Are you getting excited? Well, the bums are because Summer is over and it’s time to really start thinkging about ski season. The things that we do now will determine how prepared we are for the season. One of the most important things in skiing, is believe it or not, skis. The technology and requirements seems to change every few years and now there are so many different types and style – frontside, all mountain, powder, snow blades…ahhhhh! Fear not, friend, the bums are here to help you figure out what you need to have the best time on the mountain.
Weekly Flavor
- Mario : Heady Topper!!
- Brian : Heady Topper!!
Quick Follow Ups
Burning Man
- All The Greatest Pop-Up Architecture from Burning Man
“With the unofficial end of summer also comes the close of Burning Man, a radical annual festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert drawing together artsy folk, techies, celebrities, and this year, even a plague of insects. Each year from the last week of August to Labor Day, festival goers erect a temporary city of sorts filled with fantastical installations and a giant wooden effigy that would be set aflame. Call it fun, profound, or insufferably hipster, but this year, drawing some 70,000 attendees overall, the event sure gave rise to some incredible design and architecture—a few gorgeous snaps from Bjarke Ingels are just the start.” (curbed.com)
- Burning Man Inspired Essential Mix (bbc.co.uk)
- Susan Sarandon’s Trip to Burning Man
Ski News
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TRAILER: Whistler: 50 Years of Going Beyong (whistlerblackcomb.com)
For the last five decades, Whistler Blackcomb has left its mark on those who are drawn to the mountains. What started as a single Olympic dream in 1966 has evolved into the largest ski resort in North America, with a slew of accomplishments to back it up. From the resort’s adventure-seeking founders to its freestyle heydays-and breaking Guinness World Records along the way-snowsport industry legends recount the contributions that Whistler Blackcomb has made to skiing and snowboarding and the significance of its golden anniversary. But while 50 Years of Going Beyond solidifies the resort’s legacy in the past, there is no denying that the last 50 years is just the beginning.
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TRAILER: We Trust Your Judgement
“We Trust Your Judgment is a filmmaker’s perspective reflecting the simple joys and hard work found in the process of creating a ski film.”
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Q&A: Tanner Hall shares meaning behind name of new film, “Ring The Alarm” (freeskier.com)
“For the past few months, the ever enthusiastic Tanner Hall has been teasing the skiing world with the occasional mention of his ongoing film project. Photographs and snippets of footage released via Instagram and Facebook—captured in locales including Alaska and British Columbia—have made it quite clear that the Ski Boss has been bagging mouth-watering lines on the reg’, and fans have been eager to discover how/when Hall plans to unveil the fruits of his labor. This week, Hall has answered: Together, he and Inspired Media will release Ring The Alarm in the fall of 2016.” –(freeskier.com)
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NEW BUCKETLIST ITEM: Little Nell Snowcat Academy (ski.curbed.com)
“Aspen’s the Little Nell is adding a new program to its suite of winter activities for guests: Snowcat Academy. This new perk goes beyond sitting shotgun in a groomer like the Little Nell’s other program, Groom the Mountain. Snowcat Academy participants will load up in a Prinoth “Bison 350″ snowcat at Panda Peak at the base of Buttermilk Mountain before heading out to lay some corduroy. There’s room for two passengers in the cat, so the lesson can be split as well as taken solo. After some training, guests can either push some snow around or groom their own trail, conditions and workload permitting.” – (ski.curbed.com)
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X Games Coming to Oslo, Norway (powder.com)
“Four years after uprooting from Tignes, France, the X Games is headed back across the pond, bringing the best in skiing and snowboarding to Norway’s capital city in February of 2016. In addition to Ski and Snowboard Big Air and Ski and Snowboard Superpipe, X Games Oslo will also feature Skateboard Street, making it the first X Games ever to combine winter and summer disciplines.
“We look forward to showcasing some of the world’s best athletes in one of the most unique and dynamic cities with a rich history in winter sports and impressive list of top homegrown athletes,” X Games Vice President Tim Reed told ESPN.com.
