kt- skiing , smiles, sun...

POW day at Alpine!

2012-01-21T18:39:00.000-08:00

Had a great day skiing pow at Alpine Meadows today! I skie don my 186 Blizzard Bodacious skis and they rule! About 16 inches of fresh out there, and can't wait for more tomorrow!

Blizzard 2012/13 ski preview - Gunsmoke and Kabookie

2012-01-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

Today I was invited to go ski Squaw with a bunch of local ski shop employees and owners and try out the awesome new lineup of Blizzard Skis 2012/13 product. I skied two skis that are new for next year, the Gunsmoke, which is a fat rockered twintip, 140/114/130 with rocker in the tip and tail, and camber underfoot. These things ripped, held an edge well on groomers and were incredibly easy to ski everywhere! I also spent some time on the Kabookie, which is a lighter version of the venerable Bonafide, which is my go to ski for all my backcountry missions. I was impressed by the stability and edge hold of the Kabookie even though it lacks the 2.5 sheets of titanal that the Bonafide boasts. Nice job again Blizzard. The skis rip.

With snow on the way for this weekend, things are looking good here!!!!Bring it on!

2012-01-10T21:18:00.000-08:00

Been playing around with a new GoPro mounting setup, this one seems to be the best, but the arm fell off, i left it unglued so i could move it around to find the best angle, but it blew up on a little jump....now i have to buy a new handlebar mount. lame.

Tecnica Cochise Boot review for Storm Day Sales Group-

2011-11-09T08:07:00.000-08:00

Crampons… check. Harness… check. Beacon…check. Boots…hmm. Boots…COCHISE! In February 2011, as I was prepping my gear for a six week trip to Chamonix, France I realized that my kit was not up to snuff without the Tecnica Cochise boot. Its 120 Flex, with ultra light, but stiff Triax material plastic. Its 100mm in the forefoot. I have spent the majority of my skiing life looking for aesthetic ski lines and slowly acquiring the necessary gear to get the job done in the most demanding situations. Every season I have tried another lame AT boot out, looking for alpine performance, Dynafit compatibility, and a good walk mode. When I first tried on the new Tecnica Cochise boot, I knew that I had found the holy grail of freeride boots. With a high stiff cuff, durable buckles, a oversized velcro powerstrap/buckle, an amazing tour mode and replaceable dynafit compatible heel and toe blocks, this boot is designed to get you where you want to go and allow you to pin it on the way down.
Stepping into these boots every morning on the other side of the world at the base of the Aguille du Midi , I knew that the last thing I would have to worry about in the high alpine peaks of the French alps was how my boots were going to perform. I skied them on some of the hairiest, steepest and iciest terrain I have ever skied in my life, as well as waist deep pow with a heavy pack on. The boots performed better than any other boot on the market. The walk mode is simply perfect. Easy to engage and disengage and really allows you to lengthen your stride while skinning and articulate your feet in sketchy hiking terrain to get solid placements.

I skied these boots in and out of bounds for 45 days straight without a glitch. Not one broken or bent buckle, superb fit the whole time, and durable hardware. After returning to the states, the boots proved again that they could handle inbounds terrain at the rowdiest resorts, and still switch back to an efficient and comfortable touring boot once you duck the ropes.

For a better look at how my European trip went this year please check out kristhaoe.blogspot.com or click on these links to see some video from the trip!

shoulder season stoke!!!

2011-10-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

Summer has been awesome....riding a lot, and waiting semi=patiently for snow....got a little love from mother nature today. Perfect riding conditons, and a great mellow first day of ski season!!! gotta love tahoe!

April fools on Cosmiques.

2011-04-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Rylan and I decided that we needed to take the tahoe boys down cosmiques today, as a bit of snow fell last night and they leave town soon. With mixed reports of the quality of the snow in there, we decided to give it a shot. The crew was stoked to check out one of the most famous lines here, especially if you are American. Rappel? awesome. im extreme!

Here are Eric and Jason checking the goods...

Rylan playing follow the leader and rapping in first to check it out. With a "how do you feel about your edges boys?" i began to realize how the day was shaping up here.

By the way, this is the coolest photo I have taken in a while!

Eric felt stoked on skiing his 118 underfoot skis on ice, so he was next. nice job kiddo.

Jason pumped to be on a rope, and getting after it in France!

The entrance was icy, almost too icy to stick to in places. This required the judicious use of controlled sliding again (which Rylan and I practiced on glacier rond last week) or a very slow and methodical approach. After a bit of an ego check, both ended up working out.

After the icy bits at the top, the middle half of the run was great snow until the avie debris where the exit coulioir meets with cosmiques, then more chunder. The boys were psyched to tick a classic chamonix line, and I was stoked to ski a bit of pow and bring everyone home safely.

Pow for me!

Col du Floria

2011-03-31T12:51:00.001-07:00

Headed out today to check out what fell yesterday during our rainy day adventure on the glacier, and I have been wanting to ski this line since my second day in chamonix, its called Col du Floria, and it sits just outside the Flegere boundary line, you acccess it via a short skin and bootpack that probably takes about an hour to get to the top of the line from the index lift. Clive hadnt skied this line either so he was stoked to go bag a new one...even if it is mellow. we skied the gully under the big yellow arrow. This is a photo from the back side of Col du Crouches.

Here are the boys skinning on up there....

Rylan getting into the good work on the bootpack. This snow was a bit saturated and wierd, but we only spent a few minutes in it thankfully.

Clive fighting the good fight!

A look back down the bootpack at Flegere and Chamonix, with the Argentiere Glacier and Grand Montets across the valley

The ski down was fun, heavy pow on a good base layer, the chute we skied had some really wierd angles in it, so it was hard to ski fluidly...I heard a rumor that straightlining this run is a classic badass thing to do in cham, so maybe when we get some visibility Rylan will go back and pin this thing... The lower bit of the run down to the basin was great. Smooth pow over a nice smooth surface, made for fast skiing!

