One of our favorite things about international ski and snowboard culture is all the delicious local food. Of course Japan is near the top of the list, and this new short with pro snowboarder Forrest Shearer and chef Kyle Connaughton explores the connection between deep pow and creative cuisine in Japan's Hakuba Valley.

12/20/23 - This week’s stoke:

What we’re watching:

• Chimeres - Here's something that we've probably all craved - a good old fashioned adventure ski. We might be enamored by tales of expeditions and adventures to faraway places, but turns out you can get pretty lost just a few steps beyond your own backyard. French ski mountaineer Gaetan Gaudissard explores some zones not too far from his home in his latest film Chimeres. The Alps are just the gift that keeps on giving, huh?

The Beta:

• The west remains mostly dry, Alaska and north BC get more storms - A high pressure ridge continues to keep storms away from most of the western US. The Sierra will see a small storm this week with a fairly high rain/snow line. Some moisture may sneak into the Rockies but with little accumulation. Alaska and northern BC will continue to get snow with Alyeska reporting 284 inches so far this season.

• Jim Ryan skis the Grand Teton - While most of us are complaining about the lack of snow Jim Ryan took advantage of the low snow conditions and high pressure to take the summer rock climbing route (the Exum Ridge) to the classic Ford-Stettner ski descent of the the Grand Teton with his friend Michael Gardner. When winter gives you lemons, make lemonade.

• Skier triggered avalanche on the east coast - A skier was caught and carried down Airplane gully in the Mount Washington region of New Hampshire . The skier suffered serious leg injuries but fortunately was not buried.

Elevating the Craft:

• OnX adds ATES layer to mobile mapping app - The High Route's Jason Albert dives into why he's stoked that the backcountry mapping app OnX added an ATES layer to it's software. ATES, short for the Avalanche Terrain Exposure Scale, is a way to overlay potential avalanche hazard on a topo map based on terrain. It doesn't change based on the day's forecast, but is simply a way to give a little more hazard context to the terrain you might be traveling through. Albert talks about some of the very useful aspects of the new OnX tool and some of its shortcomings

Sidetracked:

• Here's what it looks like when it rains 4 inches on Mount Washington - After a decent early season, parts of New England just got walloped with heavy rainfall. Mountain Washington's Tuckerman Ravine got nearly 4 inches of rain, and let's just say things went from hero to zero real quick.

Thanks for reading and see you next week,
Max Ritter and Andrey Shprengel