Last season every time the snow got deep in Little Cottonwood Canyon I would inevitably see the Smith Optics team manager, Gabe Schroder, out skiing. After the lenghty storm cycles, I would find Schroder's web edits, documenting those perfect days via helmet cam, supplemented with his own lyrics. Schroder has found one of the golden nuggets of the ski industry; a job that allows him 100 days plus of skiing and biking each year. I chased Gabe down at S.I.A, X Games, and back at his office in Idaho, before we could talk about the perks of his job, sponsorship emails, and his freestyle rapping career.

Come support NWAC Saturday, March 6, 2010 at Alpental for the fourth annual Outdoor Research Vertfest.

Growing up in Bellingham, Washington, half-pipe skier Angeli VanLaanen, practiced skiing backcountry lines her entire childhood. When park skiing finally hit Mt. Baker, VanLaanen transitioned into the pipe. Since moving from Washington to Colorado, she has competed in the X Games, won first place in the 2009 Park City World Cup Superpipe, and second place in 2009 at the World Skiing Invitational in Whistler. In addition to her podiums and star roles in films, such as Oakley’s “Uniquely” and Atomic’s “44 Days”, I always knew Angeli as the girl who went huge out of the half-pipe. We sat down in Boulder after an athlete meeting in Winterpark with Atomic to talk about the Olympics, her plans, and a recent move to Salt Lake City.

One week, one lodge, one photographer, and four teleskiers in neon; welcome to Icefall Lodge, British Columbia. Utah-based photographer, Re Wikstrom, answers a few questions about being the technology infested, freeskiing group in the middle of the Canadian Rockies.

Chris Tatsuno and I met up in downtown Denver after a day at S.I.A, so he could fill me in on his first month of traveling as the Powder Highway's Ultimate Ski Bum. Tatsuno went from being "just the guy in the van" to the guy that just won three months of free lift tickets, cat-skiing, heli-skiing, and lodging at all the best stops in the Kootenays.

Visions of The Goal spur us on, and the skies are helping our backcountry cause by keeping the Colorado slopes free of fresh. We discuss The Route as if it were gospel. Mythical. Day one: Argentiere over the Col du Chardonnet. Visions of this hanging glacier keep our feet moving. Clack-thwap-glide. Clack-thwap-glide. Repeat ad nauseam.

Amidst the chaos of the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake and the biggest storm of the season, SheJumps, a non-profit designed to inspire women to get outside and recreate, threw a free avalanche awareness night. The Ski Journal was there to represent. Check out a story about the evening here.