First Turns
I made my first turns of the season on opening day at Snowbird and I began my investigation into whether or not Utah actually has The Greatest Snow on Earth ® as the state’s trademarked motto claims. It’s an investigation that I will work long and hard — even on weekends — to complete.
It’s going to be a rough winter.
I hit the hill with Matthew Karsten of Expert Vagabond, who was crashing at our house for a couple of weeks before taking off to Fiji, where he is now. We were super lucky that we were able to snag Matthew a demo board from Niche Snowboards with the help of Steve Weiss, their social media manager.
It was a Thursday, so the hill wasn’t too crowded and the lines weren’t too long even though there were really only two lifts open (I’m not counting the bunny hill). The wait was never more than a couple of minutes and everyone was chatting happily in the lift line, excited about the awesome conditions and beginning of another ski season.
Snowbird had received more than 50 inches of snow in the preceding weeks so, although many of the runs were groomed, we were able to find some nice powder runs on the fringes of the open part of the mountain, and that’s where we spent most of our day.
We also spent a lot of time taking photos and videos. Matthew put together this awesome video from the day.
The Best Season of Our Lives
It was a great opening day, and a good omen for things to come. I’ve been working like a crazy man for the past two months on a ski and snowboard campaign for this winter. I can’t say too much yet because all the details aren’t finalized, but the campaign will take Emilie and I to at least a dozen of the best ski resorts in the western United States during the season.
It’s going to be the best season of our lives.
To make things even better, we have some big sponsors and we are going to be doing some epic giveaways.The grand prize will be thousands of dollars in top notch technical outdoors apparel from an industry-leading manufacturer.
As we travel from hill to hill we’ll be giving away smaller prizes to people we meet and trying to decide which are the best ski hills and ski towns in the Western United States.
To do that, we’re going to have polls on the website and are going to be trying to meet up with as many locals as possible to give them free swag and interview them about what makes a mountain great, what they look for in a ski town, and find out what tips they have for visitors to their own town.
We don’t have all our hills and dates finalized yet, so I haven’t been able to put up a full schedule, but we are definitely going to be in Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee in mid-December. So, if you’re in the area and would like to meet up to tell us your thoughts, or even just to make some turns on the hill, leave me a message in the comments below or on my Facebook page.
Stay tuned for more info! An official announcement of the campaign is coming soon!
BEST GEAR DEALS ONLINE
Hi Matt,
Love your site! You have some great stories and amazing photographs. If you’re ever interested in entering any of them with BarrelHopping, we have ongoing contests where you can win cash and will get exposure to your site. Check us out when you have time and safe travels!