Have a quick look at the frenchman's first snowskate attempt in Revy yesterday... pretty damn funny (for us). We made a fun little hit in the Nystrom's front yard and Steve figured since he did all the work he'd stomp a 360 kickflip first try but he didn't quite make it.

This is a rad photo Denis took last weekend at the fire lookout on Crowfoot. You can see Lichen in the background and almost Seymour Arm. You can't see it from the picture but we've skiied lines right down the backside. They're short and the pick up is long but still pretty good. I love this place!
- Justin

Last weekend we took 5 days and headed out to the Shuswaps. I always love this trip as Crowfoot has so many sweet lines for snowboarding and endless open bowls for sledding. There's about 4 or 5 different mountains you can access depending on both knowledge and gas (Crowfoot, Mobley, Fowler, Lichen and Pukeashun). This is a quick clip of the lines from the main cabin at Crowfoot (there is no sound). They are a perfect length and a ton of fun. This clip represents about half or less of a run.

There's an incredible backcountry lodge near Pukeashun that is only accessible by sleds. We tried to get there from Crowfoot (which I was told was possible) but we ran out of daylight and gas so we turned back. The lodge is called Grizzly Lodge and looks like an amazing place! It is a completely catered facility with power, food, luxury rooms, gas and is fully staffed. Hopefully next season we can book trip and stay here.

www.grizzlylodge.cawww.crowfootmtn.webs.com/ (Crowfoot Snowmobile Club)
- Justin

Good old Fortress Mountain in the heart of K-country. As a kid I spent countless days on this mountain as did many other Calgarians in the 80's and 90's.  My urge to search for powder was definitely born here.

On Sunday we were fortunate enough to have Thomas Heath who is part of the new ownership group take us out to explore the mountain and enjoy some face shots before they fire up there new Cat operation (www.kpow.com). $350 per day will get you cat accessible fresh lines within an hour of your door step. No need to try and squeeze another ski weekend out of your wife and drive for hours to access a few hours of fun, now you can leave home at 8 and be back in time to pick the kids up from school... your wife will think you're hard at work when you're really slaying lines all day with clients.

These guys have some big plans for this old gem and personally I think they have a great thing going on here. Have a look at some of the pictures that snow-reports.ca posted. Also, check out www.skifortress.com for updates.

http://snow-reports.ca/gallery/fortress-mountain-january-15-2012

Eagle Pass Heli-Boarding (sorry Matty it was mostly boarders). What an awesome experience! These guys have there shit together and it was a top 5 day of all time. We had a perfect bluebird day with no wind what so ever and just one small class 1 avy to worry about.

If you haven't had a chance to try these guys out or if you've never been on heli trip before I would highly recommend this operation. The food was fantastic, the guides and staff were incredibly friendly, that atmosphere was super mellow and the face shots were all time! We loved it so much we're going back in April with 12 of us.

Our guides for the day were Scott Newsome (snowboard) and Mat Pinto (skier). We're pretty sure we got about 30,000 vertical feet and unlike most operations we paid absolutely zero dollars for extra vert. All there packages include unlimited vertical.

Don't even think about it just do yourself a favour and book a trip. www.eaglepassheliskiing.com

The video below will accurately depict the way day #1 went. With no trail to the alpine we spent most of the afternoon circling the woods searching for the way to the virgin powder. 
After an extremely late start (Faceshots norm), we had an amazing day. The snow was perfect, Dan's new M8 ran like a dream and we got a great sweat going digging guys out.
Have a look at the video below and we'll see you tomorrow.
-Flem

If you haven't had a look at the avalanche warning lately you must. This is a total neccessity for any and all back country travellers. It is incredibly easy now with email updates and an Iphone app there is really no excuse why you're not monitoring it almost everyday.

If you haven't been to the avalanche.ca website you must and if you use it on a regular basis you should really try and donate some of your hard earned dollars because they are a non-profit org with littel or no government funding.

I'm not going to give you a tutorial on how to use the avalanche.ca website or how to interpret there bulletins but I am going to highly recommend that you and your group make sure you take as many avalnche courses as you possibly can. The Faceshots Crew has always used Zac's Trac's as they have a program that is geared towards snowmobilers. We've all taken the AST 1 program which invlolved a classroom portion as well as a weekend in Revy for the field portion. It was excellent and gave us amazing confidence in search and rescue techniques and identifying avalanche terrain. We are all signed up for the AST level 2 course taking place in Golden which is a very comprehensive course and I personally can't wait to see what's involved.

It looks as though Pola-Rach may be retiring the old Polaris and if all goes well he should be bleeding orange and sweating green by Christmas. This is a big step for the back country engineer as he probably won't have any more wrenching to do in the parking lot before we head out.

Let us know Dan when you've made your move so we can adjust your team jacket this year to Arctic-Dan or maybe something a little more feminine like Danny-Cat.