“Surfers got “Riding Giants” a few years ago. Now skiers have “Steep”. Coming soon to select theaters near you. Go see it.”
- Shane McConkey

Watch the trailer for Steep >>

Squaw hosted the Coogan Kelly Memorial Rail Jam over the Thanksgiving weekend. Skiers and riders swarmed the new Searchlight Terrain Park to honor the late Kelly, vie for a $1,000 prize and kick off the season at Squaw’s new terrain park. View rail jam photos >>

There’s no real skiing yet, but some Tahoe resorts are open with man-made snow (Boreal, Sugar Bowl). Squaw has a nice strip going on the mountain run and is open for beginner lessons… The Farmer’s Almanac predicts heavy snow toward the end of November and more snow throughout December! NOAA is calling for it to start on Tuesday >

Yesterday, Shane McConkey, J.T. Holmes, Miles Daisher and Jesse Hall jumped off the roof of the Silver Legacy Casino in Reno, Nevada. Skiing off a ramp, they launched into the air, throwing flips and smacking skis to asphalt in the parking lot below. Sometimes, wind would blow the jumpers backward on landing, toppling them over if they weren’t grabbed by friends in time. Each jumper made two jumps, with one sketchy situation between them. On the second flip of his second jump, Jesse Hall’s ski got caught in his parachute. He slammed down two blocks from the parking lot, hurting his knee, but walking away.
Check out my photos here >>

Few bodies beg to be massaged more than skiers’. Between cranking out end-of-season mountain bike rides, pounding nails or hunching over the keyboard, our muscles are begging for it. With the going rates, it’s usually a once a year splurge, but Mark “the pretzel” Lundbeck’s fall locals massage special makes it affordable — even for ski bums. Mark also teaches yoga classes at Sierra Sports & Physical Therapy and Tahoe Yoga. Not the mat-toting, PrAna pant wearing type? It’s cool. Mark’s yoga does the job without taking itself too seriously. You’ll be laughing more than chanting.

It is safe to say that getting brand new gear at the beginning of the season never gets old. My new Mantra’s arrived today! They’re fat and shapely, have a bad-ass sword on then, and they’re brand spanking new. But the best part (I hope) is yet to come….

I have a pair of Marker Jester bindings on order — these are the first bindings truly designed for fat skis. Up until now, you’d just add a pair of wide brakes to a traditional binding and call it good. The Jester is actually a wider binding, covering more of the width of a fat ski. It’s designed to give you more control over your skis, by distributing your weight over the entire width of the ski, rather than just in the middle. I’ll give the report here as soon as we get some snow. In the meantime, I’m manifesting it as the best ski setup of my life.

My friend, Grant Kaye, shared this article about the psychology of base jumpers. It mentions that base jumpers and other risk-takers tend to have lower levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and that risk-taking activities help boost these levels. This seems to be a characteristic of the Type T personality. My website development company is named after this risk-taking personality type and you can read a little more about that on the home page of my website >>

Thanks for visiting. I just launched this blog as a space to share all of the articles that I’ve written about skiing, as well as current ski news from my home in Lake Tahoe, California. I’m posting a handful of my articles each day and I hope to have them all up within the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’ll be updating the home page with ski and related news. Please feel free to ask any questions or post any of your own comments. You can learn a little bit about the author here >>