Charlie took these three pictures Saturday while I was watching football in my bedroom, and despite feeling quite pleased with the decision at the time, it’s hard to look at these and not feel a slight tinge of regret. So I’m posting these for three reasons, first to highlight how amazing the current conditions are, second to prove that you always regret not going skiing, and third to convince the rare Anchorage reader to buy a print from Charlie at his first friday at the Upstairs Studio.  I might post some of my stuff from the weekend later, but it’s nothing compared to these shots.  Later

Filed under: backcountry, Skiing, Turnagain, Uncategorized Tagged: Goldpan, Superbowl ]]> http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/11/28/pictures-a-friend-took-while-i-was-watching-football/feed/ 2 dongshow tin can eddies and wolverine ridges with 20 mile in the background superbowl slash goldpan http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/08/05/my-classy-anchorage-neighborhood-automotive-edition/ http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/08/05/my-classy-anchorage-neighborhood-automotive-edition/#comments Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:07:33 +0000 dongshow http://dongshow-productions.com/?p=1904 ]]> I’ve been realizing that while I have posted hundreds of pictures of the places I visit in my free time, I have thusfar failed to post anything that would enlighten the handful of non-Alaskan readers as to what it looks like here in town where I somewhat unfortunately spend most of my time.  This may, if I feel ambitions,  become a continuing series throughout the remainder of the summer.  I’ll start out with a basic rundown of what people drive who live near me drive.

First up is my local liquor store clerk Vinny, who protects his Mustang with a parking cone.  Although his car has been hit on numerous occasion by his own drunken clientele, he still refuses to park behind the store.  He considers the parking cone a double win, not only is it protecting his front bumper, but it also brings increased attention to his beloved car.

The El Camino enjoys enormous popularity amongst my neighbors.  This house,  previously featured around here for their incredible no trespassing sign, always proudly parks their El Camino in their driveway, and commonly stores 4 wheelers, Dirt Bikes, strange plastic vats, or extension ladders in the back bed.  Since taking this picture this house’s inhabitants have acquired an additional El Camino (forest green) that came with a white topper.

Again, here is a pair of dueling El Caminos a 5 minute walk from my house.  The broken early 90s wood trim television in the back is worthy of a couple of extra points.

The El Camino is so loved in this little neighborhood some people have even branched out and purchased a copycat Dodge Rampage 22, a model I never knew existed.

This is the local Ice cream truck that I would love to claim was driven by a pedophile if it wasn’t actually driven by a large women with huge 80s rocker hair.  While listening to this thing as it wanders through the streets near my house playing it’s stupid tune I’ve become convinced that someone driving around blasting metal and selling cigarettes and booze out of a pickup truck would make a lot more money then this women trying to take a couple quarters from the kids.

Traffic on friday evening was outrageous, and Kim and I only arrived because we avoided the highway closure by taking the Skilak Lake cutoff.  Our friends that left a few hours later weren’t so lucky, and ended up camping on the highway.  Friday evening was gorgeous, but by the time they all arrived early Saturday morning it began to rain, and didn’t quit until sometime Monday.  Early that morning a game of Rye Bocce commenced, and moments after it finished Kim managed to roll Mikey’s four wheeler, impaling his calf, and requiring 19 stitches at the Soldotna Emergency Room.

The fishing was really slow, so very little fishing was done at all, and the rain forced us to spend most of our time beneath a tarp we strung between the trucks.  Nonetheless a good time was had, Max and I even got a little Windsurfing done in the mouth of the river, despite less then co-operative winds.  I managed to have all sorts of issues, and was forced to swim the board back to shore, whereupon I began throwing up.  Great times for sure, and it certainly beats having to get rescued by the Coast Guard or floating out to sea.  Anyway, video bellow, no footage of fish actually being caught, but plenty of the usual beach antics plus some Windsurfing.