We skinned for about another hour or so to regain the Col du Berard, and took the train home from Le Buet. Clive is the man and carried a 1.5 liter bottle full of beer for the train ride. Forget tea, beer is civilized. For the mean time we can look at Clive's awesome headband tan, and giggle.

Rain in the valley, Flying ice on the Mer de Glace

2011-03-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

It was raining pretty hard in the valley today and we didnt have much motivation to get on the bus to go ski in zero visibility, so we procrastinated for a while and decided to go play with ice tools on the bottom of the mer du glace. I have never been ice climbing, and while this probably doesnt quite get me my merit badge, i did get to spend some time on the front points of my crampons. Fun day.

Rylan scoping out the best ice crag on the glacier....and maybe picking his nose?

We built a short toprope on a curved ice block near the end of the glacier, and spent about an hour playing around. fun stuff. the guys that climb really steep ice must be animals. cause it is hard.

Here is Jason protecting himself with a two-ice screw anchor, just in case the 4 feet of exposure made him black out again. just kidding jason.

So we skipped the rainy day in Chamonix for some rainy roped ice bouldering, and had waffles in town to follow it up. not a bad day....

Glacier Rond- Skiing on black ice.

2011-03-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

We have been eyeing this line since Clive invited us to ski Cunningham / Passerelle Couloir last week, and the forecast called for 30cm of snow at the Midi, so we figured we would give the famous Glacier Rond a go. We were pretty stoked to drop into West Couloir if conditions looked like it would be good, so the plan was Glacier Rond with a West Couloir exit. Arriving at the Midi around 745 put us comfortably in the first bin up, even though the first bin which was scheduled at 810am, ended up leaving at 900am, we were on it. The line at the Midi this morning was so similar to an early KT morning, people jocking for position and trying to keep calm and quiet about their plans, so no one will poach their line. We had close to 30 people put their skis over the railing in front of ours waaay after we showed up, but the bin holds 65 so as long as you dont get squeaked out by the poachers, it seems ok. Even if you would get shot for shit like this in Squaw. Once everyone gets ready to get on the upper cable car, no one wants to be first in, because first in equals last out at the top. This guy found his corner in the tram and no one else wanted to be that far from the door, so he took a quick nap before his pow run!

Off the bin, haul ass down the arete, no skis on pack, just GO! Then a tedious waiting game of who is going to drop first and head towards cosmiques hut, first guy in just gets passed as the traverse get beat in, so there is a bit of strategy involved. We knew one other group was headed to Cosmiques Couloir, but didnt think we would have any competetion for the rond. Turns out we broke trail with American Dave Rosenbarger, and when his group split towards cosmiques we bid our goodbyes and headed right to the rond. no tracks, stoked, but nervous about the looming black ice. I had never skied on glacier ice under pow before, and doing it on steep terrain above all this cool terrain was a bit nerve wracking....Here is clive getting ready for the turns above the ice.

We managed down the icy bits, just doing my best to stay on my feet for the semi-controlled slide, and decided that the snow was not sticking well enough to try West Couloir. We broke left at the intersection to be greeted by more dense black ice above small crevasses. Happy to be through that mini crux, here is rylan getting his double angle of clive's entrance in the exit couloir.

Loud snow under pow, but managable, Clive getting it done on the entrance to the exit.

The snow on the exit couloir was pretty good for me, but it sounds like i found the best spots to hit, and avoided most of the frozen debris that was buried by the light light snow, Rylan and Clive did not have the same reports as me. Here is a shot looking up the exit couloir at the top station of the midi. AWESOME!

We ended up running into Alex and Jen who were in the Cosmiques as we were making sure that we didnt go into any holes above the exit couloir, and we fouind them naviagting the holy moly zone on the way out. We decided that the snow was too good to go home, and spun a quick one from the mid station to the Gros Rognon variation of Vallee Blanche, and it was banger!!!

Beautiful weather, fresh snow, cool lines and great friends. How am I going to leave this place?

Le Tour to CH with Tahoe boys....

2011-03-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Rylan and I skied a bunch of laps this morning at Le Tour, and made plans to meet Eric, Jason, and Dave to take them to the Pointe du Van to ski into Switzerland. Jason and Eric stayed out until 4am last night, while Dave did the responsible thing and went to bed around 12. I gave the boys bad directions and told them to meet at Col du Balme, and meant Tete du Balme, so we headed out late on our tour. The late start meant we had to hurry to make sure we got the bus home, and that really hurt Jason's hungover gumless situation, but he endured the hike and resulting near blackout at the top of the col, and we were rewarded with creamy pow in the chute. Great skiing!

Jason getting his blackout hike on.

Jason skiing the chute....

Hiking through town to the bus stop.....fun times!

Here is a bit of GOPRO footage of the run down to Trient.

Supercrew unsupertour

2011-03-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

Skied out of Flegere today with the supercrew of Myself, Rylan, Ciara, Dave, Eric, Jason, Ben, Krystal, Joey and Janey. With this many people what could go wrong? The rough plan was to skin up Col du Belevedere and ski/rappel down the back side and ski to Le Buet, get everyone on a rope so they can say they got extreme, and have a beer before thr train ride home. We definitely skinned up to Col du Belvedere, and definitely did not get extreme. Instead we had a rope that wouldnt get the weaker skiers of the group past the rocky and firm gnar on the backside. We pulled the plug and motored back to the Flegere tram which closed in 45 mins. If we didnt get the tram we would have been walking another 2 hours down. Instead everyone busted ass, and skied, hiked, bush skied, rock skied, bootpacked and generally got awesome to make the last tram. Tears were shed, marriages were saved, and we all drank tasty beer at Les Rhododendrons. disaster averted!

Helbronner with the Tahoe Puppies and Dave

2011-03-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

The tahoe boys showed up last night, and I was able to track down Jason by seeing him at the Cafe when I was on the bus, so we jumped off and built a plan to go ski off the Midi today with Jason, Eric and Dave. These guys are in town for about 2 weeks, and I am really stoked to show them around a bit. Here is a photo of the crew kicking it on the Midi bridge that Rylan, Clive and I rapped off last week. They were pretty stoked to see this in real life....

