There’s still snow falling in the Cascades (2-3 feet in the past 10 days), but spring is here. In that spirit, we thought it was time for some more spring stoke with a new wallpaper option… enjoy!
Click on the images below for the full-size, then right click to download and select “Set as Desktop Background”
Options, options, options… chutes and bowls galore off Washington Pass, North Cascades, WA
Photo: Graham Gephart
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Without further ado, the second installment from Aaron Teasdale’s adventure deep into Glacier National Park:
On our third day in the wild, we awake early and gather water from an opening where Kintla Creek spills into Kintla Lake. Our goal for the day is several miles deeper into the park: Upper Kintla Lake.
There isn’t enough snow to ski, so we strap skis to packs and hike. No matter how deep the snow in the surrounding area, a strange snow shadow in this valley perennially limits depths to a few inches. It’s this consistent lack of snow that attracts deer, lots and lots of deer. This veritable venison buffet keeps the wolves here all winter and also explains the grizzlies — no need to hibernate when you can chase wolves off their kills and score free feasts all winter long. So when we find the bottom of this avalanche path packed with delectably skiable snow, it happily waylays us for much of the afternoon.
There are at least 40 deer feeding on the ground vegetation above and around us, while golden eagles soar through the air overhead. The tracks of my turns are visible on the left of this image. Read more…
Writer and photographer Aaron Teasdale has spent a good chunk of the spring testing out Karhu XCD gear in the wilds of Montana. Recently back from a remote section of Glacier National Park, Aaron and two friends sent along some photos from a trip that was half-ski, half-wildlife, and all adventure. Part one below, part two to follow:
We set out for a remote corner of Glacier National Park on a sunny late winter morning, GPS and camera in hand, ready to record all of the wild and strange things we could find. Ben and I met here a few winters back working on a forest carnivore study; we spent that winter skiing and tracking together, and no place we explored harbored more odd and grisly findings than the area around Kintla Lake. When the opportunity came to ski back in and survey the area for park biologists, we jumped at the chance. Our friend Travis came along (who’s worked as a fire lookout in a tower on one of the peaks in the background — the same tower as Ed Abbey) and we set out for four days in the wilds to see what we could see.
We ski the sweeping valley-bottom meadows for hours, coming across deer carcasses every few miles. Few people ski into this area, leaving the resident wolf pack with the run of the place. There is also at least one grizzly bear, if not more, here that doesn’t hibernate. We’ve seen its winter tracks before, but found no sign of it on this day.
Since the first XCD ski 30 years ago, we’ve always stayed true to the idea that the versatility of XCD skis would take them from the backyard to the far ends of the world. As we celebrate our XCD 30th Anniversary this year, that tradition remains especially strong. We’ve logged miles and miles in the Cascade Mountains right out our backdoor, while Karhu ambassador Dave Watson skiied his XCD Guides on Broad Peak and K2 in the Himalayas this summer. More recently, Arctic explorer and Karhu ambassador Eric Larsen has been taking his XCD Pinnacle skis to a few more exotic locales.
Earlier this winter, Eric guided an expedition to the South Pole, a 41-day adventure on skis. Eric brought his Pinnacles to the Outdoor Retailer show in January for us to check out, and they were in great condition (minus some faded graphics from the UV exposure) after the trip! Here’s what Eric had to say from the South Pole:
It was an amazing trip and was pleased to facilitate my clients’ dream of skiing to the South Pole. On a personal level, the journey reinforced my love of snow and cold. Antarctica is staggeringly beautiful on a bad day. On a good day, almost impossible to describe. They say its not the journey but the destination, but funny for me and this expedition, was the fact that I was so focused on Save the Poles that having this trip fall in my lap was a bit of a surprise. In aiming toward a smaller goal (getting to the South Pole) I was further surprised to see how my ideas about team work, communication and cooperation evolved. Life. It never ceases to amaze me. In completing the 41-day journey, I became one of only a few Americans to ski to both the North and South Poles.
I’ve been doing a lot of skiing lately and I have to admit, I love my Karhu Pinnacles. They endured the nearly 1,000 kilometer journey to the South Pole and I’m still using them. On Baffin, I was pushing them to their limits – spanning large cracks in pressure ice and pulling heavy loads all while thriving in the nearly –40 degree temps. Through it all, they performed remarkably. Read more…
Click on the images below for the full-size, then right click to download and select “Set as Desktop Background”
XCD touring for turns, Washington Pass, North Cascades, WA
Skier: Charlie Lozner
Photo: Graham Gephart
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We know you’d rather be in the mountains than at the computer, so to make it a little easier, we thought we’d post some wallpapers up to keep your ski fix going.
