Boat Hull Design for 2015 Atomic Bent Chetler The 2015 Atomic Bent Chetler will have a bit of a boat hull style tip. Chris Benchetler, the ski’s designer, was inspired by a Rob Machado (pro surfer from San Diego, CA) surfboard design: “It [the 2015 Bent Chetler] was inspired from a surf board that I saw Rob Machado had shaped. He took a standard short board thruster, and basically […] Gear SnowBrains | January 17, 2014 0 Comments
10-Seconds of Chris Benchetler in Japan Right Now Chris Benchetler is currently up in Hokkaido, Japan skiing pow and jumping off goofy pillows. This is Chris’ normal method of operation: Japan in January. He’s been going there for years and he finds a lot of inspiration in that land of powder snow. We love the Nimbus video shorts and […] SnowBrains | January 17, 2014 0 Comments
Shaun White Take Vicious Fall at Olympic Qualifiers… & Clinches U.S. Olympic Slopestyle Spot skip to 1:05:26 to see Shaun’s heinous crash “White was trying a double flip on the second big jump of his opening run when he crashed. He stayed on the ground for a minute or two and was attended to by medical staff before he made his way down the mountain under his own power.” – AP […] Crash SnowBrains | January 17, 2014 0 Comments
Friday Fun: Mike Wilson’s Railslide + BASE Jump Mike Wilson should move to Hollywood and become a stunt man. The things he does just aren’t possible for anyone but him. He somehow pulls off feats that make no sense to mortal man and he does it unscathed. One of his latest stunts was a Railslide BASE Jump. How you feasibly do that? We don’t know. You just have to watch the video. For their new movie, “Mutiny,” Stept Productions and skier Mike Wilson came up with a seemingly crazy concept: a handrail to ski BASE jump off of the Perrine bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho, one of America’s only bridges you can legally BASE jump off. Shout […] SnowBrains | January 17, 2014 1 Comment
The Island that has it all: Views, Beaches, and 1.8 million gallons of Agent Orange! | Brain Post The Johnston Atoll is certainly pushing its way up on the travel list. Located westward of the Hawaiian Islands, the atoll looks like any normal atoll Brains SnowBrains | January 17, 2014 1 Comment
NOAA Declares “Extreme Drought” in California | January-April Precipitation Forecast is Below Average… NOAA has declared “Extreme Drought” in California which is the highest level of drought there is. California just experienced its driest Calendar Year in 119 years of record keeping. This drought is the result of a persistent ridge of high pressure sitting over California blocking all storms from entering California. This high pressure ridge has been blocking California since January 2013. […] SnowBrains | January 17, 2014 0 Comments
NASA: Sierra Nevada Snow Coverage Jan. 2013 VS. Jan. 2014 Even NASA isn’t stoked on California’s snow coverage right now. They just took a photo of the Sierra Nevada mountain range this January versus last January. The difference is shocking… We are having one helluva dry year this year. […] Weather SnowBrains | January 16, 2014 2 Comments
Chalk, Powder, and Flips @ Alta, UT: Conditions Update and Photo Tour While the West Coast is off to a slow start, and California continues to lack any signs of snow whatsoever, the conditions at Alta are absolutely ripping. With 40 inches of blower snow in the past week and cold temps the coverage is great and the snow is holding up fantastically. Patrol opened the Bad News Cliffs for the first time since the storm, which led to plenty of fresh turns and deep landings. […] Conditions Report SnowBrains | January 16, 2014 1 Comment
Jackson Hole Video Conditions Update Brought to You By Tahoe Massive It’s no secret, the conditions at Jackson have been pretty good the past couple of weeks. Here we bring you a video conditions update from the Tahoe Massive crew. Joining in on the Tahoe Exodus, Henry Holdsworth, Andrew Albertson, Chris Shredwards, and Buddy Bader made it out to Jackson just in time for the deep. If you’re still in Tahoe, it’s time to get on the road! You can follow the Tahoe Massive crew by searching the various social medias with #tahoemassive. […] Conditions Report SnowBrains | January 16, 2014 0 Comments
Some Avalanche Beacons OFF By Up to 1+ Meters in Deep Burials Recently, We’ve come across an explanation from BeaconReviews.com of how some types of avalanche beacons, during deep burials, could lead you to probe up to a meter or more away from the actual victim. It has to do with signal spikes from the flux lines of the transceiver. “The distance between the strongest signal and the transmitter is based on the orientation of the two transceivers and the depth of the burial […] Avalanche Bevan Waite | January 16, 2014 1 Comment