Here is a photo of Eric Bryant, aka Boy Wonder trying to look not scared to impress Rylan and I. We are his senseis, he cant show us fear!

Here is Jason looking disturbed by all the people. chaos and exposure of heading down the Midi arete to the Vallee Blanche, its pretty darn exposed!

We took these boys on the same tour that I did last week with Alex, Rylan and Clive, mainly because it is so cool for us Americans so ski in two countries on one day....So here is another photo of heading down the metal staircases into Italy. This one is of Jason.

Jason and Eric are a photo shooting allstar team, here is Eric skying over Jason for his first Italian send. Nice one buddy!

After skiing down to the Helbronner cable car mid station, we made the standard awesome french lunch of baguette, cheese, and sausage from the saturday market, and hustled back to Montenvers down the Vallee Blanche to make sure we got the last train back to Cham. We made it by 12 minutes. whew.

Col du Passon -> Glacier du Tour -> Col du Midi du Grands -> Trient

2011-03-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Clive invited us to come along on a tour with his snowboard buddy Martin on a tour that he claims is his favorite single day tour in the Chamonix region. The tour starts in France at Grand Montets, and finishes in the little village of Trient in Switzerland. We didnt get much beta from Clive about the tour, except to bring a lot of water and crampons for the Col du Passon. Col du Passon is a classic tour off the Argentiere Glacier and climbing up and turning around seems to be a pretty routine tour for local skiers here, and it looks like it would be a great run, but we were headed to the other side of it today. We skied across the argentiere glacier and booted up the moraine just as the biggest single rockfall I have ever seen came off 100 feet from us and made a huge wave of snow on impact, and this was at about 9am. I cant imaging what this moraine would be like with 5 more hours of sun on it.... so we scuttled up the moraine and started skinning, happy to be out of the impact zone. Here is a photo of Alex flying up a hot sunny skin once again. I had no chance of catching him today, i didnt feel very strong.

As we skinned we talked with some guided groups we passed and realized that this has become a detour for some groups on the uber classic Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt, avoiding the rappel melee at the Col du Chardonnet.
After a hour and a half skin or so, we came to a nice steep little bootpack that would require crampons at the top, it was close to 50 degrees for a short bit, maybe 50 meters...but had good snow coverage albeit a little firm.

After a quick lunch of saucisson and baguette, while watching the tour groups come up the bootpack and collapse immediately or step on their guide's rope going in for a hug, we set off for a super short descent to the Glacier du Tour, and traversed across it headed towards Col du Midi du Grands. The skin up this col was brutal, consistently steep for about 45 mins and drenched in sun followed by another hour of mellower skinning in the same skin melting heat as below. The views were amazing, but I was drained by the heat. Here is a shot looking back at Clive and Martin as Rylan and Alex powered on ahead of me. Some of the tracks you se ein the background of this photo are from skiplanes giving tours of the glaciated areas around Chamonix, these guys just ran laps all day flying up the valley, landing and turning around to take people back to the valley. Pretty cool watching the little planes buzz over you and land on the other side of the valley.

As we neared the top of the col, we encountered the biggest wind formed moat at the top that I have ever seen, this thing was probably 150 feet tall with 30 feet of vert at the top. Way cool. Here is a photo of Martin traversing the top of it on his way to the top of the Col.

Now its time for the good stuff, a second lunch, and a huge descent into the little village of Trient via the Glacier des Grands. The col topped out at 3235m, and Trient sits at an elevation of 1279m...Making this a 2000 meter descent! thats almost 6000 feet for you americans out there. The top yielded awesome wind creamed pow, and the last couple hundred feet were nice corn into slush...Here is Rylan making it look good in the windbuffed pow!

We arrived in trient around 4:30pm about 45 mins late for the last bus to Vallorcine to catch the train back home, so we grabbed a coke and stuck out the thumbs. About 45 mins later all five of us had gotten rides back to Chamonix, with another great day of skiing in the big mountains under out belts!

Argentiere glacier - Les Cortes Scoping

2011-03-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to head up the Argentiere glacier and take a look at the iconic lines on Les Cortes since I arrived here. I convinced Rylan to head out with me and check it out today for a mellow excursion.

Here is a cool photo from the top of the Grand Montets looking into the far end of Argentiere glacier.

Here is a look back down the glacier as we skin up, with Rylan being swallowed by the expansive space.

We met a patroller on exchange from Snowbird named Dusty, who is staying the winter in the Grand Montets, and he wanted to cruise up the glacier with us, he was pretty fast!

Here is Dusty skinning up to the Argentiere Hut for a mellow lunch in the sun.

Stoked to be in these majestic mounatins!!!!

Here is the only line on the ridge that seems like it has potential to go in the near future. Its called Col de Cristeaux, located on the left side of this photo but the people ive talked with seem to think it still needs more snow, since its neighboring couloirs are all ice still. And the ice here is HARD!

After our 3 hour skin up the glacier we just glided back down to Grand Montet ski area and into the base in about 20 minutes. This place is awesome!

Helbronner with Rylan Clive and Alex....

2011-03-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

Headed out to ski from Chamonix to Italy via the classic Helbronner Route with Rylan, Clive and Alex. We started by riding the Aiguille du Midi cable car and doing the start for Vallee Blanche, followed by a thirty minute-ish skin to the border of Italy and France.

Here is Alex skinning past my favorite mountain here, Tour Ronde....

A better close up of aforementioned favorite mountain...It needs a lot more sticky icky to make it go!

After the skin up, you ski over the ridge into Italy and walk down this massive set of metal stairs, you really get a taste of exposure on this....

After an exceptionally manky ski down to the Helbronner mid station, with a few bits of nice corn mixed in, we took a chance to eat lunch on the border of the two countries on the roof of the upper station.

