As many of you readers mentioned, most of the Alps are certainly receiving mass quantities. Roads are of course a mess and the avalanche meter pegging the red zone, but smart folks enjoy. I'm lying low with a cold, but will hit it eventually even if I OD on zinc lozenges. Meanwhile, this is what I'm seeing from where I'm staying, near the Inn Valley in Austria. The alpine is of course inundated. As usual, I'm residing at the family house of our friends the Barthels, where the tech binding was invented in the basement and changed ski touring as we know it. Sort of wild when you think about it. More than 20 years later and folks with Dynafit and other tech bindings are running over the mountains with speed and grace that was previously only a dream to most mortals. One has to wonder what is next--magnetic bindings or something else with near zero weight?
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.