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After freeskier Ryan Hawks died while competing at the Kirkwood stop of the Freeskiing World Tour last winter, his father, Peter, made a discovery on his son’s computer: a set of “core principles” written by Ryan. They included “never stop exploring life,” “look out for others,” “look out for myself,” “live simply,” “be self-sufficient,” “don’t be afraid to ask for help,” “work hard,” and “be the best friend I can be.”

“They were really simple and he lived them well,” Peter says.

To keep Ryan’s principles alive, the Hawks family set up the Flyin Ryan Hawks Foundation, which has three objectives. One, give scholarships to skiers who “demonstrate Ryan’s core values and whose passion is hampered by financial constraint.” Two, run an ambassador program that’s open to anyone who espouses Ryan’s values. And three, host Flyin Ryan Days, when kids can ski with celebrity coaches at resorts around the country.

“We’re not trying to put him on a pedestal,” Peter says. “But there were so many people who were impacted by him....

Sorry I haven't been able to send you many updates—wireless was a bit spotty but now I think it's solid. We're able to get on our phones up at Sky Resort but it's hard to type a very long e-mail when it's -40 F.

The scene at Sky Resort: picture women with Louis Vuitton purses and spiked heels in the lodge, bitterly cold temps, bright sunshine, great grooming, hipsters skiing in jeans, women skiing with their purses slung over their shoulders, groups of people stopping at the edge of a slope to smoke cigarettes, snowmaking that only needs to be done once in November and once in March because it stays firm for months, and just a couple runs total on a 14-cm base depth. A scene unlike anything in North America.

We're also on a bit of a wild goose chase to find the elusive traditional ancient ski culture. I met a journalist from the UK on the bus up to the resort and it turns out he saw a pair of wooden skis with reindeer skins leaning against a hut of some guy named Gambal (sp) up near Lake Hovsgul, which—lucky for...

I wouldn’t say Thursday night’s upslope storm was a surprise. The talking weather heads on the local news seemed more and more agitated as the Front Range’s radar forecast grew meaner by the hour. But I’ve missed most of the few Colorado powder days this season. So when I woke up Friday morning to 10 inches on my porch and a 7:00 AM report of 18 overnight at Eldora, I was tweaking. At 7:30, the snow continued to fall in town. A couple coworkers and I instituted the Powder Day Clause and rerouted the commute to our Boulder office. Eighteen miles later we pulled into an Eldo parking lot still blanketed with knee-deep snow and proceeded to farm turns through Corona Bowl, Salto Glades, and Psychopath under a relentless barrage of meaty Colorado snowflakes. By 11:00, the snow report read 24 in 24. By 1:30, our legs were trashed. Over pints, slices of Hawaiian, and hot wings at Backcountry Pizza, we basked in the powder day afterglow and deemed our snow-starved sanity saved and our email accounts appropriately neglected....

The best way to to remember Sarah is for the athlete she was and the smile she had. Our friends at Warren Miller Entertainment put together a nice little edit from a shoot they did with her in 2005 at Mike Wiegele's Heliskiing in British Columbia. She was killing it, as usual. Everyone should go make turns for her this weekend.

Book your trip now!

Track the snow as it piles up at Skinet's Snow Reports, or download the app for your phone and take it on the road.

Just before 2:00 PM today, the first heartbreaking reports shot across the social media realm, compounded, no doubt, by the fact that much of the skiing community is currently in Salt Lake City for the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show. Sarah Burke died this morning from the injuries she sustained in a halfpipe training accident on January 10 at Park City Mountain Resort.

All of us at Skiing Magazine are stunned and deeply saddened by the passing of this freeskiing icon and Olympic hopeful. Her imprint on the sport won’t fade anytime soon. Our thoughts go out to Sarah’s family. A pioneer of women’s freeskiing, Sarah inspired countless people both on and off the slopes and will no doubt continue to do so for years to come. #BeliveinSarah #WewillmissyouSarah #ThankyouSarah

For more information on the story visit the Deseret News.

A fund has been set up in her memory. For those that would like to contribute visit giveforward.com/sarahburke.

You played a massive Red Rocks show in August and now you are back for the second time in six months, what keeps you coming back to Denver? 

You guys make us feel like we’re really awesome and that’s validating. You know, once in a while you’ve got to feel awesome. Na. The real reason is people keep asking us to come back. Playing music is our favorite thing in the world to do so how can we say no.

As the headliner of the first ever winter Red Rocks Show, what has got you most excited about this particular gig?

The nervousness. I’m the type that thrives on nervousness. For starters, its in winter and anything could go wrong. There could be a blizzard while we played and that alone scared me enough to agree to it. Then the organizers asked us to put together a bill and told us we could get anyone. So we asked about Common and they said yes. Common is one of my heroes. He’s a legend. And now I have to go out on stage after him. Do you know how scary that is for me?

And if there is a blizzard?

The show goes on....

Greg Ditrinco, editor-in-chief of SKI, our sister magazine, was interviewed on NPR about the controversy surrounding the undergarments of Slovenian World Cup skier Tina Maze. Listen with the NPR widget below.

Original story on NPR.

Tina Maze official fan club.

Track the snow as it piles up at Skinet's Snow Reports, or download the app for your phone and take it on the road.

The European-based Swatch Freeride World Tour athletes are in British Columbia competing alongside the North American-based FWT skiers, and the top overall finishers from this year’s Freeskiing World Tour will be invited to Switzerland to compete in the Freeride World Tour’s final competition, the renowned Xtreme Verbier.