Filed under: Fish, mitigated disasters, Uncategorized, video, wind sports Tagged: dipnetting, kasilof ]]> http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/07/27/lazy-weekend-camping-in-the-rain/feed/ 1 dongshow sleeping in the rain dipnetting http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/07/05/utah-motorcycle-rides/ http://dongshow-productions.com/2011/07/05/utah-motorcycle-rides/#comments Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:20:53 +0000 dongshow http://dongshow-productions.com/?p=1945 ]]>

As a broken rear axel on the van has delayed my windsurfing progress, I’m going to run some of Politic’s recent motorcycle rides around Salt Lake City this spring and early summer.  The obvious heat and intense sun seem so foreign up here in the rain.  If your looking for something a little more in line with this blogs usual topics check out Guilia Monego’s pictures and stories from skiing in Bolivia along with a fantastic line of Huyana Potosi.

Down in Utah, occasional contributor to the site Jason has been trying to launch a line of Shift Grindplates that would allow Skiers to further imitate rollerblading by opening up the possibility of  soul grinds and other nifty rail tricks on skis.  That’s Jason with the early 90s’s Makio in the video above.  And since this is a rare intrusion of rail slides into what is usually a terrain park free zone, I’ll make up for it by posting Jason’s line down Clayton’s Peak at Brighton bellow.  And with the sun shinning on some fresh snow I’m about to sneak out of work  for some afternoon turns, later!

just scored 19 in the first period as Boston against Detroit 19-0 then 38-2 final. also scored 30-0 shutout as Boston against Buffalo with Moog as player of the game. incredible day.

Manitoba

Christmas is over.  Although Santa was very generous to me this year he left me with a cold.  However, this did not stop me from taking my fiance – Riley and my long time ski racing buddy Mike out for an easy ski.  Since Mike  grew up in Alaska and has since relocated to sunny so-cal hasn’t done much back country skiing and me being sick we kept it nice and easy.  After driving through turnagain and the weather looking unpredictable, we settled on some familiar tree skiing on the west side of Summit Lake and Fresno Ridge.  The 6-8 inches of 5% moisture content snow that had fallen over night had made for some fantastic blower powder skiing.  The winds aloft were high as you can see in the pictures but there was no wind down low.  Hopefully this next system will come through and be the answer to our snow prayers!

high cirrus clouds above fresno

I got a bit lazy, and this is 3 days and an entire weather system too late, but I figure I bothered to make the video, so I might as well post it.  Again the music is courtesy of DJ Indo, a long time friend of the site.  This clips music is from his Pleasure Riddim Mix; I’ll likely just keep using his stuff for the rest of the season if there aren’t any objections, its fantastic and saves me the hassle of choosing something.  Anyway, this post is becoming aimless so it’s time to move on.

Another fantastic Thanksgiving of powder skiing.  I think it’s been 4 years in a row now that a large storm has delivered; powder turns in the trees is becoming a far better tradition then unevenly cooked turkey.   Graham and I headed to Summit Lake in the van this morning, the driving was a little wild (some GMC truck with a plow nearly run me into the ditch), then it took a few minutes to find a plowed pull out in Summit Lake, and once there we weren’t exactly sure where to begin skinning, but after getting situated and cruising down the road a bit everything became quite clear.  The conditions were fantastic today, not too deep and a little heavy, but that just allowed us to go faster which was fantastic with the widely spaced deciduous trees on the west side of the highway.   The music in the video is from DJ Indo’s Gregory Issacs tribute over at Strictly Blazin.

So a couple weeks ago one of my neighbors, who happens to live adjacent to an elementary school, decided it would be wise to broadcast  the fact that he had a meth lab in his basement by making a no trespassing sign out of old brown paper bags and duct taping it to the front of his house.  Threatening to shoot small children is how Anchorage residents keep it classy I guess.  Previously this house (picture at this link) wouldn’t have even been ranked on my list of the neighborhood’s suspicious homes, but it now occupies the top spot.   Anyway, I have no real reason for posting this, other then boredom (I have very little else of note to comment on), and the necessity of posting something new.  Hopefully this can urge someone to take some action and shut this guy down, but either way I’m interested to see if whoever lives there can match the 9 month comedy lifespan of the super obvious meth lab I lived across from in Utah.