ESPN, Norway’s major media outlet TV2, and the city of Oslo have been working for the better part of a year to bring the popular action sports competition to Scandinavia for the first time. Norway, Sweden, and Finland have long been strong competitors at X, and now from February 24-28, they will have a chance to top the podium on their home turf.” – (powder.com)
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GoPro Odessey Virtual Reality Camera (theverge.com)
“The wild, behemoth 16-camera virtual reality rig that GoPro announced at Google’s I/O conference is officially called “Odyssey,” and is now available for purchase. But it is not for everyone. It costs $15,000, and only “professional content creators and producers” will be allowed to buy it — after they submit an application.”
“That price tag might make your eyes spin, but it does cover a good amount of equipment. Buying an Odyssey means you get 16 of GoPro’s top-of-the-line Hero 4 Black, a microphone, the rig and all the necessary cables, a Pelican case to carry it all in, as well as a warranty and support. For a production company that’s looking to get into the virtual reality game but doesn’t necessarily want to go the DIY route, this could be the best option.” – (theverge.com)
BONUS
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The Ten Ski Towns You Can’t Miss This Winter (ski.curbed.com)
“Here at Curbed Ski, we spend a lot of time thinking about ski towns. We keep tabs on our favorites, stay on the lookout for hidden gems and plot our next visits. This year, the name of the game is changes and classics. The amenity and improvement bug has hit a number of ski areas, as resort operators struggle to not get left behind. Other legendary mountains are celebrating major milestones and iconic properties are getting upgrades. It’s going to be a good year to plan a tour, and we have the top ten ski towns you can’t miss this winter.” – (ski.curbed.com)
- Big Bear, California
- Lake Louise, Alberta
- Ogden, Utah
- Aspen, Colorado
- Telluride, Colorado
- Whistler, British Columbia
- Sun Valley, Idaho
- Jackson, Wyoming
- Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico
- Park City, Utah
The Big LeBuySki
Are you getting excited? Well, the bums are because Summer is over and it’s time to really start thinkging about ski season. The things that we do now will determine how prepared we are for the season. One of the most important things in skiing, is believe it or not, skis. The technology and requirements seems to change every few years and now there are so many different types and style – frontside, all mountain, powder, snow blades…ahhhhh! Fear not, friend, the bums are here to help you figure out what you need to have the best time on the mountain.
Here are some helpful links that we mentioned on the podcast:
- Freeskier Magazine Gear Reviews
- Powder Magazine 2015 Ski Buyers Guide
- OnTheSnow Expert Advice – How to Buy Skis
Around the Horn
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Tax quirk forces Colorado to waive pot taxes for a day (ap.org)
“Colorado’s unusual tax law is forcing the state to suspend taxes on recreational marijuana for one day.
The sales-tax break on Sept. 16 will shave $20 off the price of a mid-grade ounce of pot in the Denver area, where ounces this summer sell for about $200 before tax. It’s unusual for a state that has many times rejected sales-tax holidays on things like school supplies, clothing or energy-efficient appliances. Officials say it could cost the state $3 million to $4 million.“At first I was in disbelief we were doing this,” said Cheri Hackett, who owns Botanacare, a dispensary in the Denver suburb of Northglenn. “Once our lawyer said, ‘No, we really are doing this,’ we started getting ready. We’re thinking there will be huge crowds.”
Hackett is printing signs to alert customers to the holiday and is trying to boost inventory for a one-day crush of business.
Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights requires voter approval for new taxes. In 2013, a year after legalizing recreational pot, voters approved the 25 percent taxes. But the law requires that any new taxes be waived and refunded if overall state collections exceed projections given to voters when they approved the new taxes.
In this case, the pot taxes were projected to raise $70 million in 2014. They actually raised $58 million, but because overall tax collections that year exceeded projections, Colorado must ask voters for permission to keep the money. And to comply with the requirement that the taxes revert to zero, lawmakers settled on a short one-day tax waiver.” – (ap.org) -
The History of Franzia (broadly.vice.com)
“Sunset Blush. Chillable Red. Crisp White. They fuel power hours the world over, make book clubs passably tolerable, and are, according to their maker, “The world’s most popular” wines. The looping slosh that appears on the side of a Franzia box is the universally recognizable Nike swoosh of the alcoholic beverage world, telegraphing an irresistible down-market joie de vivre to those who prefer not to sully their drinking experience with corks or tannins.