Click on the images below for the full-size, then right click to download and select “Set as Desktop Background”
XCD in the North Cascades
Skiers: Justin Nyberg & Steve Barnett
Photo: Graham Gephart
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Keeping it on the theme of spring in the East, Karhu rep Mike “Kaz” Kazmierczak sends us trip report from some XCD skiing in New York’s Adirondack region. Sunny skies, warm weather, good company, soft snow, what’s not to like?
Winter is fading quickly in the Adirondacks, but we still have some skiing opportunities up high. The approaches are muddy and the streams are running, but the temptation of corn snow keeps us trekking into the High Peaks each weekend.
(Jen Kazmierczak hiking across one of many stream crossings on the approach. Photos by Mike Kaz)
The classic Wright Peak ski trail was the destination for this trip. With its northern exposure and sheltered canopy, we knew it would have easy skiing and hiking up, and by the time the temps rose (almost 75 degrees this trip), the corn was perfect to schuss out on. The summit weather couldn’t have been better. Typically windy, Wright Peak offered us completely calm skies to scout our trips on neighboring peaks for the following week.
(Kaz on the summit of Wright, looking toward Mt Colden and Mt Marcy.)
XCDs are the skis of choice for a bunch of our objectives around here, but especially in the spring when “variable” conditions persist. And really, nothing jump turns on rock quite like the 10th Mountains! Still a couple more weeks left of skiing for us… after a truly stellar winter.
(At snowline, just below Wright Peak’s summit, prepping to ski down. 10th Mountains all around.)
(Classic Adirondack Trail skiing on the Wright Peak Ski Trail.)
(Not wanting winter to end, our friend Rob Dross.)
After epic powder descents just last weekend, Mother Nature brought a long spell of warm sun to the mountains and got us thinking about traveling light. The shoulder season of winter into spring is often the perfect season for XCD exploration. The right aspects keep soft snow tucked into trees, while longer daylight and warmer temperatures make it easy to cover a lot of ground and see new sights. The possibilities challenge us to ski lighter, be quicker with the footwork, and to smile at the kind of turns – dancing through a short slope of trees, lapping quick corn laps on a sunny mountainside – that we often neglect in the middle of winter.
I recently stumbled across a couple XCD ski videos online. One trying XCD gear for the first time, another who seems to have a bit of experience – both bound together by great big smiles and the sounds.
(YouTube video from orangerider1)
(YouTube video from distantfellow1)
Arriving a week earlier than me on the East Coast for the Adirondack Backcountry Festival, Nils Larsen found the best – and later in the week at NATO, the worst – of East Coast conditions. “You East Coasters are a bunch of sandbaggers,” said Nils, but he never hesitates heading into a line.
(John Seibert tours up through the sparkling powder. Photos by Nils Larsen)
I left for my East Coast trip on February 28th and arrived that night in Burlington, VT to full-on winter. I stayed with my good buddy John near Bristol and that night the temperature dropped to -15F. The snow was cold and soft, and we went for a tour in the mountains behind his house. The snow was some of the best I have skied out East, cold and soft with lots of surface-hoar sparkle to the top layer.
(Quick turns in boot-top fluff.)
East Coast skiing is a different animal from the West. The trees are mostly hardwoods, and the absence of leaves in the winter makes them appear more open then our western woods. This, however, is not the case. The uninitiated skier (that’s me) quickly learns that those innocuous little one inch twigs sticking out of the snow will garrote you just as fast as the birch, beech, and sugar maple. One always skis with goggles and forearms raised and ready to clear a path…
-Nils
(”Open” hardwoods.)
I’d say if he knows the fine art of forearm branch blocking, Nils is well ahead of the learning curve. Is it really tree skiing if your cheek doesn’t get kissed at least once by a sapling’s sting?
The state is known for its hardy residents, but this winter, the hardiest thing in Vermont might be winter itself. Big snowfalls came again and again to the Northeast this season, and while heart-breaking thaws followed a number of them, winter refuses to give up its grasp completely. The warm storm that brought rain just last weekend at the NATO Telemark Festival finished with another blast of cold – which stuck around long enough to freshen up the firm.
A week after my trip back home, my dad sent some photos from the Long Trail off Brandon Gap. To help scale the snowpack, the registration box at the trailhead and the sign for the Sunrise Shelter stand at chest height in the summer. Here it is in March, well into what’s often prime sugaring season, and it looks like the taplines will be buried for a while still.
(The trailhead sign-in sits a little lower now. Photos by Jeff Gephart)
(Clouds clearing over Mount Horrid.)
(Not too tough to miss the Sunrise Shelter right now.)
(The handrails on the bridge crossings aren’t doing very much.)
(Plenty of snow at the Chittenden Brook junction.)
For a good read on Vermont-related hardiness and happiness, take a look at Ben’s post on WickedOutdoorsy.