2011 has been a big year for Blizzard Skis, and our new FlipCore line of skis are creating big buzz throughout the ski industry.  With a concept drawn from Arne Backstrom’s musings and tinkerings as a team rider, the engineers at Blizzard stepped up to the challenge of designing the ultimate rockered ski.  With all the other companies rushing to produce some sort of bent-up, early-rise, elf-shoe thing-a-ma-jig, there are a multitude of ski shapes with wacky designs yet none of the skis really ski most conditions well.  Not so with the new Blizzard Cochise, the 2011 ISPO ‘Ski of the Year’; this ski has made ninjas out of more than a few lucky skiers who’ve tried them on for size.  And the Bodacious (Arne’s signature ski) skis like no other fat ski; you’d never know there was two sheets of titanal metal in them.

The Blizzard team has been busy shooting video and stills to show what these skis are about, and the buzz is still building.  If you want to check out a pair of Blizzard skis with the new FlipCore technology, check out Granite Chief in Squaw and Hamilton Sports in Aspen for demos.  Or click here to read up on the specs.

Clem Smith Speaks About Flip Core and Arne Backstrom from Frank Shine on Vimeo.

FlipCore Fun from Frank Shine on Vimeo.

Thanks A.B. – You are dearly missed, but your legacy lives on in each of us.

Edit by Frank Shine

It's always sunny and warm in Glenwood Springs

Come the latter half of the summer, most of my days are spent shuttle driving for Blazing Adventures as the water on wild rivers gets lower and lower, and operations shift to other, more dam-controlled rivers.  With the local trips on the Roaring Fork River on the wane, thanks in part to a rapidly melting snowpack and only a few bursts of precipitation since Memorial Day, we have started bussing our clients down-valley to Glenwood Springs, where the temps reach the mid-nineties and the sun blazes down with ferocity.

Photo: Mike Schirf

It’s not very often in the skiing world that the major ski media promotes the up-and-comers of the freeskiing world who don’t hail from the superpipe or slopestyle scene.  Yet the competitive Freeskiing World Tour (read as gnarly cliffs, manky venues and sometimes, billowy powder) has had its share of stars emerge from the ranks of ski bums and college students alike.

'Put up yer dukes!'

Fellow  local shredder and the man behind the lens, Tony Prikryl, is taking his massive collection of photos and selecting the best shots for a gallery showing in Aspen on Friday night (July 16th), along with colleague Blake Hansen.  If you live in the area, please come and check out their new exhibit, titled Terra Firma, and see some amazing images of the natural wonders of our world.

Ready for a Stillwater Preserver Mission

Well, it seems that the last six or so weeks of my life have existed in that place between ‘holy shit, that was awesome!’ and ‘wait, what just happened?’, leaving me in a fluttering state of mind.  Going into it, I knew my time in Canada would pass quickly, but ninety days flashed right on by.  The last few weeks were chock full of new experiences and wild stories.  I had a chance to ski from the summit of Mt. McKenzie and cross Arrow Lake on an inland ferry with my van in the same day.  I drank a boilermaker shot with some Canadian Legion members and skinny-dipped with fellow ski bums Leah Evans and Dersh later that evening.  I swam in hot springs – commercial and natural, with tunnels and diving boards, hot and cold dips – all around the Kootenays , from Ainsworth to Fairmont, Halcyon to Radium.