Triple Threat

I first learned the term, "Triple Threat", as a young basketball player in my midwestern youth in reference to the body position and situation while in possession of the basketball with the ability to dribble, shoot, or pass. When I came to Utah after high school to ski as much as humanly possible while I earned a bachelor's degree, I met a couple locals that would play pivotal roles in shaping me as a skier. Paul Wright was a mentor. Ben Geiger was a peer. Both were with me a couple weeks ago when we completed a three canyon circuit tour in the Ogden backcountry thus forever changing my personal use of the words, "Triple Threat". 

Midwest Powder Machine

Many skiers know that the Great Salt Lake to the west of my current home in Ogden, Utah is a world famous powder snow making machine. Lake-effect snow is a weather phenomenon in which a large body of water works in relation with cold air to create moisture and thus snow in the winter months. However, many people don't know that the same "lake-effect" takes place way up north in the midwest of America on an obscure peninsula off the top of another peninsula. On the northern shore of the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan is another peninsula called the Keeweenaw Peninsula, which juts out into the middle of the Great Lake Superior. Storms come across Canada slamming into the Great Lake and then swell up until they cross over that obscure peninsula dumping gobs of the moisture gained while crossing the lake as light and cold midwest powder. Upwards of 300 inches of cold dry snow is pumped out of this midwest powder machine each winter. Frigid cold temperatures can make the skiing conditions hit or miss to a certain degree, and I have certainly missed the good snow in passed years, but this was not one of those years.

Layover at Home

Traveling to Japan to ski powder with my Dad was all-time. I still can't believe how good it really was. The travel slog back home to the U.S. was legit, and I was worn out for a while. However, there was little time to rest as I only had a week or so to get back to work in the Wasatch before I had to board another airplane for another trip soon after. Honestly, it felt more like a layover at home then it did actually being home. The time flew by. Before I knew it I was packing again even though it felt like I had just unpacked from Japan.

#Dadpanuary

#Japanuary has become a popular hashtag with skiers traveling to Japan in January on the social media sites of the internet. Droves of skiers are now beginning to flock to the powder paradise of northern Japan and its north island of Hokkaido. I fell in love with the place nearly a decade ago when I went to Niseko, Japan to film for a ski movie by Sweetgrass Productions called, Signatures. When I returned home from that trip I immediately called my Dad and raved about the place. I told him that one day he would have to come with me. A couple weeks ago… he did, and we were calling it; #Dadpanuary!