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Culture
Looking Further
Looking Further
Forrest Shearer talks Further in Denver last week. Photo by Johnny GreenhamA preview of the Jeremy Jones snowboarding film Further, slated for release in 2012, brought a crowd to Denver’s Patagonia store last Wednesday night. Snowboarder Forrest Shearer—who also appeared in Deeper, Jones’s first human-powered snowboarding film—introduced the Teton Gravity Research trailer and two webisodes filmed in Japan and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Watch the Further trailer here, and it’s pretty obvious that the boundaries of backcountry adventure will be pushed once more next fall. In Japan, high winds and sketchy weather conditions challenged the TGR crew. In Wyoming, Jimmy…...
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Culture
Tasting Rum at High Altitude
Tasting Rum at High Altitude
Karen Hoskin pours a rum cocktail. Photo by Dave CoxI duck out of a summer thunderstorm’s icy rain and into the Montanya Distillers tasting room in Silverton, Colorado, a mining-come-tourist town that’s over a century old. The tasting room is small, and the odors of artisan cocktail ingredients—lemons, blueberries, and almonds—greet us as we pull the door shut. We sit at a round table, joining a room containing a mixture of long-time locals and out-of-towners like us. Montanya Distillers makes two varieties of rum: the clear Platino and the saffron-colored Oro. We visit the tasting room every…...
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Bike
The Dirt On Cyclocross
The Dirt On Cyclocross
The middle of October is the thick of cyclocross season. If you’re new to the sport, picture this: Riders on road bikes with knobby tires race around a circuit covering grass, sand, mud, road, and the occasional singletrack—with barriers thrown in for good measure. For an insider’s perspective on cyclocross, Mountain caught up with Georgia Gould of Team Luna Chix. The pro cyclist won the 2010 US national mountain bike championship, and races cyclocross in the off-season. After the US Gran Prix of Cyclocross series stop, The New Belguim Cup, in her hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado, she’s ranked…...
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Culture
Catch Him If You Can
Catch Him If You Can
Chris Davenport in California’s Sierra. Photo by Christian Pondella/Red Bull Content PoolDown days don’t come around often for Chris Davenport. If the ski mountaineer isn’t on the steeps—at home in Colorado, around North America, or in Europe, South America, and Antarctica—then he’s writing and researching books, giving interviews, and making appearances for films and sponsors. Even in October, the brief shoulder season between winter in the Southern and Northern hemispheres, Davenport’s schedule spans multiple continents. Mountain caught up with him at home in Aspen last week while he was driving skis to the local shop to get mounted. …...
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Culture
Tram Talk in the Wasatch
Tram Talk in the Wasatch
Photo by Michael Brown / SolitudeOne day last February, a simple lack of parking denied access to the four resorts in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons—Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, and Solitude. The two-lane roads closed to uphill traffic, and skiers and snowboards that hit the snooze button missed a day on snow. Every parking space in the canyons was flat out occupied. “That was the first time I can remember that happening,” says Ski Utah president Nathan Rafferty. “The ski areas weren’t too crowded. And that’s an important distinction. There was plenty of room on the hill, but no more parking.”…...
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Bike
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Culture
Bottoms Up in Breckenridge
Bottoms Up in Breckenridge
Where the magic happens: The Breckenridge Distillery still. Photo by Olivia Dwyer Outside the downtown Riverwalk Center, Breckenridge was dark, quiet, and covered in snow. Inside, 17 distillers served last call drinks to a rosy-cheeked, garrulous crowd. I was nursing a Breckenridge Distillery spiced rum (available in November) at the second annual Still on the Hill craft spirits festival. I listened as two industry vets filled me in on the rise of high-altitude distilleries. Craft brewing has been booming for a decade. The newest trend is handcrafted spirits, made in the mountains, designed for sipping solo, or mixing into…...
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Bike
Ski Towns Rebrand, Attract Cyclists
Ski Towns Rebrand, Attract Cyclists
Photo by Aaron H. Bible, click to enlarge. See more at ahbmedia.com.Ski towns historically empty when the lifts stop turning for the season. Crowds leave, hotels go vacant—local restaurants and bars even close their doors in the off-season. But that trend is changing. High country communities like Steamboat, Colorado are welcoming cyclists and a bustling summer season with open arms. It makes sense. Mountain towns stay cool during the summer months, a perfect retreat when temperatures soar. Then there are the numbers to consider: According to the National Ski Areas Association, there are roughly 10 million skiers and snowboarders.…...
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Culture
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry at Oktoberfest
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry at Oktoberfest
Killington’s 16th Annual Brewfest is this weekend. Photo courtesy of Killington ResortOktoberfest started 201 years ago when a party celebrating the marriage of a Bavarian crown prince expanded into a two-week beer drinking, umm, festival. Attend Oktoberfest in Munich today and you’ll drink at picnic-style tables under brewery-sponsored tents that can hold up to 7,000 people. Traditionally you’d be waited on by girls in low-cut dirndls carrying five steins in each hand. Also, don’t let the name mislead you—Oktoberfest traditionally takes place in September to capitalize on warmer nights (see low cut dirndl). But there’s no need to cross an…...
