• 11/17--In an email exchange this weekend Maegan Carney told Telemarktips.com why she decided to turn around at Camp 3 and head down for good on Mt. Everest. The Two-time World Extreme ski champion set out this fall in an attempt to become the first woman and first North American to complete a ski descent from the world's tallest peak, but in the end it was the mountain that decided whether or not she would be successful. "The mountain always has the final say and we each heed her warnings through our own filters," Carney wrote. "I trust my assessment of the conditions and am simply but profoundly grateful to be home alive and well." Maegan described the conditions on the mountain that led to her decision:

"As those of you know who followed along.., I made it to Camp 3 (23,600ft/7,200m) twice but decided it was unsafe to ski Everest this season. When we first arrived in base camp, the skiing conditions were great but the monsoons kept us pinned down low. Then we had to wait out a week of huge avalanches. The window of clear skies and low winds was incredibly short this autumn and by the time our Sherpas had cleared a route through to the South Col, the jet stream was resting on our summit. Painfully, I watched the snow blow off the 5,000ft/1,500m Lhotse face and expose the very old, gray ice of the glacier. When I was at Camp 3 on October 21st I thought it remained skiable because I could see a route through the ice that still held snow. Unfortunately, the winds were gusting at 60 mph (100k/h) and after a sleepless night we retreated back to base camp in hopes of a break. The winds roared even harder the next day, further stripping my coveted snow, then we had a freak storm that dumped one meter of snow at Camp 2. The winds continued unabated and I knew it was no longer safe for me to ski; the majority of my descent route would have been wind slab snow over ice, essentially a recipe for avalanches."

At that point Maegan and a teammate headed down, bringing an end to her quest. The three remaining climbers on her team decided to make an attempt to reach the summit (only Maegan had gone to Everest to ride down) on November 3. The group made it as far as the South Summit---just 4 or 500 hundred vertical feet from the roof of the world. On arrival winds were calm, but soon it began to howl once more. Expedition leader Wally Berg decided the most prudent course of action was to turn around and head down. When the three climbers returned to their camp on the South Col they discovered three of their tents had been blown apart in the huge winds. Incidentally, according to an audio report delivered by Berg from Camp 3, the expedition leader reported finding "some breakable cross-wind slab type conditions moving away from (the) Balcony towards the South Summit." The snowpack would have likely been even worse on the ski descent route, so it looks like Carney made the right call.

Although disappointed conditions precluded her from completing an attempt at a ski descent, Maegan Carney is happy that climbing the conditions in general were safe enough for her team to carry on, "I'm really proud of the formidable achievement of my teammates," says Maegan.

Carney told us she's received hundreds of email messages from friends and supporters, "I've been flooded with messages of support reminding me that this hugely committed attempt to pursue my dream was good enough, but honestly it still hurts inside to have not met with more success. The only section of Everest I skied was between Camps 1 and 2," wrote Maegan. She also says she would like to go back some day and try again, "I am disappointed but I am also walking away feeling proud of my efforts, my enthusiasm and the strength I showed on the mountain. With this experience under my belt, I would ultimately like to go back and pursue the goal until it is accomplished."