With Sickbird belt buckles, spots on the podium, an invitation to ski Verbier’s rock-littered Bec de Rosses venue up for grabs, the hype surrounding the Subaru Freeskiing World Tour is at an all time high.

So, we wanted to point you...

East coast to west, you are probably skiing on manmade snow right now. Manmade snow crystals are extremely aggressive and can take a toll on your skis. If your local hill is experiencing the dreaded freeze/thaw cycle, using salt or chemicals to maintain snowpack at the base, or if the weather has been cold and clear at night, you are likely to be skiing on this type of coarse snow. Faintly white bases, aka base burn, is a tell tale sign that your brand new ski setup could use a little love.

By following a few tips, you can keep your skis in good shape for when the real snow begins to fall.

1. Use a cold weather wax. Laying down a few layers of cold snow wax such as Swix CH4 or CH6 will be your main defense against crap snow. Cold snow wax is extremely hard, so it will protect your base against abrasive snow and ice.

2. Take care of any core shots or base damage right away. With all the rocks lurking below the shallow snow surface, you will inevitably damage your skis. Filling core shots with p-tex promptly will...

Let’s make no mistake: I’m a ski-mountaineering neophyte. I bought my first backcountry set-up last winter. My ice ax is still shiny and my ski crampons are still sharp. Last season, I started venturing into the backcountry. It got into my system and took hold. But I wasn’t quite sure how to go from being a passive, guided participant—or a liability—on a ski mountaineering excursion to being a self-reliant, knowledgeable, contributing team member.

I did all those things people tell you to do to become more backcountry savvy. I took an Avy 1 course with Markus Beck and Alpine World Ascents. I tagged along on backcountry missions whenever people were willing to take me. Each time, I thought to myself “I want more of this.” I wanted to be with that crew at the bottom of Telluride’s...

"Every spring, the roads open through Yellowstone and we take advantage of this to access high alpine terrain in the northeast corner of the park," says producer Chris Kitchen. "This episode is one of our favorite segment from the feature film Wyoming Triumph."

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A winter of following storms cross-country is a dream for plenty of skier. This winter, Molly Baker, Zack Giffin, and Neil Provo are doing just that in a 112 square foot trailer-mounted house that Giffin built this fall. They’re traveling to wherever has snow, and along the way they’re making videos, “The Sidecountry Sessions,” about the people they meet and the places they ski. Baker let us in on life in the tiny house, where they’re headed, and what it’s like to be the only girl in the truck.

So where did the idea for the tiny house tour come from?
Last spring we were thinking about how to get Outdoor Research more visibility outside of the Northwest, and we also wanted to do a trip chasing snow. Zack had lived in his van for a season in the Mt. Baker parking lot, so we were thinking we’d just live in the van. When we were planning the trip, we met one of Zack’s parent’s friends who’s really into these Tumbleweed tiny houses. We really liked the idea, so Zack built the house based on them. There’s even a spiral...

Every once in a while a piece of skiing history comes across our desks here at the Skiing office that rattles our soul and reminds us of how our sport fits into the bigger picture of life in the mountains through stunning documentation of the play of light, textures, and long-shadowed forms inherent to a mountain existence. Fletcher Manley’s new photo book Winter Light brings it all home. A self-described rambler amongst peaks and valleys, Manley made the photos in Winter Light between 1967 and 2010. With and intro from legendary ski photographer Peter Miller, this modestly priced book, as well as prints, can be purchased at fletchermanley.com. At the very least, check his Haute Route and Tucks galleries online. You won’t be disappointed.

www.fletchermanley.com/Winter-Light

Forty years ago last June, a banjo-picking, yodeling Ivy League grad with a fused hip named Bill Briggs clicked into his bindings and skied off the summit of the 13,770-foot Grand Teton. Seven thousand vertical feet later, after a successful first descent, he emerged as the father of American big-mountain skiing. These days, when he isn’t hosting a weekly hootenany and enjoying daily epiphanies, the 80-year-old Jackson Hole local is busy working on a DVD series about ski instruction that integrates his unconventional spiritual beliefs.

Adventure is risk overcome. You’ve pushed your own envelope way open. The Grand was a grand adventure. It was outstanding in terms of personal reward.

I started yodeling at Dartmouth. I teamed up with this German-Jewish guy, the only African-American on campus, and me—that was our yodeling trio. We were all outcasts. With yodeling, I try to express and create the feeling of being in the mountains. The openness. The grandeur.

The Teton Tea Party started in 1958 when I was camped by...

Go ahead, roll your eyes, but it’s easy to forget to flip your switch, or to not realize that your batteries are dead until you’re already out the gate. 

Because of that, Jackson-based media outlet Outerlocal.com, Backcountry Access, and others are teaming up to install transceiver checkpoints at prominent backcountry access points in the area. The “Are You Beeping” program will put in 12 checkpoints by January.

The idea came when Outerlocal founder Christian Beckwith went to turn his beacon off after a day of skiing Teewinot and realized he’d never turned it on in the first place.

“We had left the car at three or four in the morning,” Beckwith said. “Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe it was the conversation about whether to bring a rope—but I simply forgot to turn my beacon on. The Are You Beeping program will help backcountry travelers avoid similar mistakes.”

Here’s how the checkpoints work: “Each checkpoint will feature a large sign that asks, “ARE...