Slope Style
Life on the Mountain
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05/16/13Granola and GearsPlay Hard Give Back starts the summer with a party at the Landing Pad. Posted at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments: 1 |
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05/09/13Nature is Wild — Don't Add to the ChaosWhen it comes to the trails this summer, be a thoughtful user. |
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04/18/13Goodbye, Baldy!Sliding off Sun Valley’s Challenger lift on closing day, the finale to winter “life” as we know it, is a bit like passing through the gates of ski heaven. At the top, Ullr (the Scandanavian god of snow) waits patiently, wind-whipped snow blowing past his Scott Superhots, an aging purchase with renewed life on this day of throwbacks. His thick white beard is all his own; his hair is black, stringy and questionable, wrapped in a zebra-print headband. Ullr’s pants, tight-fitting neoprene, have aluminum can-shaped bulges that come and go throughout the day. A denim coat that is entirely too small flexes as he clicks into his wooden Gresshoppas and glides towards us, smiling, welcoming us to his World with a howl: “Whoopee-a-yeah-haa!”... Posted at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments: 1 |
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04/04/13The Dollar Dayz Pond SkimCrowds gathered at the base of Dollar Mountain on sunny Easter Sunday to crane their necks, juggling brunch, babies and dog leashes, and catch some of Sun Valley’s finest aquatic athletes. The annual Ski Patrol “Cold Bowl” Pond Skim is held during the end-of-the-season party on Dollar Mountain, which this year included a CandyGrind Rail Jam on Saturday. Brave six-year-old souls in oversized Halloween costumes tucked the run—some coming to a slow stop in the knee-high water or blowing up with starfish yardsales and popping up gasping for breath (but still smiling). A few groms with enough speed made it across the 85-foot man-made pool, even managing to squeak out a 180 off the lip at the end, and luring a few Pond Skim newbies into... |
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03/28/13Sun Valley's Sol FestSay it with me: "Sol Fest." Even my Japanese grandma could tell you that "sol" means "sun" in Spanish. Considering that "sol" is also a homophone of "soul," I’d say that "Sol Fest" is a brilliant name for what happened this weekend, March 22-23, in Ketchum and Sun Valley. The weather never reached the early spring apex we experienced a few weeks ago, and temperatures surely dipped on both Friday and Saturday nights, but attendees were hardly dismayed, exhibiting more soul to counter the lack of sol. Fortunately, there was plenty of music and events to keep the blood warm. Opening on Friday the 22nd, which was, not coincidentally, the start of spring break for colleges nationwide, Sun Valley’s Sol Fest 2013... |
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03/21/13Between Grassroots and The X-GamesTim Ryan, 17, traveled across the country — from Gilford, New Hampshire to Sun Valley, Idaho — in order to compete in the final freeskiing slopestyle event of the 2013 Revolution Tour, which began on Dollar Mountain Monday, March 18 and continues through Friday, March 22. Since committing to the amateur circuit last year, Ryan has been taking high school classes online, making it possible for him to travel with his team, the Waterville Valley Black and Blue Trail Smashers, to wherever the action is. He is coached; he is sponsored; even at home in the summer off-season, Ryan manages to ski, training on trampolines and dry ramps each week. “Slopestyle” is not something Ryan nor the Rev Tour takes lightly. Sliding rails and stomping booters has quickly... |
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03/07/13DC Comics Raises Idaho's FlagIn terms of inspiring American imagery, few photographs rival Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal. Taken on February 23rd, 1945 during the historic Battle of Iwo Jima, the shot is an iconic depiction of our nation’s resolve: five U.S. Marines atop Mount Suribachi as they cooperatively raise the American flag, having defeated the Japanese and secured the tiny Pacific island (it was actually the second flag placed on Suribachi that day; the first was apparently too small). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Photography the year of its publication, Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima has been reproduced hundreds of times and frequently migrated formats over the years, becoming a famous memorial outside the walls at Arlington National Cemetery (known as the Iwo Jima... |
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02/21/13YURTS with Kirk BachmanTHE BACKSTORY I originally started building yurts in 1978. I’d met this hippy chick who was living in one. I picked her up as a hitchhiker and she was headed out toward Moose (Wyoming). So I gave her a lift and she said “Hey, come check out my yurt.” She was married, by the way... Needless to say, the yurt was really nice. I saw what they were living in as a house and just said, “This is a cool space. I know I’m going to live in the mountains after college, so I’m going to build a yurt in the craft shop.” She mentioned that I could send for yurt-building plans in New Hampshire, and so I did. I graduated from the university down in pocatello and I’d built a yurt while I was there. I then went to work with the... |
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02/07/13Fat Bikes: Snowy-Street StyleIn the wake of winter sport madness brought by Sun Valley’s Nordic Festival, there was a noteworthy, pedal-driven moment: a “fat bike” race, held immediately following the cross-country sprint races near the Ketchum Post Office and run mostly on the same course. The crowd was filled with “nordies,” but mixed among the Swix hats and Fischer skis were some strange-looking bicycles with really, really bloated tires. When the sprints wound down, a comparable group of athletes readied themselves for a different kind of sprint—a winter bike criterium. As if they were cruising Corral Creek in July, eight teams of two cranked their monstrous tires (the minimum requirement was three inches, although most were closer to four) over hills and through... Posted at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments: 1 |
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01/23/13Nordic Town’s Newest OfferingFor Sun Valley’s Nordic Festival, which begins on January 26th,all eyes will be on the "Nordic Town U.S.A." Most events will be held in and around Sun Valley/Ketchum, such as the Masters races at Sun Valley Nordic, the Banff Film Festival and Ketchum's Downtown Jam and Sprints and the Boulder Mountain Tour’s (BMT) award ceremonies at the Sun Valley Inn. Yet what shouldn’t get overlooked by all those skiers traveling to Sun Valley, or north to Galena and Alturas Lake, are that events actually kicks off with the free annual Ski the Rails party in downtown Hailey, which is just a short hop, skate and jump away from the Valley's newest Nordic skiing facility: the nine kilometers of new trails that meander out Croy Canyon. Nestled at the... |