Clive brought us in the loop on his favorite Italian cocktail the Calimero which has rum, eggnogish liquid, coffee, and whip cream, and they were pretty fantastic. After another ride in a smaller cable car, we arrive on the Mt Blanc Massif, and ski across a huge plateau to a pow run between some pretty big crevasses.

After the pow, we had to negotiate a pretty hairy crevassed section at the mer de glace intersection. We ended up strightlining a pretty tricky traverse with catcher cravasses below us, not a cool place to fall. But it all worked out alright, and we cruised down the Mer du Glace and ended up in town with beers in hand...

Grand Envers w/ Rylan...

2011-03-21T02:13:00.000-07:00

We got a late start this morning, and were en route to go to Grand Montets to slide around, when we realized that we would be spending a lot of time trying to get to skiing, and felt like actually going skiing. Since we are spoiled, we live right across the street from the Midi, and we jumped on the next bin, and went for a casual Grand Envers run...

A look down on our tracks from yesterday!

Looks like a heli rescue was going on on top of Mt Blanc du Tacul...

Whoa. Those are big icecubes.

Cunningham Couloir

2011-03-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

Clive called last night and said he was in the neighborhood and that he was going to stop by to pick up his hard drive we borrowed. Upon entering our apartment, he informed us that he had just borrowed two 60 meter ropes from his buddy so we could go have a shot at the infamous Cunningham Couloir of the Aiguille du Midi. The line is so famous because of the mandatory rappel off the footbridge needed to get to the skiing portion of it. This part is pretty nervewracking due to the position of the anchor point being right in the way of the people hastily unloading off the cable car every ten to fifteen minutes and stepping on your rope, your backpack and pushing you out of the way as you set up your rappel lines.

Once the gear is all setup and you have summoned your nerve, throw a leg over the rail, high five your buddy, and off you go!

After 3 60 meter rappels, and a bunch of man cuddle time at each anchor, we finally were able to put the skis on and test out the steep slopes leading to the heart of the couloir. After hours spent hanging on your harness and the cold wind up the couloir putting a nice chill on you, standing here on this steep slope feels pretty easy!

The ski down was unbelievable, and my ability with words is not quite sufficient to describe the amazing run we had, so i made a video as well....

COSMIQUES!!!!!

2011-03-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

We got a call from Clive this morning asking what we are up to for the day as we were walking out the door to jump on the bus for Grands Montets for some laps there. Last night i had hinted that i wanted to go ski Cosmiques Couloir ASAP, and apparently Clive got the hint. On the phone he told us how long the line was at Grand Montets, and asked if we wanted to head out to check out the Midi. It was go time! After a quick gear sawp to make sure we had all the neccesary items for skiing on the Midi, we ran downstairs and across the street to meet Clive. There were wuite a few people waiting, but Clive had pulled some bin numbers and we were set to go in about 20 mins.

Here is the view bootpacking up towards Cosmiques Couloir.

We just barely lost the sprint off the arete to a group of three guys that threw their ropes into the entrance of the couloir as we walked up to the couloir. We were fine to wait a bit for these guys to clear out, but in the process of waiting for them, four or five other group of people came up and left. Good timing for us!

Here is Rylan rappelling past the rocky sections up top, leading way to glorious pow fields below.

We ended up using 2 30m ropes to make sure we made it past the rocky bits, and it put us in a great place to organize and get ready to ski!

Fired up after the exciting entrance!

The Baud book calls Cosmiques Couloir 45-50degrees for 800m, and today that run was full of about a foot of nice light snow. It is a really amazing experience to ski such high quality snow on such a perfect sustained pitch in such a interesting position. Coming from Squaw 3 weeks ago and banging out KT laps to get in good ski shape makes me really appreciate how long the runs are here, and how happy I am to be here. No hour long KT lines for me with 3 min runs, im skiing down for an hour!!!!

Here is Rylan taking a break from the radness.....

The run took about an hour to get into and ski, and it was the best run of my life so far. Such a beautiful and great place to ski. Full on pow bathed in sun under the Aiguille du Midi!

Here is a look back up the run, you can see the small bergschrund peeking through the new snow, dont fall in!

The run out was interesting, littered with mini seracs and crevasses, and there was one spot with a fixed line to rap on to make sure you didnt slip and fall into a gaping hole!

Heres a shot of Rylan sideslipping the side of a glacier, and avoiding a potentially bottomless hole in the process....

A nice shot of Clive standing amongst the glacial chaos....

After we negotiated the glacier stuff, we had a 45ish minute sidestep ahead of us to get back to the mid station at the Aiguille du Midi,

Its pretty easy to tell by the length of this post how excited I am to have gotten the chance to get on this line, and I know that by Chamonix standards i might as well be skiing a groomer, but i had such a great time today! Big thanks to Clive for the tour, and I am so excited to get back up there and do some more exploring!

Courmayeur

2011-03-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

The crew (Me, Rylan, Ciara, Clive, Liz, and Bryan) headed over to Courmayeur today to change up the scenery of the foggy and rainy Chamonix valley. We were greeted by raindrops and puddles in the parking lot, but I had a feeling it would be snow up high.....it was. Skied a bunch of laps on the upper cable car, and had a generally fantastic day! Hopefully all this soft snow doesnt ruin my attitide if it is still scrapy in Cham the next few days....oh yeah the pizza and cappuccino in Italy are fantastic.

SW couloir on Pointe Alphonse Favre

2011-03-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

It was really windy in town today, and our crew had been talking about going for a tour out of Flegere to ski this cool line off the Pointe Alphonse Favre, but the wind had closed down the cheapest way to get there if you dont have a season pass to Chamonix. Rylan and I decided to make the long trek over to Brevent to ride a ton of lifts to get to a zone that would normally take 20 mins to get to from Flegere. But i knew there would be good snow if we could hang tough in the wind, so we went for it. After about an hour and fifteen mins of riding chairlifts, gondolas, cable cars, and a poma lift, we found ourselves at the start of the skin to cross over the Col du Crochues. We popped over and skied some chalky snow as well as frozen slush to the bottom of a couloir that acesses the ridge we needed to hit.

