Las Lenas, Argentina CLOSES Three Weeks Early Las Lenas ski resort in Argentina is closed for the season. Today was their last day. This closure is 3 weeks earlier than they planned on close. Las Lenas usually stays open until mid-October. That said, Las Lenas hasn’t had enough snow to stay open until mid-October is years. Lenas nearly closed on September 8th this year. They had a very rough season with no snow and lots of heat before a big storm rolled in in early September and extended the season by 2 weeks. Thanks Mother Nature. September 4th, 2014 was the best day of the […] Industry News SnowBrains | September 21, 2014 0 Comments
30 Summits & 1 Death on K2 This Past Weekend: Over this past weekend, 30 people (including 3 Americans) summited 28,251-foot K2. This is an impressive amount of summits considering K2 has only ever seen around 300 summits ever. K2 is the most difficult mountain to climb on Earth as well as Earth’s second tallest mountain. Unfortunately, this past weekend K2 also took it’s first life of the season. Miguel Alvarez, a 46-year-old Spanish climber, was found […] Climbing SnowBrains | August 1, 2014 6 Comments
Las Lenas Conditions Report: Riding the Famous “Torrecillas” Our reporters in Las Lenas, Argentina have been getting after it. On July 20th, 2014, they went after the famous zone of Torrecillas. It’s about a 2 hour hike and well worth it. The snow looks like it was smooth and OK but not perfect and that didn’t slow these guys down at all. Make sure to skip to 1:43 to watch Adria’s line. This kid has been going off lately. Again, this snow isn’t perfect, but the guy throws a huge 360 in a sketchy spot, then hucks a peppery nasty blind cliff and makes it all look easy. We really hope it snows in Las Lenas this year simply […] Conditions Report SnowBrains | July 30, 2014 0 Comments
Season in Avalanche Statistics and Trends This season has been strange; the weather patterns (can they really be called patterns?) kept even the best weather shamans guessing. Long periods of clear dry weather throughout the West were punctuated by occasional storms burying weak layers within the snowpack. These layers have been especially treacherous […] Avalanche Chaz Diamond | March 18, 2014 2 Comments
Final Winter Olympic Medal Count @ Sochi, Russia 2014 The 2014 Sochi, Russia Winter Olympics have come to a close. There were some fantastic moments and more than just a few heartbreaking ones. Just athletes from Lake Tahoe pulled in 4 Olympic medals this year (3 golds, one bronze). The US of A brought home 28 medals (9 gold, 7 silver, 12 […] SnowBrains | February 24, 2014 0 Comments
South Lake Tahoe’s Jamie Anderson Wins GOLD in Snowboard Slopestyle 23-year-old South Lake Tahoe, CA native Jamie Anderson won gold in women’s snowboard slopestyle over the weekend. She smoothly landed two huge 720s in her run, setting her apart from the other competitors. Jamie completed an American sweep of snowboard slopestyle after Sage Kotsenburg won the men’s gold medal. This was the first ever Olympics to include snowboard slopestyle. […] SnowBrains | February 10, 2014 0 Comments
Shaun White Bails Out of Olympic Slopestyle Competition “After much deliberation with my team, I have made the decision to focus solely on trying to bring home the third straight gold medal in halfpipe for Team USA. The difficult decision to forego slopestyle is not one I take lightly as I know how much effort everyone has put into holding the slopestyle event for the first time in Olympic history, a history I had planned on being a part of. However, with the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get […] SnowBrains | February 6, 2014 1 Comment
US Olympic Ski Team Announced | Congrats to Squaw Valley’s Travis Ganong! Congratulations to all the skiers announced to the US Olympic Ski Team for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia. We want to send a special shout out to our friend and fellow Squaw ripper Travis Ganong. Travis made the US Ski Team’s World Cup Team this year for the first time as well as the […] Miles Clark | January 27, 2014 0 Comments
USA Olympic Uniforms Are Ugly: There’s no two ways about it. The USA Olympic Uniforms for Sochi are ugly. These are the outfits that our athletes will be wearing at the opening ceremonies next month in Sochi, Russia. These new uniforms were just unveiled last week on the Today Show with Matt Lauer. The uniforms were designed by Ralph Lauren and made in America (Ralph Lauren’s 2012 London Olympic uniforms were made in China). In our opinion: yeah, they aren’t great, but we’d sure as hell love to be one of the people fortunate enough to wear one. Go team USA! […] SnowBrains | January 27, 2014 3 Comments
US Olympic Freeskiing Slopestyle and Halfpipe Teams Announced: After two weeks of competition at Park City, the US Olympic Freeskiing slopestyle and halfpipe teams have been announced. These 11 athletes make up four teams, the U.S. Olympic men’s and women’s slopestyle and halfpipe teams. For the 2014 Winter Olympics ski halfpipe and slopestyle were added to the winter sports competition. […] Olympics Chaz Diamond | January 23, 2014 2 Comments
