Poor Man's Heli

Stephen Koch was fired from his 15 year guide gig at Exum this week for using a snowmobile to cut 12 miles of approach skiing from his tour for his day’s target, the Skillet Glacier on Mount Moran (article).  The story is compelling for a few reasons:

1. Snowmobiles are LEGAL in the Grand Teton NP for use by ice fisherman.
2. It’s Stephen Koch.  Not many people have snowboarded Everest.
3. He took responsibility for his action.  Doesn’t he know that personal responsibility went out of vogue in the 80s?

“In this instance, I failed to resist the temptation to snowmobile with friends over the lake to ease the approach on a one-day ascent and descent of this magnificent mountain.  For my selfishness, I must apologize first to the National Park Service, to my family and also to my friends, my clients and former associates at Exum Mountain Guides, my coworkers at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, my colleagues at Art Hazen Real Estate, to the Grand Teton Climbing Rangers, and to the climbing, skiing, and snowboarding communities in general.

As a mountain guide, and a longtime member of the Jackson community, I know well that observance of the regulations governing the use of public lands is important to preserve the qualities that make Jackson Hole so extraordinary…”

Stumbled across this interview with 90s ‘extreme skier’ Eric Pehota today.  Was of interest to me as I had a pic of Eric and Trevor Petersen (RIP) skiing a big mountain line on my binder all through high school.  My ski heroes consisted of Pehota, Petersen, and to a lesser extent Scot Schmidt, Glen Plake and Mike Hattrup.  An interesting read on the evolution of the life of a big mountain skier, and good to see how he’s kept close to his roots.  The thought of a self-sustaining existence complete with garden and chickens appeals to me after living in the Bay area for 8 years.

Finally took my avy 1 class this weekend at Cascade Powder Cats.  Cool crew out there, had a real ‘core’ feel to it as all the employees were definitely snow stoked individuals, and they all pitch in to keep the operation running – including doing maintenance on the vehicles.

Didn’t take many action shots this weekend as I was too busy paying attention to the instructors, but snapped a few random pics.

Up close and personal with a local bully

The battle ‘burban(!)

Ben sets the track on route selection day

General Information and Training

AIARE – American Institute for Avalance Research and Education – includes listing of courses offered

The Avalanche Institute

Avalanche Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia of avalanche terms

Regional Reports

NWAC – Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center

CAIC – Colorado Avalanche Information Center

Mount Shasta Avalanche Center

SAC - Sierra Avalanche Center

Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center

A few custom split 09/10 Never Summer boards.  Check out the die cut bases, they do a NICE job lining the graphics up!  Linked to their website for additional info on the models, but as the boards on site are 08/09 models, and given the current rocker revolution, I’d imagine there are differences between the model years.

Never Summer Titan split

Never Summer Legacy split

Beautiful work by the boys though!

Saw this over at TetonAT awhile back, and as any new life saving tool is worth re-posting I’m posting here.  What’s nice about this airbag pack is that it’s MSRP is ‘only’ $499, a relative bargain when you continue reading…