A skier enjoys the powdery slopes of Crystal Mountain, which celebrated an unusually early opening day on Friday, as did Mount Baker. Photo courtesy The Seattle Times.

What happens when you sneak out for a Friday ski session on opening day? Sometimes you make the front page… so much for flying under the radar.

We’re loving this shot of a skier hitting the powdery slopes at Crystal Mountain — and the hot Osprey pack he’s rocking. Definitely has us thinking of ducking out early to catch some early season turns ourselves…

PHOTO via The Seattle Times frontpage Sat 11-19-11.

Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Product news, Pacific Northwest, ski, winter

Photo by Doug Hemken

The other day it snowed. That’s right, I got snowed on… It was cold and it was wet and it was miserable. I was on a rock climbing trip to the Red River Gorge for a long weekend of clipping bolts, pulling pockets and enjoying one last warm weather rock trip. All I wanted to do was bask in the sun, wear a t-shirt and cook breakfast on the camp stove without shivering.

I got snowed on… It was cold and it was wet and it was WONDERFUL! I forgot what it was like and my mind started to wander to other things. I dreamed of frozen waterfalls, deep snow,  groomed trails. I dreamed of waxing my skis and sharpening my ice picks. I dreamed of winter and what it will all bring.

The new season called winter is coming and I am excited for it!

Jon Jugenheimer is an Osprey sales rep with Ames Adventure Outfitters. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, is addicted to climbing and loves fried chicken.

Outdoor Activities, adventure alpinism, Climbing, ice climbing, ski, winter

We love a good hut trip, and the San Juans… well, they’re our magical backyard.

via Adventure Journal:

Bob Kingsley spent eight years guiding at Colorado’s famed 10th Mountain Division Huts and found it…frustrating. He wanted to offer people a remote hut that could access easy to intermediate terrain like the 10th Mountain huts and hardcore terrain, too. So ever since that first year guiding he’s been looking for just the right spot to build his own hut. After 16 years of searching and then the last four summers pounding nails, it’s complete, and the Opus Hut, a skin-in, ski-out cabin a few miles from Silverton, is about to open.

And unlike many of the 10th Mountain huts, Opus has something for everyone.

“Right out the back door is Owl Meadow. That’s excellent beginner terrain. Low angle. No avalanche danger,” Kingsley says. More intermediate terrain lies to the south. “That gets a little sun crusted, but bust through and you’re skiing powder through sparse trees right to the valley floor.”

The north-facing slopes of Ophir Pass less than a mile away are steeper and 13,661-foot Lookout Peak right behind the hut has the goods, too. “There are crags and big faces and couloirs,” Kingsley says. And right next door 13,380-foot South Lookout peak has “…phenomenal terrain. There’s enough there to keep me busy for the rest of my life.”

… the bottom line of Opus is that it gets you to the white.

Read the rest here…

PHOTO via Opus Hut

Southwest Colorado, travel Colorado, san juan mountains, ski, Snow, winter

Unless you’ve been living in a deep, dark cave… You may have noticed that there is a lot of cool stuff going on out there. So, we thought it was high-time we started rounding up some of our faves each Friday. Every month, we’ll be choosing a theme that fits with the Osprey lifestyle. Now that it’s October, we find ourselves looking up at the sky looking, waiting for signs of winter… so we’re dedicating this month to that big, beautiful sky. Welcome to the Osprey Friday Round-Up!

Shot in South Dakota in early February with most nights sub zero with -25 F wind chill, this video is a beautiful prelude to the coming winter months… though we’re not quite ready for this kind of cold.

Happy Friday!

Friday Round-up South Dakota, timelapse video, winter

Unless you’ve been living in a deep, dark cave… You may have noticed that there is a lot of cool stuff going on out there. So, we thought it was high-time we started rounding up some of our faves each Friday. Every month, we’ll be choosing a theme that fits with the Osprey lifestyle. Since we’re still in the full swing of winter, we decided to pay homage by picking “snow” for our February theme. Welcome to the Osprey Friday Round-Up!

