1 year (4 issues) for $20 + tax! Outside Canada is additional for postage.
Lake Louise gets Parks Canada deal The rugged, raw, always-intriguing and ever-satisfying challenging terrain of Lake Louise has drawn me back for hundreds of ski-days over more decades than I care to count. Thus it was of more than merely journalistic interest to hear that, set in one of the trickiest business environments imaginable—a national … More »
by GEORGE KOCH in Winter 2018 issue “Things are back to perfect now that most of the bloody tourists have effed off.” The place was St. Anton, Austria. The time was near season’s end. The speaker? In this historically dirt-poor farming village that winter tourism had transformed into a magnet for famous and wealthy international … More »
It’s not your average night at an average Royal Canadian Legion. And definitely not a typical public meeting to tell the locals about a gigantic ski resort development proposed for nearly undeveloped wilderness in their backyard. Instead of the usual few vets and their pals quietly visiting over rye or rum and Cokes, Branch No. … More »
North America’s larger ski resorts are often thought of as cash-generating mechanisms for bloodless corporate interests, but in many cases they’re operated by individuals for whom the mountain is something deeply personal. by GEORGE KOCH in Winter 2016 issue Lake Louise, owned by Calgary entrepreneur and former mountain guide Charlie Locke and his family, is … More »
“Don’t be silly! You’d be mad to drive all that way.” _By GEORGE KOCH My friend Matty from Portland, Oregon, was screeching at the news that I was planning to drive from Calgary to Whistler (through the hinterland via the notoriously sinuous Duffy Lake Road of course) for a mere five-day visit to do some spring skiing … More »
By George Koch in Fall 2013 issue The Blackcomb groomer was chock-a-block with the usual peak-Christmas-holiday rainbow of skiing and boarding styles, velocities and attentiveness, and I was applying all my collision-avoidance tactics. Suddenly far down the run a brightly clad skier shot out of the woods airborne, landing on the hard surface and traversing … More »
by George Koch in Western View from Winter 2012 issue As an international ski writer who spends virtually all winter on the slopes (it’s charming how many people I meet think that’s not a lie), I’m frequently asked whether I prefer heli-skiing or snowcat skiing. Canadian, European and American skiers are equally curious, although coming at it from different angles. Europeans, for … More »
Sunshine Village’s firing last winter of seven ski patrollers, including two of its senior-most personnel, hit the skiing world like a string of explosives shattering a cornice. The appearance of heavy-handed ski resort owners protecting a wayward family member by punishing hard-working and public-spirited employees seemed like a ready-made morality tale. It stirred popular passions, becoming the topic of innumerable chairlift-ride, lunchtime … More »
Several readers responded to my article of two years earlier (Is it all doom and gloom? – Fall 2007) that had circumspectly raised questions about (okay, joyously heaped scorn upon) the dire predictions of global warming believers. The letters were breathtaking in their scientific rigour and commitment to intellectual diversity. The one termed me “misguided … More »
This winter the usual early-season snows largely bypassed Whistler- Blackcomb even as Victoria and Vancouver suffered havoc. Extended cold, a rain crust, a dangerous layer of faceted crystals and lastly heavy wind-loaded snowfalls created what avalanche expert Chris Stethem later described as a once-in-30-years “continental snowpack”—shallow and dangerous, akin to the Alberta Rockies. “We found … More »
Lake Louise gets Parks Canada deal The rugged, raw, always-intriguing and ever-satisfying challenging terrain of Lake Louise has drawn me back for hundreds of ski-days over more decades than I care to count. Thus it was of more than merely journalistic interest to hear that, set in one of the trickiest business environments imaginable—a national … More »
by GEORGE KOCH in Winter 2018 issue “Things are back to perfect now that most of the bloody tourists have effed off.” The place was St. Anton, Austria. The time was near season’s end. The speaker? In this historically dirt-poor farming village that winter tourism had transformed into a magnet for famous and wealthy international … More »
It’s not your average night at an average Royal Canadian Legion. And definitely not a typical public meeting to tell the locals about a gigantic ski resort development proposed for nearly undeveloped wilderness in their backyard. Instead of the usual few vets and their pals quietly visiting over rye or rum and Cokes, Branch No. … More »
North America’s larger ski resorts are often thought of as cash-generating mechanisms for bloodless corporate interests, but in many cases they’re operated by individuals for whom the mountain is something deeply personal. by GEORGE KOCH in Winter 2016 issue Lake Louise, owned by Calgary entrepreneur and former mountain guide Charlie Locke and his family, is … More »
“Don’t be silly! You’d be mad to drive all that way.” _By GEORGE KOCH My friend Matty from Portland, Oregon, was screeching at the news that I was planning to drive from Calgary to Whistler (through the hinterland via the notoriously sinuous Duffy Lake Road of course) for a mere five-day visit to do some spring skiing … More »
By George Koch in Fall 2013 issue The Blackcomb groomer was chock-a-block with the usual peak-Christmas-holiday rainbow of skiing and boarding styles, velocities and attentiveness, and I was applying all my collision-avoidance tactics. Suddenly far down the run a brightly clad skier shot out of the woods airborne, landing on the hard surface and traversing … More »
by George Koch in Western View from Winter 2012 issue As an international ski writer who spends virtually all winter on the slopes (it’s charming how many people I meet think that’s not a lie), I’m frequently asked whether I prefer heli-skiing or snowcat skiing. Canadian, European and American skiers are equally curious, although coming at it from different angles. Europeans, for … More »
Sunshine Village’s firing last winter of seven ski patrollers, including two of its senior-most personnel, hit the skiing world like a string of explosives shattering a cornice. The appearance of heavy-handed ski resort owners protecting a wayward family member by punishing hard-working and public-spirited employees seemed like a ready-made morality tale. It stirred popular passions, becoming the topic of innumerable chairlift-ride, lunchtime … More »
Several readers responded to my article of two years earlier (Is it all doom and gloom? – Fall 2007) that had circumspectly raised questions about (okay, joyously heaped scorn upon) the dire predictions of global warming believers. The letters were breathtaking in their scientific rigour and commitment to intellectual diversity. The one termed me “misguided … More »
This winter the usual early-season snows largely bypassed Whistler- Blackcomb even as Victoria and Vancouver suffered havoc. Extended cold, a rain crust, a dangerous layer of faceted crystals and lastly heavy wind-loaded snowfalls created what avalanche expert Chris Stethem later described as a once-in-30-years “continental snowpack”—shallow and dangerous, akin to the Alberta Rockies. “We found … More »
1 year (4 issues) for $20 + tax! Outside Canada is additional for postage.