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