If this doesn’t make you yearn for powder, we don’t know what will… Happy Friday!

http://www.vimeo.com/20056097

Osprey Culture, adventure adventure, ski, Snow, snowboard, video, winter

Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tourists. Cameras and RVs in tow. Long lines at info center. Traffic jams at the entrance. Sound like a typical summertime National Park visit? Well, not in winter!

Adventure Journal has a great round-up of the Top 10 National Parks in Winter; the spots you can hit up for amazing winter adventures, take incredible pictures, and not see a soul.

Their picks:

1. Mount Rainier, Washington
2. Acadia, Maine
3. Glacier, Montana
4. Sequoia/Kings Canyon, California
5. Crater Lake, Oregon
6. Yellowstone, Montana/Wyoming
7. Grand Canyon, Arizona
8. Grand Teton, Wyoming
9. Rocky Mountain, Colorado
10. Yosemite, California

Where’s you favorite winter spot?

Osprey Culture, adventure, travel National Parks, travel, winter

The Outdoor Retailer madness begins next week and we’ve got a packed line-up! And you get to hang out with these guys (above)… See you there!

DEMO DAY: Wednesday, January 19

Osprey at All Mountain Demo-Solitude Mountain Resort — pack demos including the brand new lift accessed and sidecountry riding Karve pack. We’ll also have great gear giveways and high-fives at the Osprey tent, think SNOW!

DAY 1: Thursday, January 20

Winter Wildlands Alliance Backcountry Film Festival Brewvies — Doors Open at 7:00 p.m. show starts at 7:30 p.m.

Osprey is proud sponsor of the Winter Wildlands Alliance Backcountry Film Festival and is excited to be a part of the OR Winter Market showing. Osprey will be on hand in support of our winter wildlands and giving away a plenty of brand new side-country ski packs and other sweet gear!

DAY 2: Friday, January 21

Osprey Packs 10,000 Fans Facebook Party — 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., at the Osprey Booth #5011

Come visit us at the Osprey Booth to celebrate our 10,000th Facebook Fan! We will have special guest Timmy O’Neill,  plenty of beer, Osprey prizes and even a Facebook photo booth complete with props to get your best Facebook profile ever!

ONGOING

Support the Conservation Alliance!

Osprey will be selling the Karve 6 technical side country ski pack for $30 (MSRP $79) to support the Conservation Alliance. We’ll start selling the packs on Day 1 until we’re SOLD OUT! We’ve got 50 up for grabs, so get ‘em while they are HOT!

Breast Cancer Fund Special Verve 10’s

We’ll have a sign up sheet to receive the latest news about environmental connections to breast cancer via email.  And 2 lucky winners will win a special Verve 10 in purple. That’s right, PURPLE!  We’ll also have these hawt packs on display in the booth.

Events, Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Product, Retail Promotions Breast Cancer Fund, Conservation Alliance, Events, facebook, Outdoor Retailer, social media, winter, winter wildlands

Crane hauling one of the 30-pound steel pipes 2,500 feet up to the 5,005-foot summit of Harp Mountain.

Avalanche centers continually struggle for money. The Chugach Avalanche Center was started with an earmark from the late Uncle Ted Stevens. That money is drying up and the Avi Center has become more dependent on the Friends of the Chugach Avalanche Center. This is a fired-up group of backcountry users that volunteer their time to help out.

Checking levels on the instrument box.

Recently, I joined the Friends to install a weather station on the summit of Harp Mountain on Hiland Road near Eagle River. Crane Johnson designed a typhoon-proof tower and equipped sensors for wind, temperature and relative humidity sensors. Unfortunately funds didn’t allow a weather cam — they triple the cost of the station. We hauled the gear up the mountain, and following Crane’s guidance, Hiland Road skiers had live data by the evening.