USA to Send Warships to Russian Olympics for Athlete Extraction: Security will be a major concern at the Sochi Olympics next month. The USA Government isn’t going to take any chances with its top winter athletes. They’re sending several warships and aircraft to Russia as a way to remove American athletes if anything gets weird. […] Olympics SnowBrains | January 22, 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
Lindsey Vonn Will NOT Compete in 2014 Winter Olympics | Another Surgery Scheduled It’s official, Lindsey Vonn will not compete in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Lindsey will undergo her second knee surgery this season and she doesn’t forecast skiing on the World Cup until February 2015. That means that she will have been injured and out of the World Cup racing scene for 2 years before she comes back. I don’t picture Lindsey dominating fully next year on the World Cup. She’ll be smarter, take it easy, and get back to her full potential. In 2016, it’ll be a different story. If Lindsey can stay healthy, watch our for her in 2016. […] Industry News Miles Clark | January 7, 2014 3 Comments
Private Jet Plane Crash in Aspen, CO Kills One, Injures Two A private jet plane, a Canadair CL600, crashed and burst into flames while trying to land at the Aspen, Colorado airport yesterday, Sunday, January 5th, 2013. The flight had come from Toluca, Mexico and was carrying two co-pilots and one pilot. One of the co-pilots, a Mexican national, was unfortunately killed in the crash. The plane was attempting a landing at the Aspen airport the plane ran off the right side of the runway, flipped over, […] SnowBrains | January 6, 2014 1 Comment
Russia Releases “Snowboard Money” | 100-Ruble Note To commemorate the 2014 Sochi, Russia Winter Olympics Russia has created a 100-ruble note that has a snowboarder getting big air, smiling, saying “broooo”, and pulling off an old school grab. The boarder is flying through the air over what appears to be some of the Olympic stadiums in Sochi? On the back of the note is Fisht Olympic Stadium. 100 rubles is about $3 USD. […] Olympics SnowBrains | November 19, 2013 2 Comments
Atomic’s “We Are Skiing” 2014 Video: Atomic skis have dominated the world cup of ski racing for years. Now, they are dominating the world of big mountain skiing and freeskiing. Atomic makes good skis, some of the best and they know it. To show you they know it, they made this video showcasing Atomic athletes doing what they do best: charging hard on skis. Atomic (officially Atomic Austria GmbH) is an […] SnowBrains | October 22, 2013 0 Comments
Top 10 Park Skis of 2014 Park skis are an big piece of any park oriented human’s quiver. If you love park, you’ve gotta have a park ski and an all mountain ski. What’s great is that there is a blurring of this line. One of our guys here at SnowBrains uses his all mountain ski in the park as well. One less ski to carry around with ya. What do you think about this list? Any skis missing from here that you trust in the park? To read the full reviews of the ski below, just hit the links: […] SnowBrains | October 18, 2013 1 Comment
Top 10 All Mountain Skis of 2014 Freeskier Magazine has ranked the top 10 All Mountain Skis for 2014. They go through an extensive testing process with many skiers testing to come up with these rankings. To learn more about their testing proceedure, please visit: Freeskier Ski Testing Procedure An All Mountain ski is a key piece of gear. You’ve got to have an All Mountain ski. Here at SnowBrains, we believe that you can get almost everything done with […] SnowBrains | October 10, 2013 3 Comments
2014 Rahlves Banzai Tour Schedule: Kirkwood, Squaw, Alpine, Sugar Bowl Truckee, Calif. (Sept 11, 2013) – Rahlves’ Banzai Tour presented by Bank of the West is back. The 2014 Rahlves’ Banzai Tour stops at four Lake Tahoe resorts next winter—Feb. 8 through Mar. 16 at Kirkwood Mountain Resort, Squaw Valley, Alpine Meadows, and finishing with the Finals and Super Final at Sugar Bowl Resort. “There is no other race like this in the world,” says Daron Rahlves, former World Champion, X-Games Champ, 4-time Olympian, Sugar Bowl Resort ambassador, […] SnowBrains | September 18, 2013 2 Comments
2014 USA Olympic Freeskiing Athlete Nominees Announced | Halfpipe & Slopestyle Freeskiing in Sochi The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia will feature Slopestyle and Halfpipe skiing for the first time. This is a huge turnaround as only snowboarding was given to privilege before. The USA has a fierce freeskiing squad that will have a few favorites to win it all. Tahoe skier David Wise from Reno, Nevada is a clear favorite to bring home […] Olympics SnowBrains | August 7, 2013 1 Comment
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