Month: April 2008

Greg Pronko and Mike O’Reilly got sick of shipping snowboards and displays in oversized boxes stuffed with landfill-clogging Styrofoam peanuts. The bloated shipping costs bothered the founders of Glissade Snowboards and Bender Brothers almost as much as the destructive environmental effects. Their newest venture, Eco Ship, provides lower-volume, sustainable shipping supplies like biodegradable, corn-based polymer bags, foam and boxes. “These are the biggest materials in the garbage,” explains Pronko, “so we reached for the lowest-hanging fruit.” Pronko, who is talking with Amazon, is also working toward an discounted ski/snowboard industry prices. “Right now the bio materials are too expensive,” Pronko says, “but there will be a tipping point and we hope to be there when it tips.”

The annual pond crossing at the bottom of KT-22 is scheduled for tomorrow, which is also the last day of the season for KT. Check out video of the crossing > I’ll post photos of tomorrow’s event here tomorrow. Also, friend, neighbor and heli ski guide at Points North just returned from Alaska. I’ll post a report and a slide show here soon.

On a stormy April afternoon in 1978, the Cable Car at Squaw Valley came off of one of its cables, dropped 75 feet and then bounced back up, colliding with a cable which sheared through the car. Four people were killed and thirty-one were injured. Robert Frohlich tells the full story of the Squaw Cable Car tragedy and the heroic rescue effort in this Moonshine article >>

The birds are making noise, the snow is melting and temperatures are supposed to reach 67 degrees today in Truckee. Despite the huge snows we received in January, the snowpack has dipped slightly below average. But there’s still plenty of snow in the mountains and spring skiing is excellent: firm in the mornings, creamy from 11-1 and getting slushy in the afternoons. It was a big season for Squaw in more ways that the snow. Patrol opened more terrain in Silverado and extended the boundary in Sun Bowl. Even more terrain at a mountain that was anything but lacking terrain to begin with!

Next to powder, corn snow is the most fun to ski. So live it up this weekend because a cold front with gusty winds will likely move in on Sunday night and firm it all up.