Telemark skiing pioneer Art Burrows is a good friend, as well as being quite the designer, artist and of course skier. Art was virtually the world champion telemark racer for a time in the 1970’s, and went on to help design gear for Black Diamond as well as running a successful design business in Aspen, Colorado (running any business in Aspen is not easy, I don’t know how Art does it but it works). It wasn’t too long ago that Art was still skiing on boots constructed from drywall buckets — that must be why he helped design the first successful plastic telemark boots.
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| Art Burrows Power of Nature calendar – highly recommended. We got this one signed by Art. The mountain is Hayden Peak in central Colorado, a popular backcountry skiing destination. |
Art was at our local Roaring Fork Avalanche Center fundraiser a few days ago, where he’d donated a few copies of his 2007 nature calendar for our silent auction. I’d seen some web images of his calendar a while back, but was stunned to see how terrific the calendar is in the flesh. It’s called the “Power of Nature — Mountains, Quotes, and Unique Natural Facts. Inside you get numerous examples of fine mountain photography, with a backcountry focus. Along with that you can enjoy text with factoids such as the largest avalanche in North America, or natural history of the Greenland ice cap, or how much rain falls on the earth in a day (answer: 1 billion tons). My favorite is August, with a world history of fire.
At $14.95 this is a terrific value for a low cost but high value gift. Of course available online at the webstore I manage, Vintage Ski World.
Sure, I know Art and do work for Vintage Ski World, but please don’t take this as a gratuitous plug, Power of Nature truly is a fine calendar and perfect for gifting. More about Art. Joke here in the WildSnow.com world headquarters office is if Lou will replace his Jeep calendar with a nature calendar. Tough. Perhaps I’ll hang them both up, that way Art’s will cancel out any bad karma from the 4x4s.
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.