Final tweeks on the anemometer. Through trial and error, Crane found that cables supporting a single tower doesn’t work. The cables get rimmed up, start vibrating and loosen. This tower was cheap, fast to install, and will last for years with little maintenance.

Today the Friends are having photographer Kris Erickson present at Anchorage’s finest establishment, The Beartooth Theater. The event on Thursday, October 28 is at 8 PM. This is guaranteed to be an awesome event with great photos, serious beer drinking, lots of gear door prizes and a gear auction. Last year Andrew McLean packed the house with 420 people and raised a heap of money for the center.

Thanks a ton for donating several Kode ski packs, Osprey!

Osprey Athletes, causes Alaska, avalanche centers, Chugach Avalanche Center, funding, Joe Stock, ski, Snow, winter

Now that I am in the midst of my fall road trip, I have lots of ‘rest days’ in between climbing days to make videos and catch up on tons of photos… so I have been playing with new toys and came up with a quick video about what happens in the summer at Valhalla Mountain Touring so that everyone can enjoy the winter powder without too much effort.

Everyone thinks that my life and job at VMT as owner and lead guide is all fluffy powder skiing all the time, but some times — in fact, lots of times — it is hard labor to get the job done.

Osprey Adventure Envoys mountains, video, winter, winter prep, work

by Sven Brunso

Sometimes the search for the endless winter requires nothing more than staying home. As a professional freeskier, I am continually seeking epic conditions. Most years that requires many long hours on planes, trains and cramped quarters riding in the back of a sub-compact driving on hairy mountain roads in whiteout conditions. The winter of 2009/2010 has required nothing more than sitting at home and watching the snow fall. The southern San Juan Mountains have had an epic winter. A deep, relatively stable snowpack that has been replenished every 5-7 days since early December. I have canceled numerous trips to other locations including the Northwest and the Alps because we quite simply, have the best snow on globe this season. Canada and the Northwest have been soggy, the Wasatch has been thin and dangerous and the Alps have been windy and on the low side of average for snow.

Instead of building frequent flier miles in route to meet photographers, I seem to be making trips to the airport to pick them up so they can surf my couch and shoot here in the backyard. Although I feel less exotic than years past, I do feel lucky to be able to stay home and let the action come to me. The San Juans are vast and only a handful of people venture out into the BC so the shooting is never rushed and the vibe is very relaxed. Just last week we had 2 epic shoots in just more than 12 hours. I did a night shoot with photographer Ben Eng off Coal Bank Pass and then hit the same general zone at sunrise the next morning while shooting with Scott DW Smith.

Shooting at night is a trip. The temperature plummets so goggles freeze quickly and trying to ski a line in near darkness with challenged vision is a unique experience. The darker it gets the better the photos, and the higher the danger for both the skier and shooter. The photographer has to not only guess where to focus but also guess when the skier is in the sweet spot. You get only one shot per pass so the success rate is low. However, when you hit it just right it feels like a huge accomplishment. Night shots are really unique and hard to capture so they are really fun if a bit contrived. Hiking out in the dark after a shoot is a different experience and reminds you of how important it is to remember a headlamp.

It is the time of year when road bikers in Durango start to emerge from hibernation. They battle narrow roads and cinders left from a big winter but they serve as a harbinger of things to come. Spring is in the air and it is time to move on to other mountains. Interior BC is on my calendar for April as is a month in Icleand and Norway in May. It is nice to dig out the passport and know that some unique destinations are penciled in on my ski calendar. It has been quite a year here in southwest Colorado and one that has allowed my to ski stellar conditions but sleep in my own bed each night. That cycle is good but my desire for some new scenery is calling me away from my comfort zone.

The time to move is now as I have grown restless here at home. The endless winter seems to be right here at home, but it is time to seek out some new ranges and new sights. My happiness is a result of the search and that is what keeps me smiling as I break out the bags to pack for my next adventure. A blank canvas on some far off mountain is awaiting my signature. And with that call I must go.

Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities adventure, mountains, outdoors, photos, skiing, winter