I guess it should be a lesson to those of us in business (or all of us, for that matter); when the going is rough just forge ahead. At least that’s what came to my mind when I saw the Salomon press release for their Backcountry Ski Seminar Tour in the UK. According to the PR, seminar leader and guide Nigel Shepherd “worked alongside Salomon research and development to create a unique range of backcountry kit, including the Quest ski boots…”
As most readers here know, the Quest boots were recalled last spring due to a faulty tech binding fitting. Not too hard to imagine what most of the Q&A will be about at the seminars.
In what is truly a microcosm of the developed world as a whole, Aspen Skiing Company is showing how tough it is to keep doing what you’re doing while reducing your carbon footprint. According to this article in the Aspen Times, the company is finding it “viciously difficult” to reduce their carbon footprint by 10 percent over a 12 year period. We of course have the solution. Just turn off the ski lifts.
Huge news: The Anchorage, Alaska ski train is back! Since 1972 The famed once-a-year train has been an annual event for Alaskan backcountry skiers, but was canceled last season for financial reasons. The Anchorage Nordic Ski Association will be hosting the event on March 20th, 2011. Brush up on your polka and don’t forget your keg tapper (the ride on the party train lasts longer than the skiing.) Added bonus, you’ll get to stop and try for a Sarah Palin spotting in Wasilla, as the train will head north from Anchorage, up past Talkeetna to the historic ski destination of Curry.
You might have heard about Seth Anderson of Loki clothing company nearly getting killed in an avalanche last season. His recovery has been slow but it sounds like he’s making it fine. Best wishes Seth!
Can backcountry recreators be preservationists? Should they be? Writer Terray Sylvester ponders and bemoans the fact that most Wilderness activism these days is practiced by folks who are becoming grey heads, while the younger “adrenalin” set doesn’t seem to care. What she failed to bring up is that the current generation does care as much as any. But the gen-x’s and x-gens are pretty smart, they realize we need backcountry we can recreate in and also conserve, and that highly restrictive legal Wilderness may not be the best way to accomplish that. In other words, making ever more legal Wilderness for its own sake may have been a good call back in the old days, but a more nuanced approach to land conservation is now the appropriate course. This is playing out locally here in Colorado, where a Wilderness proposal (Hidden Gems) that 20 years ago would have been a done deal has been whittled away to a fraction of its former acreage.
That’s it for the day after Labor Day, that nice working person’s holiday. Off to the races here at WildSnow, getting more back-end done on the website, and even buffing out a design change that I’ll publish in a day or so. Countdown to winter!
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
