Telluride ski blog

Sweetgrass Productions 12 part web series ‘On The Road With SOLITAIRE’ continues with Episode 6, End of the Line. Not much skiing in this episode as the crew including Telluride local Kim Havell attempt to travel through Bolivia’s Badlands train hopping to ski volcanoes, unfortunately not running into much luck along the way. The only skiing is on some of the most heinous conditions I have seen, dagger-like ice called Penitentes. No thanks…

Kim Havell Navigating the Penitentes

The footage is both incredibly beautiful yet tough to watch at points, showing the pain and struggles that come along with such a mission.

The poetic storytelling is signature Sweetgrass style and the cinematography is unique and amazing as always! Looking forward to see them push for the volcano in the next episode dropping June 21st…

This 15 minute short film from The North Face follows a diverse crew from different disciplines climbing and skiing Denali. It will be screening this weekend at the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival…

“Free-ride skier Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and big mountain snowboarder Lucas Debari step out of their elements and make an attempt to climb, ski and snowboard Denali. Sage and Lucas get a helping hand from a huge cast of seasoned and professional climbers and ski mountaineers from the North Face Athlete Team, including Hilaree O’Neill, Conrad Anker, Ingrid Backstrom, Jim Zellers, Emilio Previtali and Giulia Monego, as the two embark on the hardest expedition of their lives.”

Awesome seeing Sage and Lucas humbled by this expedition and successfully summiting the peak. Love the high-alpine jibbing sequences!

The film was directed by Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk, both highly accomplished climbers, mountaineers, and film makers. Jimmy Chin was the first American to climb and ski from the summit of Everest!

It appears as if this video was entered into some euro Oakley video contest by a group of Brits a few years back chronicling the history and progression of freestyle skiing. Starring Pat Sharples, this bro is video gold and really makes the video…funny narration at it’s best!

What I can’t figure out is how this edit only pulled 16th place, clearly it has winner stamped all over it! Nice work blokes…

Awesome video here from the 1974 Lange Cup in Sun Valley, Idaho…looked like quite the spring skiing party/race. The video is quite long at almost 14 minutes long, but includes a sweet soundtrack, some awesome parallel slalom racing, vintage gear, hang gliding, hot air balloons, and even a lovely lady ‘racing’ topless with just her race bib, not to be missed at the 9 minute mark!

NSFW Nip Slip!

Some of the other highlights include a dude racing in Wrangler jeans at the 2:45 mark…awesome style for sure, a hang gliding skier at the 7:05 mark…way ahead of its time, and of course the big victory for US Olympian Tyler Palmer, who in fact was the first American to ever win a World Cup in 1971!

So sit back, relax for 14 minutes(or just skip to the nip slip), and watch the way ski racing went down almost 40 years ago!

Didier Cuche finished his 17 year World Cup career by racing the final GS in Austria wearing vintage wool ski gear, wooden skis, poles and leather boots! It took him some time getting down the course, hugging fans and officials as he descended the course, finishing more than 2 minutes behind the race winner. It was obviously Cuche’s slowest World Cup time of his career…but he sure did it in style!

After crossing the finish line, he even performed his trademark ski flip with the old wooden skis! Really cool way to finish an amazing career.

Didier Cuche Rocking Vintage Gear for Final Race - Photo: Reuters

Didier Trying to Turn Those Wooden Sticks - Photo: Reuters

Cuche Being Hoisted By His Swiss Teammates For A Final Time - Photo: Reuters

Hot chicks and skiing are a winning combination and no one does it better than Lange. Sex sells and Bob Lange figured this out in the early 70′s with their … Read More

Today was an amazing, surprise powder day in Telluride with periods of blue skies in the morning and dumping snow in the afternoon.

After 1-5″ of new snow was forecast from this storm, more than a foot of fresh snow ended up falling on the mountain turning into one of the best days of the season! This afternoon was DEEP!

With Telluride’s base depth approaching 60 inches and recent storms coming in with no wind, the resort is skiing awesome right now with great coverage on the Gold Hill ridge and chutes and up the Palmyra ridgeline. Huge props to Patrol who have done an amazing job recently getting more and more terrain open and skiing safe.

We are currently in a great weather cycle and hopefully these storms keep rolling through the area. The San Juans are going off right now…

After weeks of no snow, unseasonably warm temps, and bullet-proof conditions…Telluride finally got dumped on! The last two days have been the best ski days in some time and morale is definitely up in the canyon. The forecast is helping as well with additional snow-fall leading us into the weekend…let’s hope winter sticks around for a while!

Brian enjoying the soft stuff

Bicknell taking a quick rest

Storm Day!

Too hot out for the Arizona sausage party

Things are looking up in Telluride with about 15 new inches of snow over the past few days, added terrain in the Chair 5 zone, and some beautiful sunny days … Read More

Jamie Pierre will forever be remembered as one of skiing’s big air pioneers, constantly raising the bar as to what was possible on skis. From HUGE cliff drops to crazy gaps like Chad’s Gap, Jamie was constantly pushing the level higher than most thought possible.  For TGR’s 2006 release “Anomaly” Jamie Pierre raised the bar about as high as it goes, dropping an unheard of 255 foot cliff in Grand Targhee, WY to set the record for biggest drop on skis.

This record ended up being broken a few years later when Fred Syverson dropped a 351 foot cliff UNINTENTIONALLY, but to most people Jamie is still the undisputed big cliff “Champion of the World!”

R.I.P. Jamie, you will be missed…