Snow — a WildSnow Ski Touring Slideshow

I’m solo at WildSnow Field HQ, high in the Colorado mountains. Winter is nigh. In the loft reading, I’ve got XM tuned to an “ambiance” music channel (yeah, I know, no comments, not exactly Waylon Jennings).

Snow sifts down outside, first of the season, easily viewed out our north window. I fall into a trance as mesmerizing piano music blends with the lofting flakes. Magical. Before the song completes I break my reverie and glanced at the sat receiver — song title is “First Snow.” Wow. Serendipitous convergence or blind chance? I’ll take the former.

Something must be done with this, but how?

I googled up composer Kevin Keller and made a reasonable deal for slideshow music rights. The hard part was producing, as I was going through some computer upgrades and shifting my video editing software.

For those of you who do video, I’ve been through Adobe Premier and Vegas Pro, and gotten to the point where incompatibilities and upgrade costs were getting ridiculous for the occasional projects we do. So I fell back to “prosumer” editing suite Cyberlink Power Director, which does nearly everything I need for fraction of the cost and hassle of higher end stuff.

Cyberlink never crashes and seems to effectively utilize my ram packed Asus Zenbook for acceptably fast rendering. It’s got some strange limitations (such as not being able to quickly mark and test render only part of a project), but workarounds are easy to find.

Kevin Keller

I have no idea if musician Keller skis or otherwise encounters much snow (though he apparently lives in the environs of New York City, so most certainly experiences a winter storm now and then). His music is wonderful, with energetic dance and pensive film scores and interesting tone poems, along with peaceful instrumental ballads that make a perfect compliment to relaxing with a good book and hot cup of tea. Or, if you want to go out of gamut, check out his Fantasy Noir — it’ll keep awake well into 29 hours on the Alcan.

For an iTunes sampling, check out Music by Kevin Keller. Also see Keller’s website.

I’m not a professional video editor. Thus, I don’t know if I really did Keller’s song justice. But I like the result, let me know what you think.

15 Responses to “Snow — a WildSnow Ski Touring Slideshow”

1. Quasimoto November 21st, 2016 10:08 am

   I hate that I feel a compunction to be that grammar guy, but I believe the word you are looking for in the second sentence is “nigh”. “Neigh” is the sound a horse makes.

2. Lou Dawson 2 November 21st, 2016 10:30 am

   Quasi, that is appreciated. Thanks, Lou

3. Ted Kyle November 21st, 2016 11:00 am

   Sorry for the off topic comment: Lou – What are your thoughts on the new BD Ultra Light Skins, Specifically the new tip clip? Looking for new skins and like the look of this but can’t find anyone who has actually used it.

   Thanks

4. Aaron November 21st, 2016 11:35 am

   Packaging short video/slide show vignettes have much value than having terrabytes of unconsolidated photos and videos. I’m not consistent enough yet as it takes serious time to even put 5-10 min together. I also have not started deleting the originals…

   I love your choice of gentler music, raging sound tracks for high testosterone videos are not my style.

   I’ve never used high end software, but Cyberlink Power Director has worked good enough for me. (short video for a particularly good mini-day traverse a couple of years ago https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHAkqEDCs7y2evO1VoNKq1g)

5. Billy November 21st, 2016 11:36 am

   Really nice. I wish we knew the story behind all those pictures.

6. Boone Caudill November 21st, 2016 2:04 pm

   Thanks Lou! Just what the doctor ordered for a day like today. Some wonderful memories packed in there… and many more to go.

7. Kristian November 21st, 2016 2:14 pm

   Electric Bikes, Snowmobiles, & ATVs :-/

8. Scott Nelson November 22nd, 2016 2:34 am

   Perfect, on my shift @ 0230…. Thanks for sharing. Look forward to what this winter brings.

9. John Doyle November 23rd, 2016 3:45 pm

   Pretty work, Lou. It’s reminded me to get that haiku to you soon. Happy Thanksgiving to you, Lisa and Louie.

10. Lou Dawson 2 November 23rd, 2016 4:22 pm

    Thanks John, appreciate that coming from you.

    Time for a haiku contest blog post?

11. Brad Knotts November 23rd, 2016 8:15 pm

    Beautiful, inspiring. Good to see photos of the trip up Hayden… seems like yesterday, and a long time ago.

12. Al November 25th, 2016 7:16 am

    Hi- binding question. Earlier posts about dynafit st 2 complained about the afd on top of the heel/brake ( it’s gray on my unmounted 2.0 bindings) coming off in use. I was playing with them this am and noticed they slide sideways (to improve release capability?) very easily and seem pretty flimsy. Has this turned out to be a legitimate issue? I ski a lot but almost exclusively on soft snow and I’m ez on equipment, but if the hard chargers in this group have had problems maybe it’s an issue we all need to be concerned about? I just wanted some feed back before mounting them. Thanks

13. Lou Dawson 2 November 25th, 2016 8:45 am

    Seems like it depended on the type of boot and how the binding was used. I’d go ahead and mount. If the AFD slider breaks the binding still functions, so it won’t strand you. Yes, this sort of thing is supposed to make retention-release work better, but in our opinion it is more along the lines of something they did to make testers at TUV happy, since the solution appeared to be more problematic than the problem, if you get my drift.

14. Al November 25th, 2016 9:16 am

    Thanks. I have tlt 6 for boots. Pending any feedback from others having bad experiences with the afd falling off (does seem awfully wimpy even for an old guy ski technique) I’ll probably go for it. Al

    Afa ice build up on the binding causing prerelease, is it advisable to spray the binding with something hydrophobic like WD-40 at the beginning of the day?

15. Lou Dawson 2 November 25th, 2016 10:11 am

    Sounds good. If you want something to prevent ice and snow from sticking, just rubbing with alpine wax is good enough. Don’t spray things with WD40, it’s oil and makes a mess. Lou