The New Yawka in Arizona Thread.

Marcski wrote

There is an Article in the new Powder Magazine, entitled,"Tranquillo" about skiing in your neck of the woods. Mentions and has a picture of your boy, Ken Lane.

Interesting. It only mentions Ken from this area?

raisingarizona wrote

Marcski wrote

There is an Article in the new Powder Magazine, entitled,"Tranquillo" about skiing in your neck of the woods. Mentions and has a picture of your boy, Ken Lane.

Interesting. It only mentions Ken from this area?

No, the article mentions that...

"Last March, I drove out from my home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to ski Core Ridge with LOCAL Joshua Langdon and his regular ski partners JP Dudine, Jason Field, and Ken Lane."  It says Lane is the "unofficial mayor of the Flagstaff" backcountry because he has been doing it so long.  

RA, you're not Joshua, are you??

Ya, in real life I go by Josh.

A friend sent me a photographed copy of the article after I saw your post. To be honest you scared me, I thought they must have chopped up the whole story and left us out of it. I'm stoked and I think it came out great. The reasons for me leaving Jackson in reality is much more complicated but it's too long winded for the article. I do wish I had a photo in it but I'm not crying about that. When they showed up they were a week late for Powder mag ski photography quality so it was a kind of a crap shoot on what came out and was chosen to be published.

We had a really good time touring with Jakob and Liam, those guys are a lot of fun and solid people for sure.

raisingarizona wrote

Ya, in real life I go by Josh.

A friend sent me a photographed copy of the article after I saw your post. To be honest you scared me, I thought they must have chopped up the whole story and left us out of it. I'm stoked and I think it came out great. The reasons for me leaving Jackson in reality is much more complicated but it's too long winded for the article. I do wish I had a photo in it but I'm not crying about that. When they showed up they were a week late for Powder mag ski photography quality so it was a kind of a crap shoot on what came out and was chosen to be published.

We had a really good time touring with Jakob and Liam, those guys are a lot of fun and solid people for sure.

Nice, RA!!  Harv, I never knew we have a star in our midst.  I started to have an inkling about you RA when you mentioned a while back that you and your buds ride the white line trail.  Then, after your initial response to my post in this thread, I re-read the article and saw the prt about Jackson and out 2 and 2 together. Good job. And, I agree the article came out great.

We opened this weekend with superb conditions for November and 80% of the mountain, Friday was the earliest opening in 35 years.

Since the main chair was scheduled to start on Saturday with rumors of a soft afternoon opening JP, Ken, and I decided to go for a tour. We ascended out of the area and up the Humphrey's Peak hiking trail then into an open lava flow area called the Flying Dutchman. It's a WW2 B52 crash site and there is still all kinds of debris scattered about. This is some landing gear that has been propped up as a memorial.


The climb up was brutal. Probably 3k total and the last 1000 feet of vert was on rock hard alpine ice. Thank goodness for crampons on the touring bindings but still, it was stressful and on the edge of our comfort zones. Luckily the skiing sucked just as much. It was pretty gnarly, after we each made 2 dozen or so survival turns in the warm wind effected mank we headed back up and over to the ski area where conditions were much, MUCH better and the big chair was now spinning.


This is from Saturday at the Agassiz Lodge. Spring skiing conditions prevailed as the sun baked and temps were in the 40's. The tour on Friday really kicked my arse and I had little energy for skiing, after 5 or 6 laps I gave in and saddled up to the bar. We closed her down. It was rad and it was great being back up there with the community.  Zero F---s were given for coffee cups, flags, or any other stupid thing that has no relevance to our actual lives. Well that's not entirely true, Charlie Sheen has been a topic of interest I suppose but you gotta admit, it's pretty darn intriguing.

Marcski wrote

Nice, RA!!  Harv, I never knew we have a star in our midst.  I started to have an inkling about you RA when you mentioned a while back that you and your buds ride the white line trail.  Then, after your initial response to my post in this thread, I re-read the article and saw the prt about Jackson and out 2 and 2 together. Good job. And, I agree the article came out great.

Thanks man! It's always been a dream of mine to be part of a Powder mag article. I was in a full page add for Cloudveil years ago in Powder but that's not the same thing.

LOL I think the inkling was that monster huck photo that RA posted sometime last winter. There are multiple ways to be huge, as RA demonstrates.  Thanks for the TR, man.

What brought the B-52 down?  Don't you guys have aliens down there?

Thanks Harv.

I'm not totally sure about the B-52. There are at least 6 or 7 other crash sites on the mountain from what I have been told. I have been under the impression that it's often during bad weather. That and the fact that it's a lone 12,000 foot mountain surrounded by low laying desert areas seems to make sense but I can't tell you for sure. If none of this makes sense than the next sensible explanation is aliens for sure.

I'll look around for some info and get back to ya.

just nitpicking here..the B52 wasn't in service during WW2. It first flew in in the early 50' s and was put into service in the mid to late 50's.  

love the reports !!!

-29 then?

