It's dumping in the Aspen Valley! Tell me what's getting you stoked for the season. I'll pick a winner from the comments on Friday and send 2 tickets to any of the upcoming Warren Miller Dynasty shows: http://www.skinet.com/warrenmiller/articles/dynasty-film-tour-calendar

Voting is now live for the 10th annual Powder Video Awards and Reader Poll. Go to http://www.powderawards.com right now to vote for your favorite 10 male and five female skiers--vote for your friends, yourself, whomever.
Post it on your Facebook, Tweet it on Twitter, or, better yet, talk about it to real live people. In fact, if you vote, you and a friend are eligible for a free, all expense paid four-day trip to Aspen to ski Aspen pow while attending The Coolest Show Not On Snow or something like that...
Thanks for your vote and hope all is well.
Cheers,
Chris

Oct 12, 11:00 a.m.

Hey Guys,
We have been waiting and waiting for things to happen down here in West Papua, but as you tend to learn real quick when in a third world country, things don't happen fast.  The helicopter we thought we had  contracted is out of commission... would have been nice to know that  couple weeks ago when it actually went down.  We hoped it would be fixed in time but that situation has some political overtones that we can barely understand.  so we have another heli lined up- this time a  
Russian Kamov design that looks pretty reliable.  We are just ironing out some insurance issues and waiting on better weather and we should be off to Carstensz Pyramid for our climb.  But anything could happen here and my confidence level in this thing actually turning out in our favor is not the highest.

In the meantime our Mountain Trip crew is holed up in Nabire, Papua, a small town of 10,000 on the north coast of the island.  Although this place is very poor, the people are incredibly happy and greet us always with huge smiles, handshakes, and conversation. I hooked up with a group of kids and have been playing soccer with them each  
afternoon in the 90+ degree heat and high humidity.  So from a cultural point of view this trip has already been really amazing.  
Hopefully we can get into Carstensz and cap it off with a summit climb!




Map of Papua- Nabire is at bottom of big bay on north side.  Carstensz Pyramid is peak with white summit.
-Dav

During my trip to Portillo, Chile last month, we mounted a memorial plaque for our fallen brother and fellow Superstars Camp coach Shane McConkey.  Shane and I spent 6 years skiing together in Portillo and we all wanted to leave a lasting memory of him on the mountains that he loved so much there. So we decided to leave a part of Shane in the mountains in Portillo, a bronze plaque bolted into the ancient rocks (and some of his ashes carried by the wind across the Lake of the Incas). Next time your there, check out his memorial under the cliffs of the Plateau!  Photos by @ingridbackstrom

Another incredible week is almost over at South America's hippest ski area. I have been coming to Portillo for nine years now and this place just keeps getting better and better. This year I had 29 clients for my 6th annual Superstars Ski Camp and Mother Nature once again obliged with over seven feet of new snow in the days leading up to the camp. With coaches Ingrid Backstrom, Wendy Fisher, Chris Anthony, Mike Douglas and myself leading the charge, we pushed our clients to find new heights in their skiing, tackling steep lines, couloirs, airs, and almost too deep powder.



















This week is always viewed as a progression and by the end of the camp everyone felt as if they had lifted their game beyond what they had ever experienced. The most gratifying thing for me with this camp is the comments I get at the end of the week; "My best ski vacation ever, lines of my life, and I will definitely be back year" are just a few examples that highlight the stoke of the group.And for myself and the rest of the coaches we leave with the satisfaction of sharing our passion for skiing with new friends and inspiring them to keep pushing themselves on and off the hill.

Chris Davenport

Today I'm getting on a plane here i aspen and flying up to anchorage for a climbing trip to Denali.  I; really excited about this trip because it's been two seasons since I've been to the Alaska Range, and a trip up North America's highest peak is one of the world's great adventures.  I'll be guiding a client this time, so our objectives are simply to get up and down the West Buttress Route.  We plan on being on the mountain for around 18 days if all goes well, but it can always be longer if Mother Nature plays her usual games.  Many of you might remember the amazing trip I did up there in 2007 with a great group of friends, where we were able to ski 9 different lines on the mountain in a 14 day period.  Here is a shot of our ski lines from 07:
And here is an image of two friends climbing up the West Rib:

Also in the news....  My "Ski With The Superstars" Camp in Portillo, Chile this August is officially sold out.  Congrats to those of you who are signed up, it's going to be an awesome week.

