Aug 03 2014

Sierra Club to add Ward Hut near Truckee

 

Bradley Hut - est. 1957, relocated 1995. More Bradley hut photos here.

Bradley Hut – est. 1957, relocated 1995. More Bradley hut photos here.

The last time the USFS and the Sierra Club agreed to allow man’s footprint to become established far from the road in California was in 1993. At that time the 35-year-old Bradley Hut was being removed because Congress created the Granite Chief Wilderness area and the hut was inside the new boundary. Never mind any grandfather arguments to the contrary, the new law said it had to go.

Thankfully a vocal resistance led by Marcus Libkind, founder of Snowlands.org, saved the hut in principle, and the USFS conceded to allowing it to be transferred to Pole Creek. In the long run, perhaps a lucky stroke of foresight since access to the Five-Lakes Basin where Bradley Hut used to be is now all but locked off by the borders created by KSL’s Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley plus the most direct route through White Wolf, a private ski resort still being developed.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jul 29 2014

Climbing Skin buyers guide

 

A classic Tahoe track. Not ridiculously steep, not low angle either.

You need skins. Get some or go home.

Now that the Sun is heading for the horizon, and with it the excitement of getting out in the snow, thoughts that tend toward getting ready for those coming days lead to gear. One of the three basic BC essentials are climbing skins.

Experienced skinners know that good skins can make a difference in how many turns you earn. Not only in regard to how steep you can climb with them, but other things can add up, like glide on the upstroke, or across a meadow, and their tendency to ice-up when the icing is likely. If you’re new to this game of earning your turns, the most important thing is to simply get a pair of climbing skins. Used if that’s all the budget will allow because almost any climbing skin is vastly preferrable to none; except a pair that is failing.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jul 25 2014

Technique: Range set up for testing avy beacons

 

The author performing a grid search very near the burial location.

The author performing a grid search very near the burial location.

How do I test avy beacons, more properly known as avalanche transceivers?
What follows is my range set up, some notes and illustrations for newbies to understand basic terminology and concepts, and my general procedures. From an overall perspective, I’m just going through some predefined motions to test limits. In terms of the real important stuff, reliability and ergonomics are the bigger factors to consider. When I say reliability I don’t mean it will always work, but how well it recognizes, distinguishes, and holds on to the signal(s) it is receiving. As for the latter, there’s no way to test intuitiveness without somebody’s ass being on the line. I give it my best guess based on 20 years explaining these devices.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jul 21 2014

Technique: Dealing with bouncing avy beacons

Three successive readings at 80m with Arva's Neo. Boing.

Three successive readings at 80m with Arva’s Neo. Boing.

Anyone who has practiced even a smidgen with their digital avalanche transceiver has noticed a bit of digital bounce. What is meant by this term is the error in the distance reading of an avalanche beacon. It shows up as the distance reading changing with each update, up and down around a number that, at least initially, may only indicate that you’re far away, but not necessarily exactly how far away.

The bounce is magnified the further away you are, and is slowly reduced until, when it really matters the most, when you’re close and need to know where to probe it becomes pretty darn accurate. However, the further away you are, the more pronounced the variation in successive numbers displayed tends to be.

By bounce I mean the variation in the distance reading. If it were an analog display what we might see instead is a volume bar or needle that jiggles up and down about an average position, which theoretically might be the real position.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jul 15 2014

Is the NTN’s butt too big?

JFB testing the flex of NTN boots at Sugar Bowl, Jan. 2014

JFB testing the flex of NTN boots at Sugar Bowl, Jan. 2014

There is a fly in the ointment, brewing in the background with the New Telemark Norm system. It hasn’t gained much recognition because there aren’t that many people telemarking anymore, and of those who still are, not that many have switched to NTN.

Depending on what size boot you have, and the binding you pair it with, you may not be able to replicate the sweet tele flex you can get with the same size duckbilled boot. It also turns out, this is more noticeable with Garmont/Scott and Crispi brand boots than with Scarpa.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jul 11 2014

Good Grub: Killer Cole Slaw

 

Healthy and delicious.

Healthy and delicious.

Here’s a quick recipe that combines two foods rich in cancer fighting ingredients for a new taste on an old classic dish – coleslaw – but with the zing of wasabi added. The main ingredient, cabbage, is rich in the naturally occurring phytochemical indole-3-carbino. This compound helps the body produce detoxifying enzymes that expose cancerous cells to your body’s natural immune system which can then starve them, kill them, and sweep them away.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jul 09 2014

Review: G3’s District ski

 
One of the sleeper skis of last season was G3’s District. It wasn’t that it didn’t get good reviews – Backcountry Magazine considered it one of their Editor’s Choice picks. Outside of that the ski didn’t garner much attention because it wasn’t one of the ultra-light carbon-fiber enhanced backcountry skis. Rather, it was a more traditionally constructed ski, with as much attention paid to reducing weight as possible, without breaking the bank or using carbon.

G3's District - solid, reliable skis for BC conditions

G3’s District – solid, reliable skis for BC conditions


Keep making backcountry turns