Among the words of the following story lives the essence of the no pole movement…

I was wondering where this old GravityFed story went! It took a few years to stumble upon it on some external hard drive, but here it is. So now it’s being re-published for all the freeheel skiers. This is the story of a gang of Alta radicals who were not only early chargers of the tele freeride movement, but hey did it with no ski poles. Say what?! I still remember seeing Narajowski cutting a trail over piss pass fearlessly in 30 inches of pow. All the locals (with their poles!) couldn’t come close to keepin’ up with his hiking prowess and subsequent destruction of steep and deep terrain. To wit:

As he went past me, he leaned on his fat tails but wore no expression. He held his arms out to indicate how, as a hyper-intelligent being, he had calculated each micron of turn pleasure sacrificed, then factored that in with each nanosecond of gravitational bliss given up for his pure speed run.

Enjoy this Article: Tele Freeride - Undiscovered by Alien by Brian Estey

Check out the Adam Clark MP3 interview hot off the press!

The podcast series at AltaCam.com is back in full swing this year for the 2007-08 ski season. The management of AltaCam, The Personalities of Alta (Utah), recently announced that it’s queued up an array of transcripts and MP3s of interviews from influential ski industry people and Alta locals. New interviews will be posted every two weeks for the entire 2008 ski season. Local skier and legend Johnny B facilitates each interview. Check out a few of last year’s classics:

• Jeremy Nobis
• Lee Cohen
• Sam Howard
• more…

Adam Clark is a world renown ski photography who has been shooting the top skier’s in the world for over 10 years professionally. Two Alta locals and friends talk shop on skiing the world and living the dream

“Then Monday evening, I fly back to Alaska for a 35-day Denali Expedition. I’m going with Clark Fyans, Chris Davenport, and Nick DeVore. We’re just going up there to ski. I’m sure we’ll try the summit. There’s a bunch of first descents that are all really classic. Then after that, I go at the end of July to New Zealand, and then straight from New Zealand to Argentina, trying to finish up the Levitation Project’s ski and snowboard movie.

Listen to the MP3 interview or read the transcript…

Here’s a good interview from the AltaCam Podcast series. The General Manager of Alta Ski Lifts Onno Wieringa sits down to talk shop on a powder day with Johnny B. Johnny asks a lot of questions that locals skiers in the Wasatch care about. This is a great addition to the ‘Personalities of Alta’ featured on AltaCam site. With Onno and crew, we’re lucky to have the resort management we do in Alta. Impressive journalistic work by JB! This is a good informative transcript and MP3 so download, site back and enjoy…

Subscribe to AltaCam’s Podcast RSS feed to be notified when a new interview has been added to the site.

Listen to Podcast or Read Transcript | DIGG That Shizzle

This is another GravityFed Network classic from back in the day! We’ve featured several old GravityFed archives already on this blog. I think we originally published this story back in 2001, and the piece dropped out of the archives for a few years, but fortunately we saved all the old content and now we’re working through the classics and re-publishing them one-by-one. With this story, Molly Douma documents a trip to South America to celebrate what else…but a Bachelorette party for a close friend!!

Little Illusion (1)
The “warm-up” 17,000 foot peak was good practice for familiarizing ourselves with the dynamics of our three person rope teams, using ice tools, and crampons, walking in the proper duck-like manner, leaping crevasses, and staying several rope lengths ahead of the German group whose breath we could feel on our necks.

Read the entire story on GravityFed: Bolivian Andes Bachelorette Expedition (B.A.B.E.)

Here’s an exclusive publication from the GravityFed Network archives! It’s the digital journal of Joe Mazzarella and Julie Nichols’ travels around Latin America; exploring Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Belize. This travelogue was originally published in 2001 on GravityFed.com, and was recently re-published as a featured article on the mountain culture website. There are four segments to the digital journal and some great photos to accompany the adventure.