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• 10/30--As many in the telemark community are already aware, the USTSA Telemark Freeskiing Series will be on hiatus this year. In it's place series organizer Jeff Wright has been working hard to put together a Telemark Freeskiing Nationals event to be held at Snowbird, Utah. Details are still be worked out, but this season's only big mountain competition in the US is slated for the weekend of March 13th and 14th, 2004. Also, Nat Ross has informed us that he will has scheduled a Telemark US National Championships Slope Style (park) Comp and a Tele-X for February 5-8th at Copper Mountain, Colorado. Nat is also working on a second tele comp to be held sometime later. It's been a tough year for the organizers of many events in all of the active sport categories, from mountain biking to alpine skiing, and even snowboarding, not just freeheel skiing. Most recently we received word that the famous 24 Hours of Aspen team endurance skiing competition will not be held during the 2003/04 season. As of just last year this event was sponsored by Audi, televised on ESPN and touted as having raised more than $4 million for various worthy causes in its previous 14 years. Organizers of the 24 Hours of Aspen have been looking for a title sponsor for nearly half a year but had to cancel last week with the event's traditional December date looming. "We had no more warm leads, the race is just six weeks out, it was time to pull the plug,'' Aspen's John Rigney, the company's director of event marketing, told Skiing Magazine. In the face of such challenges, Telemarktips would like to send out major props to both Jeff Wright and Nat Ross for working hard to keep the spirit of the tele comps alive during a down time for so many events in the adventure sports world.
• 10/30--Canada's CBC radio is reporting that the long awaited coroner's report on the Durrand Glacier avalanche has been released. The following is a transcription of the short CBC report, as broadcast at 12:30 pm (PST) today: "The British Columbia Coroner's Service has completed its investigation into the deaths of seven skiers on Durrand Glacier near Revelstoke. 4 Canadians and 3 Americans were killed in a massive avalanche that buried 13 members of a backcountry ski touring group. Coroner Chuck Purse concluded that Selkirk mountain experience followed the proper procedures for avalanche safety, but also found the tour operator did not subscribe to an industry avalanche alert called INFOEX. Purse says all tour operators should have access to INFOEX. He also wants the industry to set up a professional association to maintain training and safety standards." Telemarktips.com has requested a copy of Coroner Purse's report and will provide further details on the report's content as it becomes available. Related story: "Whitewash on Tumbledown."
• 10/30--In sad news for all of us who have been following Maegan Carney's quest to become the first woman to ski Mt. Everest, the Washington State native has decided that her dream will go unfulfilled this year. According recent dispatch posted on the Berg Adventures site, Carney and fellow climber Brad Johnson left Everest Base Camp and headed down valley on October 27th. No reason or details were given but expedition leader Wally Berg said Maegan made the decision to end her quest "very decisively and with the great confidence." As of today the remaining members of the Berg Adventures team were heading to Camp Two, hoping to make another summit bid in a few days. Wally Berg's audio dispatch announcing Maegan's departure is here.
• 10/05--While continuing the ban on chairlift dispaly ads (reported here last week), the US Forest Service has decided to go ahead and allow limited advertising in the form of company logos on trail map holders attached to safety bars. The trail maps will be placed in cylinders installed on the safety bars and sponsoring company logos will be permited on these cylinders. The ski area will be allowed to sell and keep the profit from the ads. In an AP report Kalle Lasn, founder of the Adbuster Foundation, objected to the idea. "We are used to being ambushed by marketing messages,'' Lasn said. "Our brains are observing 3,000 marketing messages a day and we certainly don't need 3,001--especially in that kind of setting." Vail Resorts says they will not participate in the trail map ad program. Spokeswoman Kelly Ladyga told the AP, "There needs to be a real sensitivity to over-commercialization of our slopes. If the line is crossed, then it will detract from the overall experience and we believe advertising on chairlifts crosses that line for our guests.''
• 10/02-As reported here recently, ScottyBob's Handcrafted Skis has moved from Denver to Silverton, Colorado. We spoke with ScottyBob's Dave "Mazz" Mazzarella last night, who reported to us that their move is nearly complete and the growing company with the head-turning tele skis will resume taking orders. "We are gearing up for production right now," said Mazz. "And we'll begin accepting orders for 30 day delivery beginning tomorrow morning." Then Mazz dropped the bombshell, "we are excited to be in our new facility and we are so psyched to get ScottyBob's BobTails out to the tele skiing public this season that we are dropping our price to $390 plus $30 shipping, effective immediately." For some time we have noted this line on the scottybob.com website, "Although our retail prices have been $590 per pair, we should be able to offer our skis factory direct at significantly lower prices once our new production facility is operational." We had no idea "significant" meant a 33% price reduction! "By selling direct we can take advantage of certain sales and marketing cost savings, and with our new factory ready to begin production we feel we can offer our customers not just a great pair of tele specific skis, but great value as well," explained Mazz.
• 8/29--SmartWool, the Colorado-based manufacturer of socks, underwear, hats, sweaters and a variety of high quality wool products for winter use, has issued a recall affecting several of its popular products. The recall involves their Thermo weight NTS, Aero (not body wear), beanie, balaclava, neck gaiter and headliner. The company is concerned that due to what a spokesman called "an inconsistent fabric run," durability and cosmetic appearance could be an issue on these products. "Many users might not ever notice a problem, while others might see a very noticeable decline in appearance after just one washing," the spokesman told Tt.com. "We decided that due to this wide variability the best thing for us to do was to issue a complete recall." Concerned owners who recently purchased any of the above SmartWool products should see their dealer or contact SmartWool directly. The company spokesman also wanted us to let everyone know that they have already issued return authorizations to their dealers, are moving quickly to take care of everyone involved in the recall, and that SmartWool will be back strong this Fall.
