Flight delay

Last night I was supposed to start my flight to Geneva, Switzerland. My girlfriend and I are planning on spending the next three weeks skiing in Europe. Fortunately for us when we arrived in Reno the attendant at the desk for United airlines told us that our flight was delayed and we were going to miss our connection. Normally I'd have been upset about that, but not last night. It was dumping, and this morning we awoke to 30 inches of new snow at the resorts. Our flight is rescheduled for the first thing tomorrow, with a way better itinerary. We arrive in europe one day later than planned, with one more epic powder day under our belts. We skied Squaw and Alpine today and pillaged the deep fresh snow for as long as we could, but the lifts have to close sometime. Here's a few POV clips from today, it was deep!

Flight Delay from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

In a day and half we'll be in Verbier, Switzerland. Hopefully it is good.

Another 18 inches?

It didn't take long for our most recent storm to drop another 12-18 overnight last night. Coupled with our already excellent conditions this made for another awesome powder day at Alpine Meadows.

I broke out the GoPro POV cam for most of the day and captured an inordinate number of full arm pumps while in the air off cliffs. I found myself going for some airs that had steep, tricky, spiny take-offs, and maybe that had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, hopefully I met my yearly quota for rolling up the windows and I can move on.

The snow quality was amazing and it seemed like everyone was taking full advantage of the great conditions. Supposed to be a high of 57 degrees by Monday! Get it while you can because this powder isn't going to last long....

Alpine Meadows 3-13-10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Wet slide city

This week we've gotten two really warm, wet storms that dropped 16 and 12 inches respectively. While our snow is usually heavier than most, this is starting to get ridiculous. Today, everything slid, everything. Things that don't slide were sliding, and going through the forest to boot. It was a waste of time to ski anything steep because as soon as you got into it the whole thing was going to slide. Its the nature of the beast I suppose, and its days like these that you gotta love low angle powder. Lucky for me I'm not too proud to ski some mellow slopes... The visibility today was also quite poor, so I only pulled out my GoPro POV camera for a few shots, and here they are.

A few clips from Alpine Meadows 2/27/10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Elan skis 2010/2011 preview

I've been skiing on next years Elan Olympus and Boomerang skis for the past three weeks or so. While they are similar to the current line-up of Elan skis there have been some subtle changes. Most notably is the graphic change on the Boomerang. The ski itself remains unchanged from last year's award winning design which many people, including myself, absolutely love. This ski is floaty with a waist of 120 mm, easy to turn in its 190 length due to the early rise tip and tail, and now it looks even cooler than it did. Not only has the topsheet graphic been updated, but the base graphic as well. This ski will also be available in two shorter lengths for those who may have been too small for the 190 length.

The summit series is new this year and is an updated version of the popular triple series from last year. One of my favorite skis of all time is the Elan 1010 which has been replaced this year by the new Olympus. The Olympus has the same exact dimensions as the 1010 but has a slightly lighter core and a slightly rockered tip. Both improvements have made an already awesome ski even better. The summit series also features a hole in the tip to accomodate a skin hook or to make a rescue litter while in the backcountry. If you choose not to use the tip hole for any reason the skis come with an insert that keeps it covered. At 110 mm underfoot this ski can do it all, and is my ski of choice on all but the deepest days, and all the time in the backcountry.

The current line up of Elan skis is the best they have ever produced, and next years skis are even better. The photo below is of me dropping into the white-out gnar on my new Olympus, the fall line has got nothing on me...