Although the long day was taking its toll, the coca leafs wedged between cheek and gum helped with the climb. The coca leaf is generally either brewed as a tea or chewed with a small amount of llibta, which is very rich in lime and will activate the alkaloids of the leaf. The effects we felt were a slight numbing of the cheek, a bit of energy when the altitude made us lethargic, and helped control hunger and thirst.

Read the entire travel journal and be sure to Digg the story!

Here’s another Alta, Utah personalities feature in the AltaCam podcast series that just went live. This is one entertaining interview! If you’re a powder skier there’s a good chance you’ve seen Lee Cohen’s deep powder photos in Powder magazine (or on the cover of Powder!) or other ski publications. This guy is a true living legend, and arguably the best deep powder photographer on the planet.

Here’s the overview: Alta local Johnny B interviews Lee at his home in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Read the transcript or listen to the MP3 by clicking here. You don’t want to miss this. Be sure to download and listen to all three segments. Enjoy.

If you have any comments on this interview feel free to post them on the AltaCam thread about this interview.

Listen to the Interview | Digg It!

This podcast is the best of Alta, Utah Skiing Personalities - Two Alta locals sit down and talk shop and it’s all recorded in an MP3 podcast on AltaCam.com. Listen to Johnny B interview professional free skier and former Olympian Jeremy Nobis at his house at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon. This is a three-part interview that covers everything from fishing in AK to the phat ski revolution, to babysitting Dave McReynolds’ new pup Anyone who knows Johnny B will appreciate his interviewing and communication skills.

It’s especially cool to hear about Jeremy’s take on knowing your own limits and on what skiing at Alta means to him. It’s a quick download and a great podcast so check this one out and share it.

There’s a thread about AltaCam started about this podcast

or…

Read the Interview Transcript | Digg story

Here is another re-purposed article from the archive of the good ole’ GravityFed classic content. I remember back in the day this article by Fish Solo (aka Fish Bartlett, Fish Solo Bartlett or ‘gasp’ his real name Brett Bartlett…see what he’s doing now) caused quite a stir in the letters to the editor section. I specifically remember one guy crying because he no longer can ski 20 days a season, but that didn’t mean he’s not a true skier or some shiznit like that. Yeah…that guy cried a thousand tears over anything, though.

The point is, this article stirred up some controversy back then so let’s see if it happens again..

“If you ride less than 15 days a year, you’re probably a weekend warrior with no real skills anyway, so any one who’s better than you is a threat and any one worse just plain sucks. If you ride less than 15 days a year, you’re probably a weekend warrior with no real skills anyway, so any one who’s better than you is a threat and any one worse just plain sucks. But the real problem here is that you’re not on the hill enough to make an educated guess. Wait until you’ve ridden your first 100-day season to badger one about how to ride…”

read more | digg story

I like watching the Extreme Sports category on Digg.com. Some good ‘Diggs’ get posted on all kinds of hairy things in the world of mountain and extreme sports. Check out this one I just found tonight: “Are you kidding? Damness!! This thing is about 360 feet long (you realize how long that is?) and 75 feet high at its highest point. The 75′ apex is where the skaters begin their run-ins, to a 180-foot-long roll-in then ramp that launches them across a 70-foot huge gap.”

I know plenty of skiers who would shy away from a 70 foot gap, but with skateboards!! Takes some pretty large sacks to commit to a skate ramp this size.

read more | digg story

Here’s a cool one. Some of these monster waves have been nicknamed Cyclops & Jaws, and they are the new life-and-death playground for a unique breed of surfers who ride gargantuan ocean waves as big as six story buildings. Quote from story: “This impact is absolutely fullon. You get rag-dolled, you get cartwheeled and you get ripped around violently. You have to learn to ’simply’ relax and try to enjoy it.” Haha.

Awesome story but where are the photos?! Here’s another quote: “If you don’t have any fear, then you probably shouldn’t be out there,” says Cater. “When the lip smacks the water it makes a ominous cracking sound. It’s like thunder for ten seconds.”

read more | digg story