awakening! Most difficult section of the trip by far.

The "RED TRAIL" was a rude awakening and the most technical part of the whole trip.

 

 

Up and down, in, out and around the scenic sandy washes

Up and down, in, out and around the scenic sandy washes

 

The Swell finally spit us out. We passed on Goblin Valley since we were a bit behind schedule.

The Swell finally spit us out. We by-passed Goblin Valley since we were a bit behind schedule.

 

A quick oil change and salute in Hanksville

A quick oil change and proper salute in Hanksville

 

The brothers Macfarlane put on a show at this natural playground

The brothers Macfarlane put on a show at this natural playground

 

High gearing it through the moonscape of Capitol Reef

High gearing it through the moonscape of Capitol Reef

There’s a big gap here where I don’t have any great pics. We rode out of Capitol Reef high into the Thousand Lakes Mountains and mistakingly took a ‘horse path’ into Loa for fuel. From there we shot north to Fish Lake for dinner.

Cruising north on dirt and gravel with the sun setting

 

Time to look for a campsite

Time to look for a campsite

The camera batteries were getting low so there’s another blank spot here where we went on pavement to Salina and north to Gunnison. From here we rode Antelope Valley and dirt roads still heading north. 

 

IRegrouping on the Mount Nebo Scenic Loop

 

Regrouping on the Mount Nebo Scenic Loop
Up and over Mona Pole road with nice Nebo views

Up and over Mona Pole road with nice Nebo views

From here we crossed west of I-15 to Goshen for lunch and gas. 

Kicking up dust along the power line road west of Utah Lake

Kicking up dust along the power line road west of Utah Lake

 

Nice views of the lake and 'Happy Valley' from the Lakeview Mountains.

Nice views of the lake and 'Happy Valley' from the Lakeview Mountains

 

One more flat just a mile or two from where the dirt and trip ends and the pavement begins

One more flat just a mile or two from where the dirt and trip end and the pavement begins

 

Black top back into the SLC valley to wrap it up

Black top back into the SLC valley to wrap it up

Thankfully we took plenty of pics because this trip was quite the blur. It’s fun to have a goal and rally hard to cover lots of ground, but we all decided next time we would take more time to stop and just enjoy our surroundings. 

Thanks for waiting for me and helping me start my bike fella’s. Hopefully I won’t have to be saying that after every moto outing. Actually I’m not sure my body and wallet can take this kind of abuse, but it is one of the most challenging and exciting experiences I’ve had.