This is Rylan booting up the second bootpack of the day!

So stoked to be in the big mountains, learning a lot!

Here is a cool photo of Rylan climbing up to the Pointe Alphonse Favre.

I snapped a quick photo of the top, just before we dropped in. Nicely filled with a few inches of dense windbuffed snow. Yum!

The run was fantastic, stable conditions, and just steep enough to be exciting without being too scary. The Baud book says it reaches 45 degrees for a bit, and it felt about right! Down low the snow was much shallower, and yuo could really feel the frozen slush that has started to infiltrate even the most north facing slopes down low....What a great day!

Vallee Blanche pow, fun with via ferrata and ice screws!

2011-03-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

Headed out to the Valle Blanche today for Rylan, Brian and Liz's first trip up the Aiguille Du Midi, and i had a big surprise for the boys, but we'll talk abotu that in a bit. The weather has been very blustery and a bit of precip has fallen in the valley, but we were surprised to find a bunch of new snow, probably abut 6 inches, all over the Mer de Glace. We were intending to to Grand Envers, but headed to the mellower Vallee Blanche to avoid the more heavily crevassed areas...

There are some ice climbers in this photo, can you find them? theyre really small.

We also played with some new gear, and practiced placing ice screws. What better way to test than with a quick hanging kung fu exhibition?

The next two photos show the cool surprise that i scoped out for Rylan's first day on the Midi, a super fun and exposed Via Ferrata line from the lower viewing deck to the highest. Pretty Fun!

Raclette Night!

2011-03-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

Our buddy Mark-Auriel Brothier invited us up to his family's home upvalley from Chamonix in Montroc for an awesome Savoie region dinner - Raclette! Armed with pounds upon pounds of amazing cheese Marko proceeded to grill the surface of the sliced cheese wheel with a heat lamp until it starts to melt off the end of the chunk. Right as it starts to drip off the end, you scoop it up and slap it on your plate that is covered with potatoes, sliced cured meats, bread, and interestingly, pickles. This dinner is amazing!

After gorging ourselves on cheese and meat, we were treated to a homemade liquor that Marko's grandfather made out of fruits out of their garden. This stuff was strong, but tasty! Thank you so much to Marko and his great family for inviting us over for this amazing dinner!

Vallee Blanche

2011-03-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

Headed out to ski the Valle Blanche with Ciara, Alex, Rachael, and Heather today, the weathe was fantastic, and as usual the views are ridiculous.

Heres the obligatory shot looking on the line of monchu on the arete headed off the Aiguille top station....

Here is Heather, Alex and Rachael coming down the bootpack/ski

more classic photos of classic spots on a classic run....

The run down the Vallee Blanche is so mellow, but the terrain that it lets almost any level of skier travel in is so rugged its mindblowing. Since the terrain is so mellow, i spent most of the day just skiing from spot to spot shooting photos of lines i want to ski here in cham.

Here is one thats on the short list, it is the southwest couloir of Breche Puiseux, the line itself is actually supposed to be pretty mellow, but the skin up there is wierd and through very complex glaciated terrain. From the photos i took, it looks like the skinny part of this Couloir is all rocks, but i would like to head up and check for myself..... for me, the most appealing part of this line is the amazing position it lies in under these really cool spires.

And here is a photo of my favorite peak in cham, Tour ronde, it is so cool to me because of the two separate hanging ice fields ont he top and bottom of the peak...It so unique! and Jeremy Jones and Xavier De La Rue blast turns on the upper face in the TGR movie Deeper.

So after a nice trip down a classic route in Cham, we headed back to the flat to meet up with Ciara's friends Bryan and Liz, who are visiting from Tahoe....

Col du Beaugeant

2011-03-10T06:16:00.000-08:00

Headed out of Flegere today to the Col du Beaugeant with Ciara, Alex, Rachael, and Heather (visiting from Seattle, WA) for an adventure that Alex planned for our crew...I had skied out this same traverse under some awesome south facing chutes the other day with Clive, Ciara and Elaine. Laying just one drainage up valley from the Col du Belvedere, the Col du Beaugeant has some really cool easy mountaineering skills involved...But we'll get to that later!

Here is a cool photo of Alex touring up just past the Lacs blancs hut. Skinning on this route was pretty easy, nice grippy snow and a great skin track.

A view just above the last lake in the meadow, its crazy how deep the gullies these lakes are in are.

Here is a photo of my awesome french touring lunch, baguette with Saucison Sec du Porc, beaufort cheese, and a slap of moustard. So Good!

From lunch at the top of the big basin up to the col, you bust out another 8-10 kickturns on a pretty steep skin track, and get ready for a super moderate rock traverse, probably 3rd class...But its nice to have some gear and a rope b/c of the exposure,.

Here is a photo of the crew rock traversing and Alex starting up the snowy step.

Thanks boys for the sick new touring boots. The new Tecnica Freemountain Cochise boot is the best boot ever made. Shreds steep chalky snow, pow, corn, tours like a dream, and even crushes on 3rd class rock!

After everyone gathered on the col, we setup a rappel off an old but solid pin and a nice shiny piton, to head down the backside of the col. If people didnt rap here all the time, the terrain is steep but skiable, but really beat up from people clunking down it w/o skis on...

Once we got to the backside of the Col we were rewarded with some pow skiing, i got too carried away with skiing to stop and take photos, i will try to steal some of ciara or alex's photos of us skiing the awesome snow!

This tour puts you out at the town of La Buet, similar to the Croches-Berard traverse that i did for my first tour in Cham...

All in all this is a super approachable and beautiful tour with just enough spice in it to be interesting without being scary, the Anselme Baud book says it has about 900m of uphill travel and 1600m of downhill and that matched up to my alti watch....Loving it here!

Le Tour to switzerland bust again.

2011-03-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

This morning, we made a mad rush from Marko's chalet to cham and back up to le tour to try to get the rebate of our Le Tour to Switzerland from the other day. After we got all the good breaks possible, like Elaine giving us a ride in a car, eating breakfast quickly, and hopping right on the train to Vallorcine, we still got shut down. Once Max and I got to Vallorcine, the gondola was broken, and with no busses to Le Tour from Vallorcine we had to wait an hour for the train...

so the obvious solution is to drink some beers....

After the train came we went back to the chalet to see if there was any word from Marko on the status of our trip to CH, and we got a text saying the snow was terrible and he was over it, so we decided to head back to Cham, and do some souvenir shopping for max's dad, and i wanted waffles.

Score! waffle time!

Paragliders (parapenters) off the Aiguille du Midi, so cool....

Grand Envers part Deux featuring Max and Candice

2011-03-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

Skied the Grand Envers again with Max, Candice, and Ciara...We hung out at the top of the Aiguille for a bit, checked out a Via Ferrata course, and basically soaked in all the goodness. Im starting to have my eyes open up a bit here for what is skiable and where to get off the heavily travelled paths...

Me and Max checking out the Vallee Blanche

Candice, Max, and Myself coming down the bootpack from the Midi.

This line is in the Baud book, the Aiguille du Tacul, some dudes skied it today but apparently one got caught in an avalanche near the bottom choke...hope he is ok.

Right as we were heading out to Grand Envers we met a group from Telluride that wanted to come with us to our route...They brought a bunch of wine, and we had a great time together....

Here is a funny group shot from the Grotto du Glace at the bottom of the Grand Envers, with some of our Telluride buddies...

Le Tour

2011-03-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

Tried to meet up with Ciara's buddy Marc Aurel Brothier today to ski from Le Tour ski area to Switzerland. We had a cutoff time of 3pm to get to the edge of the ski resort, and we missed it by a few mins after having a tough time with public transit in Cham...nonetheless it was a nice sunny day, and we got a chance to slide around Le Tour which was a nice change from being nervous about crevasses on the Aiguille.

Views of lower terrain across the valley!

Ciara is a big nerd!

Lots of skiing to do here!

After our fail at going to Switzerland, Max and Candice showed up and we had some food and drinks....life in Cham is good!

Aiguille Du Midi - Grand Envers - Crouches/Berard traverse

2011-03-03T05:13:00.000-08:00

Ciara and I headed up the famous Aiguille du Midi tram today, it is so cool up there, and it is

right across the street from my apartment here. lucky!

Got to look off the handrail into the passerelle couloir that we all watched Glen Plake ski in Blizzard of Ahhs when we were kids...

After a few mins, gazing into what the future hopefully holds for me on the paserelle couloir, we kep t marching through the famous tunnel and into the ice tunnel that exits onto the frightening walk down the shoulder of the Aiguille du Midi...People here are wearing crampons, tied to their guides and very obviously gripped walking down this path with massive exposure on both sides. We pretty much bootskied down...its safe mom, really!

After a quick sidestep, we began skiing the Grand Envers route down the Vallee Blanche, which is the longest run i have ever skied. If you ski, you need to come to Chamonix, hire a guide and do this run, it is a lifechanger. Amazing views, crazy complicated terrain, and just so much vert.

As you near the end of the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) glacier, the 40 flights of stairs leading you back out of the glacial canyon appear. After all the stairs, and a tram then you ride a train back into town, what an adventure!

We met some of Ciara's buddies at the bottom the the Mer de Glace, and organized a quick afternoon tour out of Flegere ski area. So we met Alex at Flegere after riding the bus, and rode another tram, chairlift, a button(poma), skinned and bootpacked our way to the Col du Floria...

Skis back on here and ski for about 15 mins below and around some amazing terrain..

Skin for another 20 mins to the Col du Berard and get a great look at a mountain called La Buet. Tons of choices to ski cool terrain on this peak...We skied some mellow north facing slopes down to a ice luge/motocross trail through the woods to another train ride out of La Buet, but not without a glass of hot wine at the La Buet hotel...awesome!

Courmeyeur for Clive's Bday

2011-03-02T05:05:00.000-08:00

Headed to Courmeyeur Italy for Ciara's buddy Clive's birthday today. The valley in chamonix was pretty couldy and the italian side was pretty clear and i got my first sight of Mt Blanc. Pretty unreal. Massive icefalls, seracs, couloirs, anything you can imagine in really big mountains. ASll stuff i have never seen before...crazy. Skied a bunch of groomers, and a few off piste shots that actually had pretty good snow despite the lack of snow here this season. We had some amazing pizza and wine for lunch, followed my awesome cappucino...After lunch we headed out and skied some more off piste stuff that had a lot of lurking rocks under a foot of pow. My new Blizzard Bonafide skis are so good on the variable conditions, they ski pow so well for a 98 underfoot ski..stoked.

After skiing, we headed to an apres spot in the Cham village called Chambre Neuf, and it was a mess. People spilling drinks everywhere, obnoxious music, asses and elbows everywhere....ran out of there for a more relaxing scene at Elevation across the street. Ate some pizza again for dinner at Pizza Paradisio, it had roquefort cheese on it. yuck.

Headed up the Aiguille du Midi tomorrow. so excited!

Travel ugh,,,,

2011-03-01T04:57:00.000-08:00

Spent the last 30 some hours travelling to Cham. 5 hrs on the plane to Charlotte, 1.5 hr layover, 7 hr flight, 8+ hours of train travel...Which was made pretty difficult b/c i speak very little french. Luckily my spanish knowledge helped me understand a bunch of signs. After leaving the states at 11am, i jumped off the train in Chamonix centre at about 1030pm, and walked myself, my ski bag, my 120liter duffel, my 60liter alpine backpack and my touring bag, all loaded down to the aiguille du midi. Realizing i forgot to pack the right notebook with all my europe connections in it i tried to fire up the laptop to get Ciara's phone number, and the battery was dead. ugh. Met some really nice Canadians that watched my bag while i found an internet connection, an american power coverter, and a phone to call ciara...it all worked. big thanks to ullr. Made it to her (our) apartment right next to the best tram in the world the Aigulle du Midi, and had a glass of wine before bed....whew.