The crew at backcountry.com is at it again with a super sale going on.  Get hooked up over there with this discount on pretty much everything for climbing, camping, cycling, running, ect....

Hey Everyone... what's up out there.  I have a bit of time off right now after an awesome weekend at the Volvo Ocean Race in Boston (www.volvooceanrace.org ) and then some meetings in Dallas with Red Bull.  Working around the house and trying to get some riding, climbing, hiking in as well.

BTW you gotta check this out.  Bumped it from my friend Jonny Atencio.  Totally rad site for mountain bikers:

PARK CITY, UTAH (May 21, 2009) — Starting today, there’s HuckNroll.com, a store dedicated to dirt riders and our take-your-personal-best-and-shove-it-up-your-ass, meat-hucking, scab-picking habit known as mountain biking.

HuckNroll.com is an online mountain bike shop. You heard right. Online. And we wouldn’t be putting it lightly to say that the bike industry didn’t want us. The consensus when we first approached suppliers about launching a high-end online mountain bike shop was, “It will never work, the bike industry is different.” Our response? “Damn right, it’s different. It’s the last industry in existence to accept the Internet as a viable sales channel.”

So we went for it. And along the way we’ve made friends with the industry’s best. In fact, the raddest brands in the biz are snubbing the status quo to team up with us. (They mentioned something about Specialized and Trek pushing them out of bike shops…) We’re stocking more than 6,000 products from 130 high-end bike-specific brands. We have components from Shimano, Race Face, Truvativ, Avid, Easton, and Gravity; apparel and accessories from Fox Racing, Troy Lee Designs, POC, Sombrio, Dakine, Endura, and Zoic; and complete bikes from Santa Cruz, Intense, Titus, Look and Rocky Mountain. (We’re the only authorized online dealer of Rocky Mountain in the U.S.)

HucknRoll.com is staffed by mountain bike gear freaks (including that dude who rambles on about the frame geometry of the 1993 Fat Chance Yo Eddy every time he laces a wheel). Only USA Cycling race-certified bike mechanics will touch your bikes, and only fully trained customer service gearheads will take your calls and answer your live chats. Our goal is to provide, hands down, the best customer lovin’ in the industry.

HucknRoll is community-powered, with gear reviews, Q&A, and images all submitted by you and other riders on the site. That means you get the god’s honest truth on the goods, whether the guys that make the bikes like it or not.

We mentioned our friends. As more proof that we have some, log on to HuckNroll.com/sweepstakes to check out the vid of pros and bros who at least humored us enough to say our name on camera. If you can ID all 15 in order, you’ll get the chance to win $2.9k-worth of gear, including an Intense Tracer VP frame, a Giro helmet and gloves, and an ass-load of Cutter swag.

HuckNroll.com is another store from Backcountry.com, who pretty much realized that skiers and climbers don’t know jack shit about mountain biking. Probably against their better judgment, they gave us some room to do what we do, the way we want to do it. We are proudly related to Chainlove.com, as well as the two shave-your-legs-to-your-scrawny-buttocks roadie sites: RealCyclist.com and Bonktown.com.

So here we go, y’all. It’s a whole new day in the bike world. We don’t give a rat’s ass if you love us or hate us, but we’re here and we’re open for business.

About Backcountry.com:
HuckNroll.com is owned by Backcountry.com—an online retailer of high-end outdoor gear and center for gear knowledge online. Backcountry.com carries more than 400 brands in various categories, including backpacking, camping, cycling, hiking, climbing, trail running, paddling, skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing and adventure travel. Backcountry also operates RealCyclist.com, Bonktown.com, Chainlove.com, SteepandCheap.com, Dogfunk.com, Tramdock.com, Brociety.com and WhiskeyMilitia.com. Backcountry.com is a controlled subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation attributed to the Liberty Interactive Group (Nasdaq: LINTA).

We have had two epic blue sky days for filming here in the Lyngen Alps, and were able to make the most of those days for shooting ski and lifestyle shots for Warren Miller's new film.  Today the weather returned so we are sitting it out at the beautiful Lyngen Lodge.  We have one more day on our schedule then it's home sweet home for me.  A well deserved rest from skiing and traveling is on tap and i plan to take full advantage.

Here are some photos from yesterday: