What Did Santa Bring Me For Christmas?

I have to admit that I love Christmas! As a kid, I was one of those who would do everything humanly possible to find out what I was getting before Christmas morning. I searched high and low to find out where my parents were hiding the presents. Once I found them, I employed just about every technique possible to figure out what was hiding in those packages...everything from the "fine-tuned" shake to the surgical disassembly and subsequent reassembly of packages using the exacto knife. There was no way I was getting any sleep on Christmas Eve...I was way too excited about opening any presents in the morning. It was always a thrill to see if I got what was on my wish list. Now as an adult, I'm still definitely a Christmas person. Despite all of my bitching about buying presents, I love buying presents for people when I get a great idea. (My sister's in a heap of trouble next year since my recent visit to her place in Western New York has given me LOTS of ideas!) Although I don't decorate my house at all, when I do settle down and have a family, I'm sure I'll illuminate my house in the true Clark Griswold style. (Too all of my future neighbors, I'm very sorry!)

Unfortunately, Santa did not bring me any gear this year...but I did get some checks that will be used to reimburse my checking account for some of the great gear that I have already purchased this Summer and Fall. In the coming months, I'll be doing reviews of all the new gear I've bought this year. So, I'll give you quick preview of what to expect throughout the winter.
1) Patagonia R1 Granular Jacket: Light Weight Windproof Fleece Jacket. This is replacing the black LL Bean Fleece PulloverI got for Christmas in 1992. I think this is well overdue. I went with the lighter weight jacket primarily for ski tours where I always seem to be wearing next to nothing by the time I'm done the skin up. I'll have to see how this will be for lift serviced skiing.
2) Patagonia R2 Fleece Vest: Standard Windproof fleece vest that I intend to wear with the jacket for lift serviced skiing to provide added core warmth.
3) Patagonia R1 Flash Pullover: Pullover shirt that I'll be using as a baselayer for lift serviced skiing.
4) Sierra Designs 600 Down Jacket: After getting envious of all of my ski buddies being warm while resting at the top of the mountain or sitting in the hut last year, I decided this was a must have for 2007. I got a great deal on this at Sierra Trading Post this summer...$56.
5) Black Diamond System Gloves: These are a light weight set of gloves with a shell and a removable insulated liner. Although they aren't waterproof, I think they'll be more than adequate. I also got these off of Sierra Trading Post for $19. My only concern with them is the size. I don't have large hands by any means. So I was surprised when a large was tight.
6) Black Diamond Anarchist Pack with Avalung: At the end of last season, I gave up on my REI pack after the chest strap broke. Although I wasn't excited to fork out the dough required for this pack, I figured that even if the avalung only increases your chance of survival in an avalanche by a small percentage, it would be worth it. It would be bad karma to lower your chances of survival for a measly $70. (Of course, I recognize that the true way to increase your chances of survival in the backcountry is to be prudent and avoid putting yourself in a position to get in an avalanche.)

Those are the major things I've gotten this year and I have to admit that I'm psyched to get the chance to try them out. My first trip of the year will be 6 days at Alta with my dad at the beginning of January. Like last year, we'll be staying at the Peruvian...it's expensive...but I really love that place. Hopefully, as long as the snowpack keeps building in the Sierras, I'll be heading up to Sequoia for 3 days of backcountry over MLK weekend.

Ski Porn Review: Warren Miller's "Off The Grid"

Two weeks ago, I met up with a bunch of friends in Laguna Beach to see Warren Miller's latest movie, "Off The Grid." As described in an earlier post, the weekend was a lot of fun. However, "Off the Grid" was a disappointment when compared with his earlier works. I've always considered Warren Miller's movies to be a cut above the rest of the movies in the Ski Porn biz. True to the term ski porn, most movies these days are just a quick fix for not being out on the mountain. They put the focus on loud music, hucking insane cliffs, out-skiing/surviving avalanches and annoying park scenes. Sometimes this is exactly what I am looking for. But while enjoyable, like watching a porn, they generally leave you unfulfilled and empty afterwards.

In contrast, Warren's earlier movies have at least made an effort to get at the soul of the sport, communicating what makes skiing such a wonderful sport. His quirky commentaries have brought us back to Sun Valley circa 1950, taken us on a fox chase (on skis) with the 87 year old Klaus Obermeyer, or introduced us to the Schrab brothers who built a ski jump on their grandfather's farm in Wisconsin. When compared to some of the better surfing movies like "Step into Liquid" or "Riding Giants", even Warren's earlier movies could have worked harder to get at skiing's soul. Unfortunately though, "Off the Grid" was a move in the opposite direction. I want a movie that reminds me of why I love to ski.

The first question that I have to ask is where was Warren? Is he sick? If not, I hope he's going to be back next year. For "Off the Grid", he was replaced as the narrator by Jeremy Bloom, the former Olympic mogul skier and Philadelphia Eagle. I'm sure Jeremy worked really hard on the film and for the most part was just reading a script, but the commentary was lacking. It consisted mostly of brief intros of the skiers and ski areas interspersed with the skiers' themselves making cheesy "off the grid" comments...i.e. "This place was off the grid". Every once in a while there would be a comment by Warren. But it was never more than a sentence and it sounded like it was just a dubbed clip from a previous movie.