2010-02-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

2009-12-31T18:36:00.000-08:00

2009-12-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

sierra meadows avie control

2009-12-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

berthoud bc video

2009-12-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

Bedding down in Thailand- night one.

2009-05-04T12:02:00.001-07:00

got on the airplane on sunday may 3 and finally arrived in Bangkok around 130 at my hotel. 14 hours to korea then 5 more to bangkok, after taking 4 rounds of decopngestant coupled with tylenol pm to make me look like im not congested along with trying to sleep in super small airplane seats.....but im here, didnt get too ripped off on the cab over (i think?) and headed to get some noodles and water to bruch my teeth with to try to go to sleep.
i also just got made fun of by some little thai kids b/c i didnt know how to ask for interent pricing...doh!
much love
kris

a fallen hero.

2009-04-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Ive been having a hard time figuring out why shane's death has been in my head so strongly, and after hearing all of his friends and family speak this afternoon i feel much better. Shane was a hero to me, he gave the go ahead to be myself on skis and elsewhere. To not give a fuck, but not in a hurtful way. To laugh, smile, and enjoy it all to the fullest. I guess im so beat up by it despite the small amount of interactions with him because i really looked up to him and was so completly humbled and awed by the non chalantness of his path. He was stoked and moving forward. So inspiring. Thank you.

Team O's does tallac

2009-03-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

Video from tallac last week.

Team o's does tallac from kris thomas on Vimeo.

rain into snow - hopefully.

2009-03-03T00:38:00.000-08:00

lots of snow on the way.....if it ever turns from rain to snow.

skied a pair of volkl kuros today with kristo and glen from patagonia. lots of slushy pow shots and gluey cat tracks......still fun even though we were soaked!!!

hoping for a pile of snow on the driveway tomorrow, and not slush. Ill let you know.

p4p

oops - ive been busy

2009-02-28T00:55:00.001-08:00

So..
I ve been busy. a lot.
Started out in the 2nd week of feb, doing demos for jamie and volkl hauling around tons of skis to alpine and mammoth....85 pairs to be exact.

Eating dinner with new and old friends in mammoth at sushi ray, celebrating the arrival of winter to the sierra and our chance to shred mammoth in between adjusting bindings....
from l to r: ingrid, adam, me, james, kristen, jamie, emily, shannon, ashley....fun times!

on the way home from mammoth we got to check out the big mountains that live just south of us in the eastern sierra, im ready to bag some cool descents!

skied with my cousin sandia at diamond peak, she is skiing really well and having tons of fun....got to see and hang with my grandma thomas and her husband sandy as well as shredding with the next gen of our sport!

self explanatory-----

so after a bunch of work- demos, teaching my butt off over presidents, and skiing with the fam, i get to go out and shred for me....i finally got some revenge on this line in the palisades at squaw named the chimey sweep. I crashed huge on it last spring and its been haunting me since.....but i got a chance to go and kill it...and succeded. View from the top. SCARY!

Later i went back with my ski buddies rylan and wook, and skied the tube on the palisades...it was fun!

Headed backcountry skiing tomorrow with a huge crew of friends....stoked! look for more soon!

big backcountry day - Eagle falls to Dick's peak and back!

2009-02-03T22:19:00.000-08:00

Started out at Tahoe house at 630am, got some coffe and croissants, headed to the trailhead at eagle lake by 715am. After getting the crew together and ready to skin, we were on the trail by about 730. Crew members: Kris, Sean, Greg, Tim, and Mike the Desolation wilderness tour guide.

The plan is to start skiing over the eagle lake pass towards maggies peak, down into the basin, up to dicks peak, down north side of dicks, up janines ridge, down janines bowl, up maggies and back down to the car.....all in all probably around 5000 feet of elevation change, and lots of tired quads over 8-10 miles....

Here's Tim Dobbins - ASI guide - www.alpineskills.com

Greg Clark

The boys headed up the ridge to dicks about 6 hours after we started skinning.

Heres the shot for the parents, brand new dynafit setup and a view of the lake! life is goooood.

My first line on the new skis, probably around 35-40 at the steepest with wierd icy snow in the steep spot.....worked out pretty well.

A cool tree we stumbled upon, and me chillin in the shadow pow in my ski touring gear....pretty casual..

Hiking out in the dark over frozen steps on top of boulders, and skinning across eagle lake.

It was a long day, tiring, but totally awesome. Now i have a bunch of ideas of things to ski back there in a storm or two.

For a better idea of the terrain and more photos check out: http://www.thebackcountry.net/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1237 scroll to the bottom for the post about our adventure.

Cheers!

two videos. one message.

2009-01-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

so ive decided that the boys i ski with are ridiculous....

so this is my new calling in life.

switch snowblade nose manuals. sick.

this week is great.

2009-01-29T15:24:00.001-08:00

lots of pow skiing this week.....
skied in bounds at squaw on monday out at VIPs on granite with the boys, heres a little video from Tim at unofficialsquaw.com

Then headed out to shred with rylan, jimmy rebs, and pete bowers at squaw and got some sweet palisades lines, including a cool air that ive never done before on the skiers left side of the chimney...no photos or video though sorry!!!!

finally went sled skiing with some homeys in blackwood canyon yesterday, sweet snow, lots of sun and the boys killed a huge booter...hopefully some video and photos to come in the next day or so.......

i want more snow!!!!!!!

