Pre-Skiing Exercises That Can Make Your Day On The Mountain Better and Safer Hitting the slopes is something every skier or rider dreams of each season and there are times when our bodies do not have the strength or stamina to stay out on the mountain as long as we want. It is the adage that our brains want us to do something, but our bodies are telling us ‘N0.’ Every skier or rider […] Brains Gregg Frantz | February 16, 2024 0 Comments
How to Wax Your Skis In 4 Simple Steps As the snow starts to fall in the western United States, it might be a good time to discuss how best to wax your skis or snowboard. Don’t know how to take care of your equipment? Do your friends ski past you all the time? Do you feel like you aren’t gliding weightlessly across a white ocean? We’ve got you […] Brains Greg Obernesser | October 7, 2023 0 Comments
What Are Suncups and How Do They Form? Perhaps you’ve trudged through them — the several-inch deep snow pockets that litter approaches during the late spring touring months. Complete with their miniature peaks and valleys like the mountains they reside on, the cups can range anywhere from a few inches to over two feet in depth. But what are suncups, how do they form, and where are they […] Brains Tate Sundberg | June 23, 2023 0 Comments
How Different Shapes of Snowflakes Determine Snow Quality Granular, Dip-n-dots, sleet, concrete, pins and needles, and of course, the blower pow. If you’re anything like myself, you’ve likely wondered at one point or another what causes so many different ski conditions, and how can you tell when it’s going to be best. Related: The Art & Science of Snowflakes For the passionate all-mountain skier, it’s no secret that […] Brains Tate Sundberg | June 6, 2023 1 Comment
Atmospheric Rivers: How They Work, and How El Niño and La Niña Affect Them This article was originally published on climate.gov When rivers reach the sky Guest co-author Dr. Kai-Chih Tseng is a postdoctoral research scientist at Princeton University and the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory who is an expert on climate variability and prediction, including the study of atmospheric rivers. In the summer of 2022, Dr. Tseng will begin an assistant professor position in the Department of Atmospheric […] Weather WeatherBrains | January 5, 2023 0 Comments
7 Ways to Up Your Game as a Resort Skier Resort skiing is awesome, no matter how you look at it. Chairlifts that float you up the mountainside, hot laps with friends, ski patrol doing all the work so you don’t have to worry about avalanches—skiing inbounds is a vibe, and if you’re like me, you might do it a lot. But if you’re also like me, then you’re constantly […] Brains Martin Kuprianowicz | December 7, 2022 6 Comments
Risk Taking in Extreme Sports | Why Do We Do Things That Could Kill or Injure Us? According to Psychology Today, some researchers define risk-taking as engaging in any activity with an uncertain outcome. It is indisputable that activities such as skiing, climbing, mountain biking, etc., are all somewhat extreme sports that involve an element of risk. These sports are extreme because the outcomes can be pretty dire and inflict severe injury or even death. Within the context of these […] Brains Greg Obernesser | September 30, 2022 6 Comments
How Does El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Affect Salmon? This article was originally published on climate.gov When we discuss the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (“ENSO” for short) at the blog, we often take a rather human or physics-y view of the climate phenomenon. We’ve published loads of articles discussing the mechanics for how ENSO works in the atmosphere and the ocean, and how ENSO impacts humans from droughts and wildfires […] Weather WeatherBrains | August 11, 2022 0 Comments