Guide to Skiing the Refugio Frey Backcountry in Bariloche, Argentina: So, you’ve booked a flight to Buenos Aires. The plan is to go ski in South America – The dream is coming true! However, as the trip gets closer you start realizing a few things. 1) You haven’t actually planned anything. 2) You aren’t a baller and your Northern Hemisphere winter job at a restaurant in a ski town isn’t going to allow you to ski the lifts for more than a few days. 3) The reports are coming in from down south that they are having the […] Featured Article Aaron Rice | July 25, 2018 8 Comments
VIDEO: Ripping “La Oficinia” at Las Lenas, Argentina This Week [iframe id=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fairandriceski%2Fvideos%2F647439692077600%2F&show_text=0&width=560″] video and words by Aaron Rice While much of Argentina has had a slow winter Las Leñas has been going off!! I’ve been lucky enough to be here for the last month. 100% human powered I’ve skied some classic steeps around Marte and found some amazing powder filled spines and cliffs in a little locals zone called La […] Aaron Rice | August 9, 2016 0 Comments
VIDEO: 1st East Coast Turns of the Season! – October 17th! The first east coast turns of the season have been made! A 5:30am wake up proved to be a tad on the early side. After a nice couple cups of coffee and breakfast I headed to the Stowe parking lot. Bits of wintery mix hit my windshield but there was nothing on the ground […] Aaron Rice | October 17, 2015 5 Comments
Skiing the East Coast on the 4th of July!!! 4th of July Bowl, Indy Pass, The Great One, Mt. Hood… Argentina?. There are plenty of classic places to go make some celebratory 4th of July turns. Skiing on the 4th is a fantastic tradition that exercises your freedom as an American to the max. I often here people say though that skiing on the 4th is only for Colorado, or Volcanoes in the Pac NW. If you are stuck on the East Coast you are […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | July 6, 2015 6 Comments
2014/15 Utah = Lowest Snowfall on Record & Only 1 Avy Death | Snow & Avalanche Summary Utah saw the lowest amount of snow they’ve ever recorded at 267.5″ of snowfall at Alta in 2014/15. They’re previous lowest snowfall amount of record. In 2015, Utah experienced 116 human triggered avalanches with 26 humans caught in avalanches, 3 injuries, and 1 fatality. “In short, the unprecedented 2014-15 season smashed all previous records for the least amount of snow and the warmest temperatures since records began at Alta […] Avalanche Aaron Rice | June 11, 2015 0 Comments
Tuckerman Ravine, Mt. Washington, NH – Still Kicking! New England is known for it’s seasonality. Cold, dark, long Winters – hot humid Summers – wet yet beautiful and rejuvenating Springs – and spectacular Falls with crisp air and bright leaves. However, the month of June falls by the wayside a bit. June is not known for anything special. Most plants are in the ground by now, spring is transitioning to summer, but the heat has yet to fully arrive. So what should June in New England […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | June 10, 2015 1 Comment
A-Basin Conditions Report – Busy May Powder!! With big snowfall totals in the forecast all of the die-hards in the front range made plans to go skiing. And with A-Basin being the only mountain still providing lift-serve turns it made for what was likely the most crowded day of the season. Those that arrived early were rewarded with great creamy untracked turns. Around 9:30 ropes dropped on the low traverse under the east wall making for some more great turns and even […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | May 10, 2015 1 Comment
Epic Closing Day at Alta! Alta is known for deep powder. But we are also known for throwing down one of the best closing days around. It started with the 53rd Annual Frank World Classic at high Noon under the Wildcat chairlift. There were numerous hot dogs, snowballs, and flips thrown! There was much dumping em out! With hundreds of people there were good times had by all. Here’s the photo and video tour, much of it courtesy […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | April 21, 2015 1 Comment
Alta Condition Report – ALTA DELIVERS! Better late than never. With only 5 days till closing we received our biggest single storm of the season! With weird springtime dynamics, lake effect, and a shallow storm, total snowfall amounts ranged from 20″ – 39″ with most places inbounds at Alta on the high end! The storm came in hot with a good ol’ fashioned dust storm and a 25 degree temperature drop in the matter of a couple hours. Then the guns turned on. All systems go. We had lake effect, orographic enhancement, a touch of daytime heating enhancement and a good dose of Alta magic. Conditions Report Aaron Rice | April 16, 2015 1 Comment