Or b24 or b17.  They where the primary bombers. The 29 came into sevice later in the war

Interesting or weird story, depending on how you view such things.....my brother is big into living history/re-enacting.  The Great War Association has a site (think roads, woods, bunkers, trenches and no-mans land complete with shell holes and barbed wire) out in PA where they do tactical events.  WW1, along with some WW2 and a 'Nam 68 event.  Anywhere from 80 to 600 guys in period uniforms/equipment and real weapons (just blanks!) fighting for  16 hours a day, drinking for 4, and sleeping the rest.

Anywho, the November WW1 1918 event is the biggie, which I did with my brother for the first time this year.  Where am I going with this?  Oh, planes.  A number of guys have built their own bi-wing planes and having them 'strafe' the field during battle is way cool, sometimes not more than 20 feet off the ground.

raisingarizona wrote

Since the main chair was scheduled to start on Saturday with rumors of a soft afternoon opening JP, Ken, and I decided to go for a tour. We ascended out of the area and up the Humphrey's Peak hiking trail then into an open lava flow area called the Flying Dutchman. It's a WW2 B52 crash site and there is still all kinds of debris scattered about. This is some landing gear that has been propped up as a memorial.

Super sweet RA.  Looks real nice down in the DSW!  

We have a similar piece of history at Mission

The Bomber theme permeates many of the feature names at the mountain (Bomber Cliffs, Bomber Bowl, Bomber Chutes, etc).  Our's was a B24 that crashed in 1944.

So it is a B-24 I guess. I don't know why I called it a B-52, maybe the pop music band?

http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=598

Here is a cool story about some guys that hiked up to another crash site on the mountain.

http://www.aircraftarchaeology.com/b17sanfranpeaks.html

Interesting nepa about Mission. It seems like planes crashing isn't as rare as I used to think. We get a lot here. The winds are erratic and powerful over the desert and Mogollon Rim. I even saw a small plane crash one day down in Sedona, it killed all three family members on board and their dog. Another plane crashed a few years back in my friends neighbors back yard in Kachina Village.

Today was my 6th day on skis for the season and it was by far the best one yet.







This is my daughter Cody. It was her first day out for the season and it went so well I couldn't be happier. We have had our ups and downs skiing together but today I could tell that as long as I remain patient skiing is going to be something that she is going to fall in love with. It just clicked today and seeing her so stoked and happy made me feel so freaking good, I don't want to sound lame or anything but I was so happy I had to hold back my tears a little. :) I'm a little sensitive like that I guess.

The kid was even skiing switch for several hundred feet at a time!

How old is Cody? I've had some great times skiing with Neve (9). She started when she was 3 1/2 and seems to have really good balance.  In the last two years she's developed this somewhat rare(?) condition that cripples her with fear about things that aren't fearsome.  It was somewhat under control the last two years, oddly she stopped skiing blacks, but had no issues in the trees? In the last three months it is totally off the rails. I hope we can ski this year.

Cody is 8 and she has fear issues too. Her skills are fine for skiing anything but she gets scared on anything steep. There have been days where I feel like a total failure as a father for getting frustrated and her reacting from that. Parenting isn't always easy and I really want her to love skiing, I think it's going to come together this year I hope.

How are you dealing with your daughters fear?

Nice RA. You guys caught a bluebird day. Although, it appears you guys have plenty of those out in the DSW. My little one, who is 9.5 is slowly becoming my favorite ski buddy. She totally inherited  the ski bug and is a diehard already.  Last May, I took her to K-mart and she was loving the huge bumps on Superstar all weekend. You just need to remember that they are young and I try to put myself back into their boots. It's about quality time with your daughter out in the great outdoors more than ripping laps and great lines.  If you put the time in now, it (and Cody) will keep paying you back in the years to come.  It is starting to pay back dividends for me already.  In May, I had to just stop and watch my baby rip up the bumps while these grown men were huffing and puffing and resting and she was passing them all!  

i started both  my kids at 3 years old, a boy and girl. it is easy to lose patience. because of our ability and love of the sport we are dragging our kids to areas of the mnt other parents would never take them regardless of their age. we are probably a little selfish in dragging our kids into the woods and down black diamonds. hang in there, it will pay off big time. around age 9 my kids started ripping through almost everything. it has been a blast ever since. well worth the effort.

Harvey wrote

In the last two years she's developed this somewhat rare(?) condition that cripples her with fear about things that aren't fearsome.  It was somewhat under control the last two years, oddly she stopped skiing blacks, but had no issues in the trees? In the last three months it is totally off the rails. I hope we can ski this year.

raisingarizona wrote

Cody is 8 and she has fear issues too. Her skills are fine for skiing anything but she gets scared on anything steep. There have been days where I feel like a total failure as a father for getting frustrated and her reacting from that. Parenting isn't always easy and I really want her to love skiing, I think it's going to come together this year I hope.

How are you dealing with your daughters fear?

Have you guys tried getting these kids into groups? Especially in that age range, kids are starting to get pretty social and skiing in groups of other kids can really help ease fears. Some kids might be gung ho, and others will be timid, but a balance is usually found somewhere in the middle. Do they have any friends that ski? Or even friends that don't ski, but want to learn? Getting them to ski with other kids that are more scared than they are is a pretty good way to put fears in perspective sometimes.

Anyway, love this thread and that Powder article was sweet. Cool that you were involved in it.