• 8/29--Maegan Carney, the two-time World Extreme Skiing champ who wants to be the first North American and the first woman to ski down Mt. Everest, left for the Himalaya earlier this week and has begun her long journey to the top of the world's highest mountain. She checked in this morning with a short email message: "I arrived in Kathmandu today and head to Lukla tomorrow morning to begin the trek into Base Camp. We plan on climbing Lobuche as an acclimatizing peak, and I'll be doing a final shake down ski, then we will be working the Khumbu ice fall for a few weeks. Progress might be a little slow at first because we are the only everest team on the south side and there has been a lot of snow from the monsoon. Both of which make skiing Everest more likely and more pleasurable. All is well and I am incredibly excited to get up there. Enjoy your own adventures this Autumn!--Maegan" For more about Maegan visit Tele News page 10 where you will also find a link to a five minute interview we did with her at the Telemarktips.com booth at the Outdoor Retailer trade show last January. Carney is being guided on Everest by Wally Berg of Berg Adventures.
• 8/29--LifeLink has announced its plans for their 2004 Life-Link/Dynafit Randonnee Rally ski mountaineering race series. "This race series continues to grow every year just as the sport of ski mountaineering has grown in the United States. Now that we are going to the Sierra Nevada the race series will go to just about every major range in the western U.S.," said John Scott Executive Vice-President of Life-Link. This year Lake Tahoe California's Alpine Meadows will join the series roster of venues. The first event will be held just after the new-year at Whistler Blackcomb where the Rando Rally will be part of that mountain's week-long Big Mountain Experience Festival. The race will be held on January 10th. The series continues with the Alpine Meadows event on January 24th, Crested Butte, CO, on Valentines Day, and the third annual Alpental, WA Rando Rally on March 6th. The series culminates with the North American Championships on March 28, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Life-Link is experiencing a great response to the 2004 series. "There has been a steady increase in the recreational divisions," says event coordinator Christie Watts. "It seems the competitive participants are bringing their friends and family, who cheered for the race division last year, but say they themselves are going to join in this year. It's a great event that almost any backcountry skier can participate in." LifeLink also says that the Race Series benefits the local avalanche forecasting center or the local search and rescue organization where the individual races are held. For more information visit www.life-link.com.
• 8/28--Current atmospheric and oceanic conditions in the tropical Pacific are near average and do not support the development of either La Niña or El Niño in the next few months, according to a recent report by NOAA's National Center for Environmental Prediction. At one point last spring the center was saying their were fairly strong indications that a La Nina pattern was in the early stages of development, now the word is that while equatorial sea-surface temperature anomalies greater than +0.5°C persist in the region west of the date line, and negative anomalies remain in the eastern Pacific, near the South American coast during July very little net change was observed in the SST anomalies in the Niño regions. The report concluded by saying that a majority of the statistical and coupled model forecasts indicate near neutral conditions for the remainder of 2003 and early 2004. These models are consistent with current conditions and the lack of any noticeable trends in the suite of oceanic and atmospheric indices. Translation: The forecast for the coming winter in the Northern Hemisphere is for a "normal" winter with neither a La Niña nor an El Niño influence.
• 8/28--Snowboard mountaineer Stephen Koch, partner Jimmy Chin and two Sherpas are about to make their final push to the summit of Mt. Everest via the Hornbein Couloir. Koch hopes to then complete a snowboard decent down the Hornbein. "I chose this line because style points count, even on Everest," explains Koch in a news release sent out the other day by one of the team's sponsors, LifeLink International. The Hornbein Couloir, is reportedly the most direct and challenging line on Everest's North Face. According to an August 25th on-mountain dispatch on Koch's website, the Koch, Chin and the two Sherpas, Lakpa and Kami, will climb in alpine style, without oxygen and "carrying what we need on our backs," wrote Koch, a Jackson Hole (WY) local. "We want to climb the mountain 'by fair means' and would rather fail by fair means that use the aid of oxygen." Chin, a photographer and ski mountaineer, is reportedly carrying Dynafit CarveLite skis on the expedition but it is unclear how much skiing Chin is planning on doing during the planned descent ahead of Koch's snowboard run down the Hornbein Couloir. As of yesterday the team big push had yet to begin. To follow along visit www.stephenkoch.com.
• 8/20--Russell Rainey of Rainey Designs phoned in the other day to let us know that he is getting set to introduce a new and improved HammerHeel that he promises will solve all of the problems backcountry users had with the previous model. Rainey says his new design will incorporate a spring loaded climbing bale, doing away with the problematic plastic detents he and others have used before. "Once I saw how nicely this spring-loaded design works I wondered why I ever put so much time and energy into detents in the past," said Rainey. The new HammerHeel climbing bale will remain well above the ski deck when lowered, allowing the user to flip the bale up into position with a ski pole. Rainey also plans to offer a significant discount to registered HammerHead owners interested in upgrading their heel pieces. Pricing is still being worked out but is estimated to be somewhere in the plus or minus $30 range. "Our goal has been to design and build a next-generation HammerHeel that will offer best-on-the-market features and durability comparable to that of the HammerHead binding itself," Rainey explained. "We'd like to thank everyone for their patience while we have been working towards that goal."
• 8/18--Following an executive committee meeting with Utah's Governor Leavitt Thursday, officials with Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) issued the following statement:

