Photo in Inc Magazine

The latest issue of Inc Magazine features my dear pal over at Flylow Gear on the cover: Yep, that’s right, Dan’s mug is right there under the text, “How to Launch Your Dream Company.” That alone is awesome and I’m really proud of Dan and Greg for the nod of recognition from a national magazine like Inc. But, selfishly, there’s another thing I’m really excited about: Dan sent in a handful of photos of himself skiing for them to run with the story and well, they chose mine! It’s pretty big, too, a little over half the page. I shot this with my Canon 5D  last winter in East Vail Chutes, a backcountry run out the gates of Vail. It was a cool little pillow line and I was standing on the ridge facing Dan. This is my first published photo. My second, in Backcountry magazine, I’ll tell you about next time.

Click here to read the full article on Inc.com.

My sister recently sent me this photo with the message, “Found this while cleaning some old drawers. Please refresh my memory as to what’s going on in this photo.” This made me chuckle. My old boss at the Tahoe World newspaper took this shot of me in 2005 when I was reporting a story on the day in the life of the North Tahoe fire department. They thought it would be fun for me to dress up in this deep-water rescue outfit (I don’t recall it being that fun). But there’s one thing this photo really does make me think about: Being a journalist - whether you’re at a local newspaper or a national magazine or a website - is really about stepping into someone else’s shoes. Seeing other people’s perspectives on issues and relaying that information to the reader. And sometimes, that means putting on a goofy, waterproof, yellow suit.

Thank you, Julia Mancuso

My story on ski racer Julia Mancuso is on the homepage of ESPN.com today. It’s my first byline on ESPN’s page 1, which is pretty exciting. I spoke to Julia over the phone a few weeks ago when she was staying at Chile’s Hotel Portillo (seen here, in this shot taken by Jonathan Selkowitz) and we talked about her potential future career as a pro freeskier (after the 2014 Winter Olympics, she says). Last March, Julia got third in the Verbier Xtreme, a rowdy big-mountain comp that I was witness to in 2009. I actually grew up ski racing with Julia in Tahoe - she was a couple of years younger than me and she always beat me by seconds on each run (in my defense, she beat everyone by seconds on each run - she was that good, even at age 14). I’d be psyched to see Julia move into big-mountain comps and filming when she’d done racing. She could bring a real sense or credibility to an otherwise niche sport.

“If you want positive reinforcement, go to Richard Simmons or Oprah. Both of them are fat and make millions of dollars by making fat people feel good about themselves.” —Mike Karolchyk, owner of The Anti Gym, a now defunct gym in Denver, Colorado.”

— I wrote a feature story on The Anti Gym and its tyrannical owner Mike Karolchyk for the February 2009 issue of Men’s Fitness. Right after the issue came out, news broke that Karolchyk’s gym was shut down by the IRS. "For two years I’ve been fighting an IRS claim for back taxes," Karolchyk told the Denver Post. “My legal team made the decision.” After that, he packed his bag and opened a gym in San Diego.

My first feature for Outside

I’m working on feature story for Outside magazine right now. It’s my first feature for Outside — I started as an intern and an assistant editor there, but the most I ever wrote for them was a front-of-the-book blurb here and there. So the fact that it’s a feature (and potentially a 6,500-word one) is a big deal for me. It’s also a big deal because of the nature of the story. I won’t give too much away here (you’ll have to wait till it’s in print! In Outside’s February 2011 issue), but it’s a story of a very personal nature. When I was 13 years old, my stepdad, Jerry, was shot and killed at Otter Bar Lodge, a kayak school in northern California. He was killed by a caretaker of the lodge named JD. That was 15 years ago. This past summer, I decided to go back to Otter Bar with my mom and find out exactly what happened the night Jerry died. It was an intense week - definitely the toughest reporting mission I’ve ever done (far more difficult than, say, skiing in Iceland during a volcanic eruption).

My mom and I paddled sections of the Salmon River, right from the front porch of the cabin she and Jerry built together in the late 1980s. I interviewed everyone I could who knew about the incident in 1995: my mom, the owner of Otter Bar, JD’s lawyer, a raft friend of Jerry’s. And then, on the last day, I found JD. What do you say to the guy who killed your loved one by shooting him in the eyes with a .357 magnum? I started by saying hello.