The Chimney at Squaw Opened Yesterday: Photos & Videos The legendary Chimney at Squaw Valley, USA opened for the first and likely the last time of the season yesterday. Not many were on hand to hit it, but those who where there to witness it, got a helluva show. The cornice drop in was sizable, the ramp was damn fast and the air out was certainly larger than normal. Scott Gaffney dropped first and blew up upon impact. The rest of the boys all stomped the Chimney Sweep landing and […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | April 10, 2015 5 Comments
Alta Conditions Report – Great Coverage and Spring Temps! This winter in Utah has sure been a weird one. Crazy warmth and not much snow. But there is a reason we ski Alta. Even a bad year hear is better than a normal year in Colorado. The past few weeks have been very warm, but luckily Alta is mostly North facing and the coverage on most slopes is still good. By the afternoons everything is skiing great. The Collins Jib lap is […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | March 31, 2015 0 Comments
Alta Conditions Report – Beach Weather Temps have been downright springy as of late. This made for some awesome jibbing, slush bumps, and corn skiing the past week. However be warned that Alta is a predominately North facing mountain. This means that you need to time your […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | March 21, 2015 0 Comments
Alta Conditions Report – Spring has Sprung! Whelp, we are back to spring time sun and warmth. The weather and snow has been behaving more like late April, rather than mid March this past week. However it is not hard to make the best of soft snow and goggle tan weather. After the last storm there was a nice coat of new snow and patrol dropped the ropes on 100% of terrain. East Castle and Devils [,,,] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | March 13, 2015 0 Comments
Alta Conditions Report – Classic Wasatch Pow!! Winter has returned to Alta!!!! After a grueling most of January and February, March arrive with a great storm cycle! We received over 40″ over the past week, and conditions have been fantastic! The storm started ramping up on Friday and it snowed through Tuesday! Then on Wednesday and Thursday we had classic Wasatch bluebird powder days. Temps remained on the cool side then the snow remained awesome. Wednesday saw […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | March 6, 2015 0 Comments
Alta Conditions Report – 11″ Teaser with More to Come There’s no denying that it has been dry in Alta for much of January and February, but winter has finally returned! Last Friday into Saturday we received 3 inches followed by a surprise 11 inches! This storm skied great for the weekend. The crowds were a bit bad in the mornings but settled by the afternoons. Following the storm we had a few more days of sun a warm. All of the locals got out and enjoyed the stable backcountry conditions, putting more tracks on some of the favorite roadside attractions than I have ever seen. […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | February 26, 2015 0 Comments
Alta Conditions Report -The Last High Pressure Report! This is the last high pressure report I am going to write for a while. Alta started off the season great! big, consistent storms. However January and most of February we have been stuck under a massive high pressure ridge. One big storm snuck though in early January, but other than that our best days have been a quick refresher, some wind to smooth things out, and some legitimately great corn skiing. But come on! This is […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | February 20, 2015 0 Comments
Alta Conditions Report – 100% Open If you have skied Alta, you know how sweet the terrain is! However, due to the high level of awesomeness of said terrain, often avalanche danger or low snow may not allow Alta to open everything for our skiing pleasure. Recently we have been graced with high pressure that has lasted for well over a month. We have had a few nice quick hitting refresher storms, but avvy danger has remained low. With low danger and prolonged high […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | February 12, 2015 1 Comment
Alta Conditions Report – Rapid Refresh! With Junuary gone we are all hoping that our long dry spell is over. February started with a few small disturbances. Though the storms were small they were dense and we ended up with about an inch of water weight, at normal Utah densities that would be about 10-20 inches of snow!It looks like we are in for a couple more refreshers this weekend. Hopefully we can get a full pattern change and get some […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | February 6, 2015 0 Comments
Alta Conditions Report – Welcome to Junuary! Welcome to Junuary, where it’s sunny and 55 degrees at 8000ft! The snow is nice and soft on all but high north faces and there are onsies abound. Many thinner ridgelines have lost some snow due to wind and sun, but East faces (ie Backside) are skiing great in the morning, West great in the afternoon (ie West Rustler) and steep North faces (Hi Boy) are smooth, fast and […] Conditions Report Aaron Rice | January 27, 2015 0 Comments