We are cautiously encouraged about Governor Leavitt’s desire to protect wild lands and recreation areas and work with us on our intent to build a recreation economy. We urge Outdoor Retailer to sign an agreement with Salt Lake City for Winter 2005 to see if the progress we thought we heard is real and tangible. "This conversation started about wilderness protection and we will continue to pursue that protection," said Frank Hugelmeyer, president of Outdoor Industry Association. "We are encouraged by the Governor’s aspirations to grow a recreational economy; however, we believe that protecting wild places is a critical component to reaching that goal. This is only the beginning." During the meeting, Governor Leavitt proposed federal protection for "every piece" of six million acres of Utah lands with wilderness and recreation values. "The Governor has laid out goals for protecting Utah’s wild lands," said Lee Fromson, CEO of Cascade Designs and Chairperson of the OIA Board of Directors. "We are now looking for tangible actions and state policy to meet those goals."

OIA, the trade group of the outdoor recreation business community, has been meeting with Governor Leavitt for several months concerning the controversial legal settlement between Utah and the U.S. Department of the Interior regarding wild BLM lands. Considered by many to be a "backroom deal," the settlement prompted Black Diamond President and CEO to threaten to use his influence to move the OR trade shows out of Utah. The two outdoor industry shows bring an estimated $24 million in annual revenue into the Salt Lake City area. In its statement Thursday the OIA reaffirmed its position: "OIA believes that the outdoor industry should spend its money in a place that respects and understands the outdoor recreation economy and the needs of outdoor recreation participants, and that takes action to protect the wilderness recreation experience."

• 8/8--ScottyBob's Handcrafted Skis has moved to Silverton, Colorado where the company will build its unique BobTail tele-specific skis in a 3,200 square foot facility right on the town's main street. "We were able to get a variance to do our manufacturing in an historic old building right in downtown and we are excited to join the Silverton ski area in working to revitalize the town's year round economy," a ScottyBob spokesman told Telemarktips.com this afternoon. "Once we get moved in and established in Silverton we would like to invite anyone passing through the area to stop on by for a tour of our new digs," said SB's David (Mazz) Mazzerella. "With all the great backcountry, and now lift served skiing too, we think Silverton will be the perfect place for us to design and test new skis, as well as carry out the hand manufacturing process that we are so proud of." Check it out at www.scottybob.com
• 8/8--Details concerning yesrterday's bankruptcy filing by Gestione Sport Alpini s.r.l, the Italian parent company of Tua Skis, are beginning to emerge. Industry observers, as well as others close to the situation, have told us that a primary cause of Tua's current financial difficulties was Gestione Sport Alpini's decision to build a new ski factory, and move Tua's manufacturing facility prior to the beginning of the 2002/03 season. Production problems at the new factory resulted in delays getting skis out to dealers last fall in a timely manner. This affected what is known in the retail world as the retailer's "sell-through," the number of skis actually sold to customers out of dealer inventory during the season, versus the number purchased from the distributor. Late delivery also meant that fewer Tua skis were sold at the traditionally higher retail prices common during the fall and early-to-mid-winter. We are told that all of this was likely to have had a dramatic effect on this year's "sell-in," orders taken from dealers last spring for skis to be sold this season. Industry speculation on the chain of events leading up to yesterday's filing centers around a scenario where possibly weaker than normal world-wide bookings for this year's product, combined with the failure of Gestione Sport Alpini to secure outside financing, resulted in a situation where the maker of some of the sweetest flexing tele skis in the history of the sport was unable to sustain operations.
• 8/7--The telemark and backcountry skiing world received a shock today when word spread quickly that Gestione Sport Alpini s.r.l., the parent company of Tua Ski, filed the Italian version of Chapter 11 bankruptcy papers this morning. Even worse the word is that at this point, it is highly unlikely that any Tua skis will be delivered to dealers for Fall 2003. Further information is still being gathered at this time, we'll keep you posted.