Posts Tagged utah
Snow Chicken in the House!
Posted by Snow Chicken in Mountains on December 27th, 2009
Ahhh yes, what the hell is a Snow Chicken anyway. So I started this marketing advising company, one-man shop, back in July. I was having trouble coming up with a name, I’m out on a mountain bike ride and get accosted by a strange bird. I go home and research said bird to find it is a Ptarmigan, often called Snow Chickens in Europe. The feisty little thing was about as intimidating as a kitten, but its persistence was truly inspiring. All things come together in this story to create Snow Chicken Stategic Mktg Communications. Anyone knowing me and my affinity for snowsports would know I immediately fell for the slang name of the Ptarmigan, and the tenacity the little bird displayed stayed with me for days. And so…Snow Chicken was born with a desire to create big brand voices (the Ptarmigan’s attitude) for company’s not packing huge budgets (the Ptarmigan’s physical stature).
So why do I fall into the “skid” classification? Paramount, I’ve not paid full retail for a mountain toy since I started living in Jackson Hole back in the day, and back in the day was 1993. Additionally, and I feel most importantly, I’ve always put lifestyle in front of career. I mean really, we are only here for a short time, why spend everyday tied to a chair all in the name of a few more bucks? Get out and play for crying out loud, the work will come.
In the name of getting out to play in the snow, I’ve been switching gears to winter sports the last few weeks. Just hung up the cyclocross bike after a cleaning last weekend and then threw a coat of wax on all the skate skis. So here is a piece of “Skid” advice for all Nordic skiers I’d like to give – ski in Round Valley this year. My wife and I deliberated over buying Whitepine Nordic passes this year for quite some time, and please – I’m not trying to take anything away from the Whitepine Nordic Center, they do a great job. Here are three reasons why Round Valley is a solid choice. First of all…it’s free. Second, you can take your dogs (don’t be a poop, pick up your dogs shit). Last, a new Piston-Bully grooming machine was purchased this year – with a little more snow we should see it out on the trails soon. Did I mention Round Valley is a very peaceful place in the winter?
See you in Round Valley.
Missing Park City Bigtime
I’m out here is Keystone, Colorado attending the MTS conference. Our posse skied Keystone Resort today, producing a very different vibe from what we are used to back home in Utah. We ate lunch in a local coffee shop/sandwich shop/full bar. Killer selection of single-malt whiskeys. This provided me with a sense of mountain culture shock, since you wouldn’t see a bar like that in Utah. The skiing at Keystone was pretty good, and once you got up into the upper reaches of the resort, you felt like you were really in the mountains. I’d say the base depth here is about half of what we currently have in Park City. The resorts here along the I-70 corridor rise up from the freeway like roadside attractions. I had an argument about this with a Utah native. On the one hand, it’s kind of lame when you see a sign for a resort town that says “Vail: next 3 exits.” Exits and onramps don’t really drive home the mountain town feeling. Slopeside lodging here means you are at the base, but you are a stone’s throw from the freeway. Good thing or bad thing? It certainly is impressive when driving by to see lifts and runs right there, whereas in Utah, at least the Cottonwood resorts are tucked away, up long and windy canyons. No eye candy. Meanwhile, back home in PC, it’s dumping lions and wolves, and all of my Skids correspondents are killing me with reports of 9″ here, 10″ there. We’ll ski Breck tomorrow and maybe Copper on Friday, then we’ll be Utah bound.
Recent Utah Snow Causes Bird Flu
Some friends on the other side of the Wasatch (Snowbird) forwarded the clever email below. Seems like the storm earlier this week caused a lot of sick days in Park City. Although the storm didn’t amount to as much as we all hoped, my theory is if you are not scraping what’s underneath, and your turns are buttery smooth, it’s still a powder day. Ummm. I mean, a sick day. This report comes from some ailing friends on the other side of the Wasatch. Credit must be given to Jeffrey Marmorstone for this real email to his boss explaining why he would not make it to work on the morning of another “sick” day:
SICK DAY: BIRD FLU
Mike,
I woke up this morning at 6:37 a.m. with a terrible headache. It was something fierce. And let me just say, I’ve had my fair share of intense headaches in the morning. After all, the liquor store is only three blocks from my house. But this one was serious. There was definitely something strange and weird happening in my noggin. It was debilitating and it was a major battle just to get out of bed. Lucky for me, the Insticare Clinic is right across the street from the liquor store. It’s a great neighborhood Mike. It has everything you need. Somehow, I managed to crawl from my bed to my ski poles, which I used as crutches to help brace myself as I hobbled to the Clinic. The doctor checked me over and diagnosed me with the flu. It took over fifteen minutes of haggling with this bum to convince him it was more serious than just the flu. I demanded a brain scan. After the scan the doc told me I was right. It was more complicated than just the flu. He said it was serious, but they could fix it with a couple of shots. I protested the shots. The doc said I’d need several… several shots to the face to survive. This is serious shit we’re talking about here Mike. Worst than rabies. If left unattended, it could prove fatal. He told me I needed the
shots right away and I would need to take the rest the day off to recover. No joke Mike. Take a look at the brain scan; see for yourself (See attached image, notice the discoloration of the ventricles). Doc said it’s the BIRD FLU. Can you believe that shit? The Bird Flu. So I’m off to get my face shots. Doc claims the only place to get them is up Little Cottonwood Canyon. See you tomorrow. Doctor’s orders.
Brain Scan: Afflicted with Bird Flu
Slackcountry Skids
It was a beautiful day for a backcountry, I mean, slackcountry ski tour. Slackcountry means a lot of different things, but in this case, we used the resort lifts at The Canyons to get to a suitable starting point for the tour. We rode up the 9990 lift, did a quick beacon test, then boot packed up and exited through the gate with the creepy skull and crossbones. A few people have gone through that gate, only to meet their doom. Our modus operandi today was to play it safe, even though the avalanche danger was forecasted as low. Our goal was a little bit of aerobic exercise, and hopefully finding a few rewarding turns in snow that didn’t suck. For two of us in the group, it was the first time testing out new climbing skins. It was comical at first, then we got the hang of the routine of pulling fresh and sticky skins apart, figuring out how to mount on our skis, and getting the hang of gliding rather than picking feet up too far and clomping down too hard. It didn’t take long. We all found a few good face shots before calling it good, skinning back up to the ridge and returning to the resort, calling it a day. When I made it down to the parking lot, there were some wannabe skids who were trying to panhandle lift tickets from people who were leaving for the day. I took the long way around to avoid them and scurried off. There are skids, and there are dirtbags. They’re not the same.
An unidentified Slackcountry skier.