From AK to Moab… The Good Life… The Interview

Check out the latest edit from Josh Madsen and Telemark Skier Magazine!!

Behind The Scenes Of HP&M: Shaun Raskin

Atlantic Coast For Some Family and Friend Time

When the ski season looks like the days of the huge storms are coming to an end, I have become accustom to hitting the road and heading east to catch up with family and childhood friends.

Yet another system lines up to hit the Wasatch with even more late Spring snow

So like I do every year, I booked my flight and made my annual migration to NY to spend some time with my family. However, this season as I hit the skies heading east I could not see that close behind me an endless storm cycle of snow was going to blanket over 50inches of the fresh white stuff over Utah. The weather in Utah has definitely caught most off guard, with many of my friends itching to ride bikes, but still feeling the need to buckle up their boots and get after the fresh because…well… “this might be the last storm of the season”.

Riverside Bike path overlooking the Hudson River

While it is quite tempting to jump in a plane and head back west to join my friends in the April and May powder crazed emotion, I realize that as a professional skier in the winters and a full time guide in the summer times, these short couple months between seasons are some of the only time I get to see family and childhood friends.

Reuniting with some High School friends

So I stick to the plan, spending a week at my childhood home northwest of Manhattan, watching my mom walk down the isle with the man of her dreams, spending time with my grand parents who taught me how to ski way before I can remember, and kicking back with my cousins aunts and uncles.

Rita and Phil, The Matriarch and the Patriarch of the Family and the ones who introduced me to skiing

Rolling on the Subway with one of my bestfriends Rachel

After soaking up the family love I head into my sanctuary outside of the rugged world of jagged peaks and swooping valleys, New York City has been a place of inspiration and comfort for me since the time I can remember. Whether it’s the rhythm of the subway cars vibrating beneath the busy city streets, or the collective energy of 1.5 million people living within 22miles of one another, the city has always spoken volumes to me. So I use it to revive my cultural and spiritual being, as well as to catch up with some great friends from my past, before heading south to Miami to catch up with my father.

Luch time in Manhattan's Financial District

Welcome to Miami

Miami is a strange place to find yourself when you still have a goggle tan, a stark white body, and an alternative sense life. None the less, the bleach blond hair, fake boobs, and overly tanned bodies can be something to appreciate and like any community, there are misfits, hippies, and punks in Miami, you just might need to look a bit harder to find them. One of those who has always beaten to his own drum of life is my father, and while his New Yorker heart still flutters irregularly with out the city’s bustle keeping him on beat, he is still staying true to himself in the city of plastic. Getting to spend time with him is always special.

Sunset with Downtown Miami in the background

Papa Bear!!

So with my soul, now filled by family and friends, I am in the airport heading back to Salt Lake City, where yet another storm cycle is expected to hit and I will return to the mountains to join my friends and industries in excitement over this fluke endless winter!

Ice in the Desert

Well, yesterday we woke up at 5am, stumbled around in the dark, threw our ski clothes on piled into our cars and headed up to the Geiser Basin trail head in the La Sals.

Sunrise over the La Sals

The objective, of making it to the top of our lines before noon.

The last push before the boot pack

The approach was long and the final boot pack up the couloir (later named Helen Keller) was steep, icey and really mad me wish I had an ice axe.

Alex and Weston get ready for the boot up Hellen Keller

But none the less, myself, Alex Paul, And Weston D. made it up to the top of our lines by 11am.

You can't tell but this couloir is about 50 + degrees

Weston skied Helen Keller, the tightest shoot of the three, at parts his skies barely fit through the narrow walls of the Couloir.

View from the top. If you look close you can see Arches

After hearing the icy turns echo through the basin there was talk of abandoning my line, but I decided to go for it. It was just lookers right of Helen Keller, a steep couloir that had a narrow choke about ski length wide. I dropped in and it was an ice sheet with lose rocks peppered on top.

Lookers left: Helen Keller. Right: My line

It was bullet proof, scratchy, slow survival skiing, but at the end I was stoked to have skied it anyway.

Alex Paul Finding the good snow

Alex took the good advice and hit a line that was getting a little more sun and his first few turns were delicious, however as he dropped down his line too became scratchy. All and all we decided that it was cool that we skied our lines, but the quality of snow and the energy and time it took to get into that zone was not worth repeating at this time.

The Summit through the lens of Alex

So we say bye bye to the La Sals. We will see you next winter!!!

Sunsetting on Moab