Red Flag Fire Warning for California Right Now… This isn’t a great sign. Our winter is going backwards. Right now, there is a Red Flag Fire Warning for California from 8am Thursday until 9am Friday. This is the kind of situation that we generally only see in Summer and Fall when things are bone dry and the winds are offshore. Yet, that’s exactly what we’re experiencing in mid-January. Lame. On the bright side, this has been the best Fall/Winter of surf in NorCal in recent memory. Swell is up, winds are offshore, and tubes are plentiful.[…] SnowBrains | January 16, 2014 2 Comments
North Korea Ski Resort Open | Dennis Rodman Has Been There | CNN Video/Report: On my arrival at Masik on Jan 12th who was I to immediately run into but Dennis Rodman!,” wrote Cockerell. The former NBA star was visiting the resort after his much-publicized and controversial basketball match to mark Kim Jong Un’s […] Industry News SnowBrains | January 16, 2014 0 Comments
BBC’s Winter Olympics Trailer Is Totally Over the Top Um… Hey, lady, yeah, that’s not how you carry skis… The BBC made this 2014 Winter Olympics trailer and it’s preposterous. The voice in the clip is British actor Charles Dance, who is famous for his role as Tywin Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones. This trailer has people who don’t know how to carry skis and who don’t really look like athletes going up against Mt. Doom. The best part is listening to […] Olympics SnowBrains | January 16, 2014 1 Comment
Four Snowboarders Sue Alta Ski Resort Using 14th Amendment You did just read the title right… A 501(c3) pendng group (Not for Profit) has just filed suit against Alta Ski Lifts Company and their policy that has banned snowboarders from accessing their lifts. The entire 4 person group who has started a not for profit entitled Wasatch Equality are all listed as plaintiffs in the suit filed in the Utah District Court. Read the whole lawsuit here. Rick Alden, Drew Hicken, Bjorn Leines and Richard Varga believe that Alta’s ban on Snowboarding violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized […] Featured Article Kyler Roush | January 15, 2014 14 Comments
Sounds Good Video We came across this video from Last Frontier Heliskiing this week and we thought it was kinda cool. It’s all the sounds of a heliski operation edited together into a sort of ski/music piece. Sounds good to us. Heliskiing always goes down smooth, especially somewhere in Northern BC. Enjoy… D’Arcy McLeish | January 15, 2014 0 Comments
Sun Valley, Idaho Conditions Report: Fresh Pow Over the Weekend Like many resorts on the west coast, the ski season is off to a slow start here in Sun Valley, but the conditions have been surprisingly good. Thanks to one of the most sophisticated snowmaking systems in the world, while the surrounding area has been dry and brown, we have been skiing over 3000 vertical feet of good quality snow since early December. The majority of the mountain was open before we received any significant snowfall, and last weekend a winter storm finally arrived to bless us with much-needed new snow. With Baldy […] Conditions Report Michael Dunning | January 15, 2014 0 Comments
East Vail Chutes Avy Victim, Tony Siebert, Tribute Video 2.0 24-year-old Tony Siebert died in an avalanche in the East Vail Chutes on January 7th, 2014. Tony was the grandson of Vail founder Peter Seibert. He will be greatly missed. This is a tribute video to Tony. Tony was a ripper. This video proves it. I had the opportunity to hang out and film with Tony Seibert in the Vail backcountry a few years back. His spirited charisma and hunger for life is something that I will always remember. This is what was captured from that day… – Dave Phelps […] Avalanche SnowBrains | January 15, 2014 0 Comments
VIDEO: Sherpa Cinema + Bella Coola “Bella Coola first appeared in major ski films nearly a decade ago. But the Shangri-La of ski terrain has been off the radar in recent years despite its incredible dramatic terrain, aesthetic lines, and deep snowpack. Sherpas Cinema dropped in to Bella Coola last year to film Into The Mind […] SnowBrains | January 15, 2014 0 Comments
A Rite of Passage Ends… | Taos to Build Kachina Peak Chairlift Today I was stricken with some sad news that hit very close to home and very close to my heart. As I was going through my normal routine of school followed by ski industry news feeds followed by more school I came across news that made feel somewhat empty inside. This was the news on the Taos Ski Valley website that they have announced plans to build a chair lift this upcoming summer to legendary Kachina Peak. I almost could not […] Featured Article Ryan Mulcahy | January 15, 2014 11 Comments
12,481′ Kachina Peak Chairlift To Be Built at Taos, NM Taos ski resort in New Mexico has just officially announced that they will be building a chairlift to access their 12,481-foot Kachina Peak. Up to this point, Kachina has been hike to terrain. There will certainly be mixed feelings from locals. Some will wish Kachina stays the way it is to preserve powder, others will be stoked to be able to lap Kachina’s terrific terrain. Taos has always been owned and […] Industry News SnowBrains | January 15, 2014 2 Comments