At the World Ski and Snowboard Festival in Whistler one prize is reserved for a film shot within seven days, featuring at least one skier and snowboarder, and combining video from different regions of Whistler. This year Leo Zuckerman won with Restless, it features a voiceover we’ve heard a few other times on popular videos this year. A great short video, and a genius marketing move for Whistler; they get to add some fantastic footage to the video/marketing library in exchange for a cash prize.

via Ski Journal

Luca Joel Koller was riding in Switzerland when 30 seconds into his run he found himself facing a rather steep rock crevasse he was unable to avoid. He plunges in, lands on his feet, and manages to get his board off and use it to help him climb back to safety. This is one of those cases where things could have gone much worse. The fall comes at :30, and you’ll see him make his way out over the rest of the video. It’s not going to win any cinematic awards, but it’s better than watching him hang upside-down in the crevasse until his GoPro battery runs out.

Do you have a friend who kind of looks like you and is in possession of an old California driver’s license? It’s good for a free season of skiing at Eagle Point next year. Thursdays will be free to all skiers and every day is free to CA residents. The resort’s been closed for 8 [ more... ]

While ski resorts in the west deal with a bit of a drought, the ski resorts on the East Coast are still mowing their lawns. Unseasonably warm temperatures have been fantastic for cyclists tearing up and down the resorts, but I’m sure the resort owners would prefer to fire up their millions in new chairlifts [ more... ]

At Jackson Hole this season some of the backcountry access gates will have machines that check to see if your beacon is turned on. As you pass through the gate if your beacon is on the machine will beep and display a green circle; if you don’t have a beacon on it will show a [ more... ]

The Denali Experiment from The North Face (unrelated to the Denali jacket prized on college campuses around the U.S.) is a Camp 4 Collective production featuring Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and big mountain snowboarder Lucas Debari. It’s directed by Jimmy Chin and edited by Backcountry.com Athlete Renan Ozturk. The group assembled a dream team of climbers and mountaineers, including Conrad Anker, Ingrid Backstrom and several other North Face Athletes. The result is this fantastic 15-minute video.

via Vertical Carnival

In the event that you’re an outdoorsy person who also enjoys ‘ball’ sports from time to time, you’ve likely seen the latest North Face commercials in heavy rotation during NFL games. The piece was shot by the Camp 4 Collective. This video shows the behind the scenes of the making of that commercial (which, as [ more... ]

The upcoming film This is My Winter featuring shredmaster Xavier de Le Rue along with Mathieu Crepel, Andreas Fransson and Samuel Anthamatten is out on the 28^th of this month. To build anticipation, the crew has released this 2-minute helmet cam teaser. If you missed the first teaser, it’s here. I appreciate that he speaks English on his walkie, oh, and also that he’s an insane rider.

A filmmaker from Ripzone Europe traveled to China to shoot a film about their country’s burgeoning snowboarding scene. It’s called Sleeping Giants.  The clash of Chinese traditions, snowboard subculture and the powerful corporate snowboard machine make for an interesting story. Short on cash to finish the post-production, the filmmaker has turned to crowdfunding, asking people to contribute a bit of cash so he can finish it, then in exchange he’ll send you a copy before its official release.

People who moved to Colorado to ski are suckers. Sure, Wolf Creek Ski Area opened on Saturday and Arapahoe Basin and Loveland will open today and tomorrow, but they weren’t the first resort in the U.S. to open.  The Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort says they opened 27 minutes earlier than Wolf Creek and [ more... ]