In 1978, a designer named Chuck Barfoot built himself a snowboard. He had already been working with his friend Tom Sims on some different shapes, and the latest rendition—made of fiberglass and foam—needed some field testing....
It’s late July, and a tan Cody Townsend takes a sip from a Yeti mug. It couldn’t be further from midwinter, and the nearest skiable patch of snow is hours away, but sitting outside Sugar Pine Cakery on Tahoe’s North Shore, the professional skier from...
When Orland Bartholomew pushed off his rake-handle ski poles and began shuffling his hickory skis north toward the jagged peaks beyond Cottonwood Pass, the magnitude of the journey ahead must have been overwhelming....
Alex Honnold is hunkered down in an airport in Detroit, preparing for a flight to Seattle. He’s been doing a lot of waiting for airplanes to take off and land as of late, going to various events to promote the documentary based on his historic...
Mount Rainier rises like a wayward iceberg from the green sea of moss, fir and ferns that drape both sides of the White River. Towering 10,000 vertical feet above us, it is a disorienting and intimidating glacial behemoth creased and crinkled by yawning crevasses and...
Bob Howard had been benched. Again. For five games in a row, the college football coach had stared hard at the lanky running back from Hug High School and jerked a thumb at the sidelines. What am I doing here? Howard thought, pacing down Mendocino...
Those who experienced Tahoe’s 2018-19 winter will not soon forget it. After a modest start, Old Man Winter socked the Tahoe region with one powdery storm after another in January and February, blanketing the mountains in a thick coat of white and treating skiers and...
Squaw Valley groomers experience adventure and beauty in their nightly mission to create pristine runs It will be hours before the sun peeks above the shoulders of Marlette Peak, splashing pink color into Emerald Bay and across the freshly frosted peaks of Squaw Valley. Pine martens...
A small but adept crew overcomes difficulties to provide prime skiing surfaces at Tahoe Cross Country On the evening of April 30, I was in mourning. It appeared as if I had skied my last day of the great winter of 2019 at Tahoe Cross Country...
The sound of metal edges slicing over hardpack gives way to silence as Cody LaPlante launches from the lip of a jump, already halfway through a rotation. He completes the first 360 and begins to alter the axis of his rotation, incorporating front flips into...