This weekend, a series of avalanches rocked popular ski areas across Europe, resulting in 11 deaths. Authorities say the slides were caused by a combination of intense wind and heavy precipitation, which loaded many of the Alps’ steeper slopes with heavy slabs of snow. When hordes of skiers hit the backcountry this weekend—a school break [...]
“We’re super excited,” said Mike Nelson, one of the North Dakota’s champion sculptors, in an interview with Lake Geneva Regional News after the win. He was joined by his team members Jay Ray and Josh Zeis. All are residents of Fargo, North Dakota. The North Dakota team, dubbed “Team Jay Ray w/Snowkraft” in honor of [...]
This weekend, it was colder in New Hampshire than at the South Pole. On Saturday, amid the dangerous “Arctic Freeze” that swept across New England, the weather observatory atop New Hampshire’s 6,288-foot Mount Washington recorded its lowest-ever wind chill: -108°F. That’s an air temperature of -46°F with 127-mile-per-hour gusts. (For comparison, the South Pole is [...]
If you’re already a savvy shopper, you know now is the time to take advantage of big sales on outdoor gear. With the holidays over and shops desperate to offload last season’s product, huge markdowns abound. Fortunately, America’s most popular outdoor gear store is no exception. REI is currently offering up to 79% off select [...]
Can you imagine what negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit feels like? There are places across the globe where this temp is the norm – and where winter‘s plunging temps routinely range from negative 30 to negative 100. From arctic research stations to parts of Siberia, here are the coldest places on Earth. Eastern Antarctic Plateau, Antarctica [...]
While some ice anglers have hard-and-fast rules about how many inches thick the ice should be to make it safe to fish – the reality is, no ice is truly safe ice and any journey across it comes with its own risks. Note that safety depends heavily on the quality of ice—not just the thickness, [...]
Learning how to layer in the winter seems simple, but can be a challenging skill to master. You want—and need—to be warm, but we’re often moving through a mix of activities and intensity levels which adds complexity, like actively hiking to a lookout then sitting still in the cold. The best way to stay warm [...]
On January 19, 2023, two skiers got caught in an avalanche just outside Heavenly Mountain Resort’s ski area boundaries. Both survived. According to the Sierra Avalanche Center (SAC), the avalanche forecast that day was “considerable,” a designation that indicates significant avalanche danger in backcountry terrain. That’s mostly owing to the recent storm cycle, which deposited [...]
On December 30, 2022, Vincent Dashukewich was playing with his dog in his backyard when his 3-year-old pitbull suddenly became fixated on something beneath the back deck. Dashukewich peered under the porch—and discovered an enormous male black bear curled beneath, hibernating. In a video that’s since gone viral, the bear (now named Marty) turns and [...]