The last two days have seen Wilson and I charge out of the house after interpreting signs that the weather was clearing, only to end up skiing in the clouds anyway. (The photo above is actually Jeff from Saturday, it hasn’t looked that good since) Yesterday we went to the Front Range and today it was Turnagain.  The snow was excellent both days, although the newly fallen stuff in Turnagain was heavy but skied great.  I’m also loving day light savings time as we’ve left the house in  the middle of the afternoon with the sun setting around 8 now.  Great stuff, just waiting for some sun and stability.  Here is some video from Flat Top yesterday.

and this is a special World of Warcraft version for Usau

The skiing was pretty icy and cold this weekend.  But despite the firm conditions looking out my office window to see the view above makes me wish I was out skiing anyway.  I forgot my camera this weekend so I’ll post a couple pictures whenever Max gets around to putting whatever he took online.  Hopefully we get some more snow soon.  In the mean time enjoy this video of an Alta powder day from 1974, that I found over at The Ski Bum Poet.  It brought a smile to my face to see how the Wildcat terrain looked almost identical to how I remember it from my years at Alta almost 30 years after this video was filmed.  Have to say I didn’t expect to see so many tracks in the early 70s, but I guess Utah was and always will be Utah.  I guess they’ve delayed their opening too.

UPDATE:  Max has a CHDK timelapse of a saturday morning drive to Girdwood in the style of Don Pablos fateful voyage to Hope, (also chronicled here) I think these all need a fair bit more work.

This post is only an excuse to use the picture above.  I’ll be in France for the next few weeks, but will be returning to Alaska for the beginning of ski season.  There may be a few updates (possibly even in French) between now and then,  but I’m not promising anything.

Staying in the Chamonix area I also wasted a considerable amount of time watching the following split board descent of the Benedetti Direct off the west face of Mont Blanc

Excellent pictures of both the route and the approach (from a different trip) can be found here.  And while I’m at it I really should mention Tobias Granath who’s kept me entertained with his Chamonix pictures all week.  Check out his hit list, Aiguille du Plan North Face, Les Courtes (check out the route shot at the bottom!), the Whymper Couloir, and the Aiguille de l’Encrenaz.  I really need to get back to over there soon.

The picture above instantly caught my attention, after a some research it appears to be from the North Face of Mont Blanc de Cheilon in Switzerland (Arolla) and was skied by whoever it that posts at the excellent Gilles Les Skieur blog. 

Yesterday my cousin Jim pointed out he’d posted a short video with a nice mix of Washington and Michigan footage:

And finally, the always excellent Piste Hors pointed me in the direction of an article on a man who survived an avalanche, won the lottery, and then gave all the winnings to his rescuers.   

• Athletico are playing horribly,  having failed to beat anyone other then Recreativo since December, but Aguero just had a kid with Maradona’s daughter, and I still think they’ll get past Porto.

• Roma looked to have been slowly improving since their horrible start, but then they go out and lose 3-0 to Atalanta.  Arsenal are looking tough to beat, but struggle to score goals.  I think Arsenal will take it, one Van Persie free kick over the two games could be enough.

• Both Inter and Manchester United are running away with their respective leagues and have been coasting for weeks.  I think Inter will be more able then United to bring their play up to another gear.  I caught the way Inter came back against Bologna and I was impressed by the ease with which they stepped up their play after the equalizer.  ManU is facing a defensive injury crisis, so I’ll guess that Inter will win.

• When the draw came out in December I thought Liverpool would win this tie easily. But since then Liverpool have looked to be on the decline, and Real Madrid have look both motivated and sharp the last couple games.  Real Madrid hasn’t made it past this stage for the last 4 years.  Torres, in his Athletico days, struggled in games against Real Madrid.  I wouldn’t be surprised either way, but I just have a feeling Liverpool will win, this competition is Benitez’s specialty.

• Before Hidink arrived Chelsea looked to be ready to implode.  I guess they’ve won two games since, but they haven’t looked great either.  Juventus hasn’t impressed me this season, I always took their high position as a sign of Serie A’s weakness this year.  Trezeguet is back, and I hope Juventus win, but I think Chelsea will.  I think Chelsea can play poorly and still squeak by.

• Barcelona lost to Espanyol over the weekend, but I think they’ll go back to their normal selves against Lyon.  I don’t think Lyon has the energy to harass and annoy Barcelona like Espanyol did.  Juninho may hit a free kick, or a Benzema goal might make this interesting, but I can’t see Lyon controlling Barcelona over two games. 

• And for those of you who I’ve confused with this sudden shift in scenery from an Alaskan winter to a smokey French apartment, I have this view of the Wrangells from yesterday.