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Culture
V.I.O. Team Makes POV Footage Worth Watching
V.I.O. Team Makes POV Footage Worth Watching
The Internet is flooded with user-generated POV video—everything from pro athletes showing what their day looks like to shaky footage of beginner skiers snowplowing their way to YouTube glory. In a move to separate itself from other POV camera manufacturers, V.I.O. recently announced its first team of athletes and filmmakers, who use the company’s POV.HD video system to produce high-quality footage. The athlete list includes big mountain heavy hitters like skier Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and snowboarder Xavier de Le Rue. Another new team member is Matt Hobbs, a filmmaker with Vital Films in Aspen, Colorado. Vital started by making…...
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Culture
Gore-Tex Active Shell Launch Party
Gore-Tex Active Shell Launch Party
Putting the new Gore-Tex Active Shell to the test Wednesday night in Seattle. Photo by Swae Photography (http://www.swae.biz)On Wednesday in Seattle, W.L. Gore & Associates teamed up with the Cascade branch of the American Alpine Club to celebrate the launch of their new material, Gore-Tex Active Shell. The new products are designed for high-output aerobic activities like adventure racing, alpine climbing, and mountain biking. In keeping with the “fast and light” spirit of the night, alpine climber Colin Haley gave a 10-minute slideshow, then the crowd tested new waterproof jackets under an indoor rain tank, enjoyed the local libations,…...
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Culture
Simon Dumont Throws First Pitch at Fenway
Simon Dumont Throws First Pitch at Fenway
Simon Dumon is accustomed to the spotlight, but he’s usually dropping in rather than winding up. Known as one of the best halfpipe skiers in the world, Dumont owns eight X Games medals and a visionary segment (see below) in Grand Bizarre,” this year’s film from Poor Boyz Productions. But last Friday night, Dumont was the center of attention for an entirely different reason: The native of Bethel, Maine, who skis for Sunday River and is a lifelong Red Sox fan, was tapped to throw out the first pitch in Boston’s Fenway Park before the Red Sox took on the…...
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Culture
From “Bombs Away” to Words on a Page
From “Bombs Away” to Words on a Page
A memoir from Kim Kircher (right) will be available in October. Photos courtesy of Behler Publications Kim Kircher is a ski patroller who throws explosives and calls “Bombs away!” from a helicopter, and an EMT who has saved lives. But it is her skill with the written word that is on display in her first book, The Next 15 Minutes: Strength From the Top of the Mountain, coming in October. The memoir begins at her husband’s diagnosis with bile duct cancer and traces the ordeal of treatment and waiting for a liver transplant. Kircher forges her way through the crisis by…...
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Bike
SufferFest: 48 Hours of Neophyte Journalism
SufferFest: 48 Hours of Neophyte Journalism
The starting line at the Caribou Classic on Saturday morning. More photos from the ride below. Photos by Gavin Gibson For most people, Friday is the best workday of the week. A day to leave the office early or spend most of the day skirting around work and talk about the upcoming weekend. For an editorial intern at Mountain magazine, Friday is basically a crapshoot. I arrive to work at 8:15 a.m. groggy from some heavy testing of Breckenridge Distillery’s bourbon. Conclusion? It works. It tastes even better. I begin my morning ritual of sending out emails and making phone…...
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Culture
Subscribe and Donate
Subscribe and Donate
“I miss the water.” It’s a standard refrain for those of us here at Mountain magazine that grew up or came of age in the Adirondacks, Green Mountains, and White Mountains of Northern New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire (about half of our company). It’s not the ocean we’re talking about. Here, in the dry foothills of Colorado, we miss the north country rope swings and secret swimming holes, backyard brooks and mill town rivers, the flyfishing streams and whitewater rapids. And we miss the predictable rain that feeds them all and makes the corn sweet and the hills verdant—the…...
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Culture
Homemade Ice Cream, Explained
Homemade Ice Cream, Explained
Make your own red wine, vanilla/cardamom ice cream, or green chile pistachio ice cream (clockwise from front). Photo by Dave CoxNothing reminds me of the absolute bliss of the coming winter while still basking in the glow of a glorious summer more than good ice cream. It’s like a powder day in a dish. And I would argue that no one can touch the homemade stuff—not Ben, not Jerry, not Daryl, not his other brother Daryl. Here’s how I started and where I’m at: Hardware: As much as I longed nostalgically for an old hand-cranked ice and rock salt mill,…...
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Culture
Wild & Scenic Cinematography
Wild & Scenic Cinematography
It’s Friday night, and the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival is in town. The lights are dimmed at Neptune Mountaineering, an outdoor shop in Boulder. Sierra Nevada beer flows, and the Colorado Mountain Club is recruiting new members from a crowd dressed in performance fabrics and shod in Chaco sandals. Nine films, ranging a mix of shorts less than 10 minutes long and two longer features, fire the imagination, whet the wanderlust, and stoke activist leanings. When the lights come up we spill into the dark parking lot, full of inspiration for the next adventure and interrupting each other…...
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Bike
Sideline, and Rooftop, Impressions of the Pro Cycling Challenge
Sideline, and Rooftop, Impressions of the Pro Cycling Challenge
Racers in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge race by the crowds in Breckenridge Saturday afternoon. Photo by Sydney FoxMy road bike is reserved for training rides to get in miles when the singletrack is too wet or I need some major hours in the saddle, but it’s through mountain bike races that I’ve realized the excitement level associated with high-caliber races. Sharing a trail with some of the best riders in the world is an experience that can’t fully be communicated with words, and for most of the summer I’ve been looking forward to having a taste of that in…...
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