The Backcountry

I believe it's the multitude of shared traits that makes backcountry fly-fishing and backcountry skiing so appealing to me. Both provide a healthy amount of solitude and silence. Both command respect of nature and reverence at its organic beauty. Both make you rely on yourself and breach that safety net of emergency hotlines, instant communication and rapid travel. Then in skiing and in fishing there is a surge of adrenaline and excitement in a peaceful and calm world. For me that adrenaline comes when I'm experiencing those moments of flight on a pair of skis or setting that hook as a monster brown trout just breached the surface water and attacked my floating fly.

I really don't know why I wrote what I just wrote. It really is a terrible introduction for a Trip Report. I guess it has to do with the fact that most people find it contradictory or even oxymoronic that a professional skier/thrill-seeker would be into such a calm and silent sport such as fly-fishing. I guess I just wanted to explain myself to myself. Cause sometimes even I think, "Why the hell do I like this fly-fishing thing so much?"

Anyways, I recently went on a backcountry fly-fishing trip with a few buddies deep into the Sierra wilds. Since your attention span is probably waning by now, here are some pictures and stats of the trip.

Days: 3
Nights: 2
Miles: 18.9
Pack Wgt: 52 lbs.
Trout Caught: Group: 100+ Me: 20+
Trout Eaten: 7
Lakes Fished: 5
Streams Fished: 2
Liquor Consumed: 9 pints of Jameson Irish Whiskey, 1 litre Milagro Tequila


What were all truly looking for.

Las Leñas is Open!

The South American Winter season has officially kicked off. Las Leñas, one of my top 10 favorite resorts in the world, is reporting a fresh dump of 260cms on top and 120cms at the base and chairs are spinning. Fuck yeah!

My summer plans include a trip to Chile but hopefully if I play my cards right I'll be able to mash over to Leñas to shred the 3k' of vert that the infamous Marte chair dishes up. Hot damn Las Leñas is a sick mountain and its lengthy, steep pitches are starting to pester into my Summmer dreams.

Thanks Burkie

Check out this hilarious blog post put up on TGR by Rachael Burks. It's flattering in many ways, but more than that it's amazing because it reminds me of those special days where you and your buds shred around the mountain trying one up each other in the amounts of laughs you can produce. Nothing pretentious, nothing sick, just funny stuff all day long. Good times, good times.

It's a little hot in here, isn't it?

Now it's mainly purported by Snowboarding mags across the land that the shred-boarders are far steezier, fresher, stylier, (add any modern positive word + er) than skiers. While I give it to them that their mass-media perception out paces that purple-tall-teed, string-suspender wearing, goggle-sagging park donker sliding 5 foot down boxes with his arms at his ankles and buttering landings instead of hitting actual kickers, the cool hierarchy is a bunch of summer heat induced brainwashings that are mainly corporate sponsored ideas to brand Costco selling board brands as 'core'. Read: Burton. All in all, the 'rivalry' is a slowly simmered crockpot of fecal matter. Ask a skier, "Why do you ski?" Answer: "Cause it's fun" Ask a snowboarder that same question. Answer: "Cause it's fun"
If you boil the two sports down you get snow, slippery planks and fun. That's it. It's about as important to world history as the name of the ant I just stepped on. So with that being said, let me introduce to you my favorite picture of this season.

A one-boarder. Having fun.