Wayyy back in about nineteen hundred and ninety three a few of us in Portland who dundered around playing pickup ultimate frisbee decided it was time to play in a tournament, so for reasons I don’t remember we decided to drive all the way to Sun Valley, ID for our first one. The bad news was that we quickly realized that unorganized pickup was a woeful excuse for tournament level play, but the good news…
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A few years ago I put up a blog post I deemed “Embracing my inner dork,” which in and of itself was pretty dorky, but the truth is that I’ve thought about that a lot over what is now almost nine years and over that time I’ve edified my dork-ness to an even greater level, and it has worked out fine. That said, even then I didn’t relay a deep, dark secret, because….it was…
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We have the good fortune to live near a lot of great skiing, though like a lot of avid skiers who live in Salt Lake City it’s not a coincidence that we live here. The combination of terrain that varies from wild to mild and is easily accessible, the quantity and quality of snow, and easy access to a relatively livable city that doesn’t have the trappings or cost of living of a resort town…
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Okay, it’s been a bit longer than I anticipated to wrap up this scintillating tale, but wow…..it’s been snowing in the Wasatch! So between skiing and reconnecting with friends we practically haven’t seen since the end of last winter I haven’t taken the time to write. For reference, here is an image of the AZT in its entirety: The whole trail is just shy of 800 miles – and includes a hike across the Grand…
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Even though Ashley and I had an incredible spring and summer of riding our bikes around Europe, we seemingly have an endless capacity for bike tours, so when our old pal Benj Wadsworth invited us to join him and a few others for an Arizona Trail ride this fall we jumped at the chance. The Arizona Trail stretches from the Mexico border to the Utah border for almost 700 miles and has become an early/late…
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One of the great appeals of Europe to cyclists around the world is the plethora of amazing passes to ride. Most have been made famous by the Tour de France: the Galibier, Tourmalet, Ventoux, Alpe d’Huez, and others practically became household names in the Lance era. For Americans, the lure of passes is really only satiated in Colorado and California, where Euro-scale passes like Cottonwood, Independence, and Loveland challenge the ‘Rado-ans and California’s “Death Ride” that…
1 CommentIf you live in the West, you probably are aware of the severe drought that has plagued the Southwest in particular over the last few years. What was not as well known, however, was that it was more than just a few years: in fact, it’s been the worst drought in 1200 years, according to a study done by folks at UCLA that had its results published last year. And considering how many people rely…
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Part III in a series of tales of bikepacks (bike tours?) we did in the fall of 2021 on a multi-week road trip from the Pacific Northwest through California. Our Lost Coast tour ended in Mendocino in what was to be one in a series of rain events that hit California in October, and we had to bypass the great riding between Mendocino and Marin county (even driving was a little challenging; Ashley got…
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Over the last few years Paul Oelerich has been kind enough to let me opine on just about anything I want regarding backcountry skiing as the opening column “The Tour” in his beautiful Ascent Backcountry Journal. Like all print media, Ascent has been a challenging and not very lucrative endeavor, and when even venerable mags like Powder go away it’s a clear testament to Paul’s skill, creativity, passion, integrity, and determination that Ascent has continued…
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