My favorite part of the movie was the section covering the expedition to the Indian ski town (if you call it that) of Gulmarg. Gulmarg is a small village in the Himalayas with a few ski lifts. In addition to some great skiing footage, it also introduced us to an area of the world we probably would never think of skiing. This might seem cheesy, but the scenes of them teaching the children in the village to ski really reminded me of the joy of learning to ski. We are so removed from the learning experience we had when we were little that we forget the tremendous rush of excitement we got the first time we slid down a slope with the two sticks on the bottom of our feet. After all, its this rush that kept us coming back and spending thousands of dollars on gear. With all of the great expeditions going on these days, I'd like to see more of this type of footage, which expands our horizons of where we could go skiing.

The Alaskan heli-skiing section at the end had some amazing footage. The terrain was sick and lines they skied left me drooling. But from a cinematographic viewpoint, I'd like to see less zoom and more long range shots. This gives you a better feel for just how crazy the terrain they are skiing is. I just don't think you get a proper feeling for it until you see just small they are compared with the slope/vertical wall that they are skiing down.

The next gripe is with the section on Jamie Pierre's ridonkulous 250 ft cliff jump. I first want to say that its absolutely incredible what he attempted. I say attempted, because it was more like a swan dive than jumping the cliff on skis. He basically did a half flip and landed flat on his back. I hate to chastise them about social responsibility, but do we really want to make people think that you can do something like he did (land flat on your back after falling 250 ft) and walk away. My answer is no. But also, to me, it shouldn't count as any sort of record until he actually lands it. Not that I have the balls to even attempt it (it takes a lot for me to even huck a 5 or 10 footer), but anyone could fall 250 feet off of a cliff and land flat on their back. The trick is landing it. He didn't do it. So why make such a big deal out it.

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as a hater...I don't mean to be so negative. I just think they can do better. I would really love to see someone make a great ski movie that really touches at the soul of the sport. Maybe my hopes are just unrealistic. Unfortunately, "Off the Grid" falls short of those expectations. I'm not necessarily looking for the skiing equivalent of a Scorsese flick. I'm just looking for something better. While its enjoyable to watch and will not doubt get you fired up to get some pow this ski season, it's nothing more than a quick fix.

San Onofre Ski Group Get Together

Even though we didn't make it out to do any skiing, I consider last weekend to be the start of my ski season. I got together with the group of friends who I skied with last for the first time since last season. Those who lived between San Diego and LA (Carl, Tyler, and Dianna), I had seen over the summer. But it was awesome to see George, Christina, Nelly, and Chris again. In true SoCal style, we met up last Saturday for an afternoon of surfing at San Onofre. The waves were small and mushy...but its always great to spend an afternoon out in the water. All it takes is one good wave to keep me coming back. After spending the afternoon in the water, we had a surf n' turf beach BBQ. Carl brought down a box of live Maine lobsters that he had ordered, Tyler cooked up some killer steak, there was LOTS of vino and Nellie cooked up an amazing Pinapple cake in the campfire.

By the time the cops kicked us out at 8 (park closing time), we were stuffed and ready to head up to Laguna for a night at Tyler and Diana's favorite dive bar...the "Dirty Bird". The Dirty Bird is an old Marine bar that is a classic dive bar...cheap drinks (by Laguna standards), no frills decor, a rowdy crowd of patrons and mediocre cover band that everyone's rocking out to. If you're heading there on a Saturday night, just beware, its definitely cougar country!

We all spent the night up at Tyler and Diana's place in Laguna. For breakfast, we feasted on a nutritious meal of donuts (I had 4 of them) and coffee...we were truly fueled for the rest of the day. So we decided to go mountain biking. Its hard to believe, but this was my first time mountain biking. We went for a nice ride through the park (10 miles, 1400' vert) that surrounds Laguna. In a surprise move, Carl was the hard charger and led the way up the mountain. I jokingly asked Carl if this meant that he'd be breaking trail this winter. In a true return to form, the previous night's drinking and the lack of any real nutrition from the morning's breakfast of donuts finally caught up with Carl shortly after we reached the top. He keeled over, assumed the fetal position, and started wimpering for food and water. I'm not kidding...it was actually pretty amusing. That firmly answered the question about him breaking trail this winter. Don't worry, he was much better after we gave him some water and power bars.

While the ride up was a challenge (bike fit issues), the ride down was eye opening. In fact, it was actually kind of terrifying. I've done a lot of road riding. But I found the downhill portion of mountain biking to be much more technical in that there's more importance placed on controlling your bike. I also found that I needed to overcome the psychological barrier of telling myself that it was possible for bikes to ride downhill, at speed, over rocks, stumps and other obstacles. Despite telling myself to relax, my hands were gripping the handlebars so tight that it felt like I was crush the handlebars. I did one digger. I think the real key is to get out more and with experience I'll become more comfortable with the downhill sections. But altogether it was a great afternoon.

We finished off the weekend by seeing Warren Miller's new movie "Off The Grid". You can read my review of the movie in a separate post.