Words: John Clary Davies and Heather Hansman

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. No, really, it was. Despite the losses we sustained, and the snow we didn't ski, this winter was still full of highlights, and really high ones at that. Here's what we're going to remember from this winter.

Powder turns 40



In 1972, the following poem ran in the first issue of POWDER magazine:

There are mountains that i have come from
and mountains i will go to.
the mountains have shown me a love,
a happiness, that must be shared.

In December 2011, POWDER editors, writers, photographers, readers and the skiers that graced the pages gathered in Sun Valley, where Dave and Jake Moe started the magazine 40 years earlier as a rebuke to the prevailing ski titles at the time. "To us powder means freedom..." the editors wrote in that first issue. To celebrate the anniversary, everybody in Sun Valley that weekend got free. -J.C.D.

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An avalanche in the backcountry just outside of Stevens Pass Resort, near Leavenworth, Washington claimed the lives of three skiers Sunday afternoon.

Head judge for the Freeskiing World Tour Jim Jack, 46, Stevens Pass marketing director Chris Rudolph, 30, and Johnny Brenan, 41, a Leavenworth contractor and married father of two daughters, died when they were swept away by a large avalanche in the Tunnel Creek drainage, just a short hike from the resort boundary.

The three were among 15 skiers who left the resort together a little before noon. A small group of skiers split off from the main pack, leaving 12 directly involved in the accident, including Powder Senior Editor John Stifter and photographer Keith Carlsen.

Stifter says Rudolph, Brenan, professional skier Elyse Saugstad and three other skiers successfully descended the upper bowl and moved into what they felt was a safe area in the trees.

Jim Jack was the seventh skier to drop in, and triggered a large slab avalanche, Stifter says. According to those watching from above, the fracture started about 30 feet wide and propagated across the slope, leaving a crown two to three feet deep. The slide captured Rudolph, Brenan and Saugstad, as well as a fourth skier who escaped by grabbing a tree. Saugstad deployed an airbag, and was only partially buried with her hands and head free within 50 feet of where Rudolph and Brenan were buried.

Three of the five skiers left on top conducted a beacon search while the remaining two watched from above in case of secondary slides. They were able to locate Rudolph under several feet of snow, but after freeing him from the snow, Stifter attempted CPR for approximately 30 minutes, but was unsuccessful in resuscitating him. Jack was carried several hundred feet farther down the slope, and according to reports, was recovered by the group that had split off from the original pack.

Stevens Pass reported 14 inches of new snow overnight, and 26 inches in the last 24 hours. The Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center rated the danger as considerable to high. Everyone in the party was experienced and knowledgable in traveling in avalanche terrain. Stifter says they had read the report and there were concerns about the conditions, but that the consensus was that they could manage the hazard if they followed proper protocol. According to Carlsen the temperature rose quickly just before noon, likely adding to the instability.
-Derek Taylor

Chris Rudolph and Jim Jack celebrate with Captain Powder in Sun Valley last December.


Photo: Powder Mag

Thanks to a bevy of tricks including a switch double cork 1440 and a switch double misty 1260, Bobby Brown took the top spot in Ski Big Air at Winter X Games Aspen 2012.

"It's all about consistency," Brown said of his runs. "It's not about someone coming out with the gnarliest trick ever, it's just about laying it down when you need to. I am just really stoked. Everyone is at such a high level now no one person is that much further ahead than anyone else."

With the win, Brown returned to the top spot he secured in 2010 after grabbing silver in the event in 2011. He held off a hard-charging Winter X Games rookie, Kai Mahler.

Head to Powder.com for the rest of the recap.

Photo: X Games

By Ryan Dunfee

For weeks, we've been biting our lips, drinking every happy hour, and feigning interests in hiking, lake surfing, and bulletproof groomers here in this snowless paradise known as Lake Tahoe. Like the Greek Olympics, we've been edging farther and farther past the point of no return, wondering if we were every going to pull off our signature event.

All eyes around the lake have been checking Tahoeweatherdiscussion.com with obsessive regularity, hoping to God Bryan would see a massive low pressure system explode out of nowhere over Sacramento and puke all over the golf courses, hiking trails, and bike paths that have stayed open into January in this great test of irony for the west-bound ski bum who left New Hampshire in hopes of finding storms that had before only been known in legend.

We held our breaths this past week, as after over two months without any meaningful precipitation, the winds howled across the lake and clouds, a completely unknown phenomenon this season, worked their way east across the hills. After going to sleep Thursday with the first sign of white on the ground, we woke up Friday to see the rain pounding that snow into the gutter.

Full post on POWDER.

By Tim Mutrie

Sarah Burke's crash in the Park City Mountain Resort halfpipe nine days ago looked to one observer "like a crash a lot of us have taken before." But this morning, Burke, 29, a beloved freeskiing champion and pioneer from Squamish, B.C., died from injuries sustained in the crash at the Salt Lake City hospital where she was being treated in the aftermath of the accident, according to a statement from a family spokesperson.

Professional halfpipe skier Pete Olenick, a close friend of Burke's and her husband, Rory Bushfield, was fighting back tears when reached by phone today in Killington, Vt. Olenick had been skiing with Burke at the time of her Jan. 10 accident in Park City, and he kept vigil for three days at the hospital with Burke's family and friends.

"I'm super bummed and sad. I feel bad for Sarah's family, for Rory's family, for everyone," Olenick told Powder.com.

News of Burke's death reached Olenick and fellow pro halfpipe skiers in Killington this afternoon, after a qualifying round of the Dew Tour event there had been completed. Olenick is slated to compete tomorrow (Friday) in the semifinals, but he said that "doesn't matter to me anymore."

"Nobody here really knows what to do," Olenick said. "We're all just hanging out together." He added, "None of us are talking about skiing tomorrow or anything like that."

Of Burke and Bushfield's relationship, he said, "Those two were the perfect match. Nothing will ever be like that. We all wish we could be with Rory right now."

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