176 dyna bridge

2009-01-23T22:42:00.001-08:00

So this is what a volkl bridge is supposed to look like.....

and this is what my new bridges look like, a cut off tail perfect for my new dynafit setup.....custom skis rule.

ill post photos tomorrow of my setup mounted,
dynafit ft10 bindings, garmont radium boots, volkl dynabridge 176....its gonna be sick.

other news:
lots of rain, not much snow, hopefully mounting up some skinny skis will make it dump snow.
much love!

im so famous!

2009-01-20T10:16:00.001-08:00

see that guy making a pretty princess turn on the ticket stock? yep thats me....
pray for snow!

Tallac + Thomas Brothers = Totally Gnar.

2009-01-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

This morning we buste dout of bed at 530am, and cruised to the west shore to go have a go at Mt Tallac. Rob is still in town, and he wanted to get out and see how backcountry skiing went for him in brand new boots.....

Mike Scwartz at The Backcountry was super kind and helped me set my brother up with a super nice setup, and all kinds of beta...

skinning up the road you used to be able to drive on, Spring Creek. This road has recently been closed to backcountry vehicle traffic due to the US forest service hating backcountry skiers....damn hippies dont spend any money!

MOving up towards sweat hill, and its already hot.

Sweat Hill, so long and so many switchbacks, yuck. But the views are awesome but Rob was starting to feel the pain of breaking in new boots.

Heres us almost to the summit saddle, but decided to head down just after this to avoid a bloody mess in Rob's boots.

Heres the shot for mom.

The ski down was breakable crust and variable to say the least, but we had a great time checking out beautiful lake tahoe, and watching each other narrowly avoid trees, stumps, rocks, and each other.

and the video of the fastest and smoothest skiing we found today.

We probably had too much fun skiing down the access road, as we arent even really allowed on it. Having such a fun time with my bro in town......pray for snow!

its been a while....dec recap!

2009-01-13T16:18:00.000-08:00

ok,
so life gets crazy in tahoe around xmas....lots of snow

Lots of teaching squaw sessions, the raddest teen camp anywhere-
http://www.squaw.com/winter/squawsessions.html

From L to R: Max and Ben on Granite Chief, Loren on Garbage Chute, Lauren on Classic Chute!

Then My Baby Bro came to town and got new footbeds and boots for xmas....and we shredded squaw for a couple of days.....he showed up to boilerplate snow and just killed it.

Next....Mount Tallac.
peace and happiness for the new year!

wintersteiger

2008-12-17T20:25:00.000-08:00

Its Here!!!!!
The machine finally showed up, now we just need to dump more money into bridges, transformers, electricians, belts, bits, jigs, files, guides, and utilities.
but....
shes beautiful!

psia level one

2008-12-16T19:32:00.000-08:00

so i was not so sure about doing the psia level one exam, i thought that i wasnt going to learn much, that it was going to be full of people that dont take their skiing seriously and that it was going to be a waste of my time and money.

the good news:
i did learn quite a bit, i made a couple cool friends, and got to work on my skiing before the season really goes.

the not so exciting news:
it was full of a bunch of people that dont take their skiing seriously, it was expensive, and i am happy i did it.

The bottom line:
I passed with flying colors, whoda thunk? and am making the realization that people who are involved with organizations like psia on a high level (examiners, tech team, demo team) are nontheless passionate and talented athletes despite what their weekend warrior psia bretheren show us on the hill.

And i had a great time skiing the patches of deep pow that were steep enough to shred at Flatstar.

Heres a cool photo from the first sunny bit after the first storm----Perfect Timing?

and thanks to Jill for her help this week!

little steps- tasty dinner

2008-12-05T21:30:00.001-08:00

today i finally pulled the trigger on joining PSIA to further my education into being a pro ski instructor...85 bucks plus countless more buy ins to make sure that i know how to teach skiing...do i sound a bit disgruntled???i am..a bit.anyways, i feel like im making steps in the right direction to being able to make a real living here, and im stoked to be able to help people share the sport that has changed (ruined) my life.:)on other notes:

I made a super awesome split pea soup for dinner and it is totally vegan which is cool for you hippies out there as well as for my girlfriend...smelly hippies.

She told me to write down the recipe so we can make it later.

here goes the recipe:
2 whisky cokes....start cooking.
5 cloves garlic
3 carrots
2 potatoes
1 bundle green onions
1 yellow onion
olive oil
salt
pepper
quite a bit of dill (maybe table spoon or so.)

All that stuff above goes into the pot to sautee and get clear/softened.
probably about 20-30 mins.

while that stuff is simmering- soak splitpeas in water to shorten cook time.

combine 2 cups split peas with sauteeing goodies plus 6-8 cups water, a few pinches of salt and a huge spoonful of trader joes veggie boullion.

simmer for about an hour until the flavors have settled a bit and everything including split peas are soft and tasty.

serve with hippie sprouted 19 grain bread and vegan butter for hippies.

it was pretty tasty.

heres a photo.

good morning.

2008-12-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

ive got three things that are great today.
1)snow is coming on the 12th woot woot!
2)i have the day off---aka i get to ride my bike, drink coffee and stack cords of wood.
3)chimpanzee riding on a segway.

good day.

new computer!

2008-12-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

yoyoyoyoyo...
new computer sick!!!!
kris

at least im good looking.

2008-12-02T09:33:00.001-08:00

1)cant use email.
2)cant spell.
hmmm

today was a good day.

2008-12-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

spent the morning today helping people fix their bikes, drinking coffee and talking about how rad its going to be when we get our ski tuning machines in this week.

there she is....150 mm wide stone, 350 wide belt, attached side edger, its gonna be the shit. Its supposedly the same kind of stone and dressing system that volkl and a bunch of other companies use to dress their factory skis.....broken linear stuctures all day anyone????

then i got a raise, and i didnt even ask for it. my boss just pulled me aside and said that im doing a great job and hes stoked to have me onboard.
sick.

Then a guy who frequents our bike shop offered some scrap building materials that will be just perfect for building some bomber workshop benches to sit next to our new machines.

then i get chocolate chip cookies for dinner, with pasta for desert...not bad for a skibum.

CHEERS!
kris