Proudly easy-drinking and readily available—even the wine snobs at your local Walgreens sell it—Franzia did $325 million worth of business in the US in the last year, and in 2012, the Wine Group, the privately-held maker of Franzia, saw sales of $1 billion. The wine has solidified its place in the culture by playing muse to more than one wildly popular drinking game. Slap Bag—denude the wine pouch of its box, slap it, then chug from the famous Franzia wine nozzle for as long as possible—is played by everyone from GoPro-wearing tailgaters at the Cotton Bowl to smoke shop employees
vacationing at Bonnaroo. Tour de Franzia—players attempt to chug boxes of wine while competing in physical challenges tangentially related to the Tour de France— earned quite a reputation when it was implicated as the real culprit in the infamous University of Tennessee butt-chugging affair, and a couple of years ago, the normally down-for-whatever powers that be at Wesleyan got uncharacteristically narc-y in their efforts to curb student participation in the game.” – (broadly.vice.com) -
Whiskey aged in space tastes like throat lozenges and rubbery smoke (theverge.com)
“It’s a familiar origin story: an astronaut journeys into space for a routine exploratory mission — but something alien is lurking in the vacuum nearby. This unknown force messes with his chemical makeup, and when our hero returns to Earth, he seems… different, somehow. It happened to the members of the Fantastic Four; it happened to Johnny Depp in The Astronaut’s Wife; and now, it’s happened to an even more beloved icon: whiskey.
This past week, four tasters at the Ardbeg Distillery in Islay, Scotland drank samples of whiskey that had aged for nearly three years aboard the International Space Station. They compared the samples to whiskey that had matured in a similar way here on Earth. The team said the space samples were completely unlike anything they had ever tasted before; something about the space environment had a distinct effect on the alcoholic beverage. “It was the most unusual tasting we’d ever done,” Dr. Bill Lumsden, head of distilling and whiskey creation at the Glenmorangie Company, told The Verge. “I was amazed at how different the samples were.”
Lumsden hopes the test will help him learn more about the whiskey maturation process, but overall he prefers his whiskey aged on Earth. The space whiskey had a much smokier quality, with flavors akin to cherries, prunes, raisins, and cinnamon, he said. He also noted that the whiskey’s aftertaste was “pungent, intense, and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges, and rubbery smoke.” This was in contrast to the Earth-aged whiskey, which had richer flavors more characteristic of whiskey drinks. The space whiskey still had strong flavor, but they were strange, Lumsden said — and not particularly good. He still has yet to figure out why. “That I haven’t been able to work out yet,” he said.
The journey to this cosmic taste test began in 2011, when the Ardbeg Distillery sent samples of its single malt scotch whiskey to the ISS aboard a Soyuz rocket. The experiment was a collaborative publicity stunt from the distillery and the Texas-based research company NanoRacks, which helps to coordinate commercial experiments in space. NASA policies prohibit pure commercial programs, so the companies got approval by proposing a study of how the absence of gravity might affect a class of organic compounds called terpenes. These are the compounds that give whiskey its flavor, as well as the flavors of some fruits and vegetables. Lumsden figured the experiment might reveal some unknown facets of how whiskey ages.” – (theverge.com)
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“Step Brothers” Fans, Rejoice: You Can Now Actually Go To The Catalina Wine Mixer (fastcocreate.com)
“It’s been quote-fodder for frat boys for yours, and the subject of certain Lil Wayne lyrics. But until now, it was just a beautiful dream.
The Catalina Wine Mixer. The biggest helicopter leasing event in the Western hemisphere since 1997. A fictitious event created for the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy, Step Brothers, captured the imagination of its ardent fans, and has lived on as a memeable pop culture reference. The joke behind the Catalina Wine Mixer in the movie is how everyone takes it increasingly more serious with each profanity laced utterance of the event. Apparently, the island of Catalina itself has started taking it seriously as well.” (fastcocreate.com)