American Avalanche Institute

by Adrienne Wilson on

Seems there’s an institute for everything these days and even though the
American Avalanche Institute has been around since 1974 with over 8,000 outdoor enthusiasts and professionals
having attended AAI, I’m still pretty surprised that something
like this exists for avalanches. I thought it was one of those things you just have to hurry and get out of dodge if at
all possible, but it looks as if there may be some useful pointers and tips to evaluating a potential hazard.

Beginner’s can take part in the Level 1 Avalanche course which goes over basic information about weather, snowpack,
and terrain factors which contribute to avalanche hazard. Level 2 courses go more into detail on recording snowpit data
(snow strength, grain type and size, and temperature). The institute also offers a combination of both and a
course designed to help those looking to gain mountain guide certification.

Courses start early December this year and take place in
various locations over Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. If you’re planning you big ski trip for the winter you may want to
take one of the courses to gear up, get excited and most importantly be prepared.

Aerogel Apparel – Wolves with Blow Torches

by Erik Olsen on

An

interesting story about aerogels, thin slices of material that are filled with air and have an amazing capacity to
insulate. Aspen Aerogels makes the stuff and has been selling it to
everyone from Boeing (who uses it to insulate turbines), the government (for Apache helicopters to foil the navigation
systems of incoming heat-seeking missiles) and, most importantly, apparel makers. A demo of the material had the
company’s CEO hitting one side of the fabric with a blow torch while the other side remained cool to the touch. The
technology is actually quite old, dating back to 1931, but
the widespread number of uses it creating all sorts of interesting opportunities. In the case of
ski apparel, imagine yourself skiing the backcountry and being
attacked by a pack of wolves or grizzly bears with blow torches. Instead of screaming and writhing as you are burned to
death, you can simply kick back and smile as the wild animals try their best to flambe you. Gotta love new
technology.

Lifelist Intro – New Feature

by Erik Olsen on

Are there things in life that you’ve always dreamed of doing, that you
told yourself with utter seriousness: I will do that someday? If so, then you have started your life list. It may be
just in your head for now, but the fact is, you’ve started a list of things that will make your life more fulfilling,
more adventuresome. That’s a good first step.

Now we want to help.

In the spirit of the grandfather of life-lists, John
Goddard, we are beginning a feature called Lifelist. Every week or so we’ll choose one great adventure and do some
of the research for you. We’ll help you discover new ideas, find outfitters, stories and everything else we can, to
help you build your own life list. Ever said you were going to climb
Aconcagua, scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, learn
Arabic, BASE jump some high rocky place? So have we.

We hope too that this will be a collaborative effort, so if you have items on YOUR lifelist that you’d like us to
include, send us tips or post comments. Also, if you’ve ever done any of the things on the lifelist items we feature,
tell us. We’d love to hear about it, and to get some dialogue going.  As we progress, we hope you add these babies
to YOUR lifelist and start knocking them off, one by one.

Ski Chile – Thermas de Chillan and Ski Arpa

by Erik Olsen on

Coupla times here we’ve blogged about the skiing in Chile, so why not do so again. After all, it is winter down
there right now, and the slopes are open and welcoming. Chile is one of my favorite countries in the world. I lived
there for a year some time ago and consider it one of the best times of my life. When winter rolled around, I took a
few trips down south of Santiago to do some skiing and found the raw open splendor of the Andes a terrific contrast to
the often over-crowded, over commercialized (and over-priced) resorts in the US.

This article in the
Globe and
Mail takes on two places in Chile. The first is an area that I confess I’d never heard of before. Called
Ski Arpa, this little area is owned by Toni Sponar, an Austrian skier who used
the money he’d saved working as a ski instructor in Aspen, Colo., to buy the property where his little resort now
stands. There are no lifts at Ski Arpa. You get up the mountain on two Sno-Cats that haul your a$$ uphill to wherever
you want to go. Talk about mobility.

The other place mentioned is Thermas de Chillan, which I
have skied. It’s a fine little area, perhaps not as well-developed as
Portillo or other places, but that’s the key to its charm.
There’s still time to buy your ticket and hit the slopes, so if you’re jonseing for some snow, check it out.

Cool or Lame: Jeremy Bloom Video on Outside

by Erik Olsen on

Yes, it’s time for another edition of Cool or Lame, a gadling feature whereby we consider an issue, article or media
item and ask: is it cool or is it lame. Today, we have
a very quick video produced for Outside
Magazine about free-style skier Jeremy Bloom. I watched it, and then I rewatched it and, um, well…I guess I thought
this was really lame. I mean, wouldn’t a short film about a skier show the skier skiing? And what’s with all the flips?
Let alone the skinny-dipping scene. I wanted to like it, but
this
thing has the feel of a really bad 1970s porno film for acrobats.