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WildSnow Top Blog Posts of 2016

by TheEditors OfWildsnow December 30, 2016
written by TheEditors OfWildsnow December 30, 2016
Thanks to Ortovox for sponsoring this avalanche education content. Check out the additional plethora of avalanche safety resources on their website.

Got a few hours (smile)? We curated last year’s 300 or so posts, whew… For the complete listing check this link or use options in nav menu above.

You've been on passenger jets and layovers for 24 hours straight, then you finally see the sign. You're in Greece!

You’re in Greece!

  • Salomon X-Alp Ski Touring Boot, Skis, Binding — 2017-2018
  • Skiing with Bison — Womens Backcountry Clinic, Yellowstone Ski Tours
  • New Fritschi Ski Touring Bindings for 2017-2018 — Tecton and Evo — Wow
  • Voltair and Jetforce Airbag Backpack Comparo Review
  • Tele Tech and Singlespeeding — My Sophomore Ski Season
  • Avalanche Safety: 5 Tips to Keep You Alive
  • Ski Boot Binding Ramp and Delta Angles!
  • Mammut Ultralight 20 RAS Avalanche Airbag Backpack Review
  • 10 Commandments “Stone Tablets” of Avalanche Safety – Bruce Tremper
  • Dynafit TLT-7-P Ski Boot Technical Review
  • Snow — a WildSnow Ski Touring Slideshow
  • Backcountry Fondue and Ski Touring With Kids
  • Touring Bindings in an Avalanche, Deadly? And Support Your Avy Center
  • Up Close To A Distant Dream — Ski Descent Of Cerro Loma Larga
  • Ski Touring Airbag Tech — How Much do those Cylinders (and batteries) Weigh?
  • Budget Betty Beats $1000 Joe — How to Outfit for Ski Touring
  • Get Strafed by Strafe — Apparel for the Ski Touring Athlete
  • Totally Deep x 3 — Lou Goes Podcasting
  • Backcountry Access Float 32 Avalanche Airbag Pack Review
  • My Arcteryx Voltair Airbag Pack Makes Espresso
  • 10 Common Mistakes in Avalanche Safety – ISSW 2016
  • Scarpa F1 2.0 Ski Touring Boot – Unboxing Review
  • I Hacked My Voltair Airbag Backpack Battery
  • I Plugged My Phone Into My Voltair Airbag Backpack
  • ARC’TERYX Voltair Airbag Backpack 2016-2017 Technical Review
  • Cordillera Blanca Peru – Ski Mountaineering Trip Report
  • Colorado Throwback Thursday — Pyramid Peak North Face Winter 1976
  • Ski Touring The Enchantments — Central Washington Cascades
  • La Sportiva Spectre 1.0 2.0 Comparo Review
  • Testing La Sportiva Hybrid Trab Tech Fittings
  • Displaying your Classic Ski Touring Binding Collection
  • Aspen Is Serious About Uphill Skiing Business
  • Accident and Rescue Insurance Tips — Part One
  • Wildsnow Ski Touring Travel Tips
  • WildSnow Technical — Dynafit and Tech Binding Heel Gap Spacing and Safety Release
  • AT Backcountry Ski Touring Boot Buying Guide – How To
  • Mount Baker Summer Ski — TR
  • Skiing & Mountain Biking: Alike, but Totally Different
  • Monarch Ski Traverse Exodus – The Joy of Mobility
  • Jonathan Waterman – Denali Return and Summit Birthday
  • Rating Ski Descents – D System
  • G3 FINDr102 Ski – ION LT Binding – Review
  • Layering With BD: Black Diamond Clothing Review
  • Five Things Dynafit did for Ski Touring
  • Double Pole Plant — Throwback or Modern?
  • How Elastic is the Plastic? Tech Binding Research
  • EXCEPTIONAL — POSSIBLY NO SKIER AVALANCHE DEATHS COLORADO 2015-2016
  • That Four Letter Word We Know Too Well — Risk
  • Mount Rainier Via Emmons – Oh Boy, That Mountain Is TALL
  • Birebrot — It’s not Kleenex
  • Eastern Alaska Range 2: Hey, Did We Climb That Mountain?
  • WildSnow Technical — Binding Mount Screw Length
  • Eastern Alaska Part One: No Guidebook No Problem
  • Ready for the approach with the use of a few straps.

    Ready for the approach with the use of a few straps.

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  • eBikes on Indy — Pedal Assist Mission: Grizzly Lake
  • Monarch Icefield 4 — Mt. Cerberus NE Face TR
  • Independence Pass BBQ 2016 — 23 Years of Brats!
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  • Monarch Icefield Part 3 – The Basecamp
  • Go Light, Do It Right — The Working Guide’s Guide To Ski Touring Gear
  • Monarch Icefield 2 — Twin Tip Sleds & Pow Quest
  • Climbing Skin Science – 2016
  • Grizzlies and Glaciers — Monarch Icefield Part 1
  • Blizzard Zero G 85 & 95 Side-by-Side Comparo
  • Innovation and Refinement — Fritschi Diamir Vipec 12 TUV “Black” — Review
  • DPS Wailer 106 Tour1 — True Lightweight Powder Hounds
  • A Short Ski Through Snowy Woods — McNamara Hut — Colorado
  • 10 Tips for Spring Backcountry Skiing — #1& 2
  • Black Diamond Helio 105 — Review
  • Tecnica Zero G Guide Pro Ski Boot — Review
  • Seeking Objectivity with the Voile Objective — Ski Review
  • Dynafit Radical 2.0 Brake-ectomy
  • Rogers Pass Ski Touring — An Introduction
  • Asulkan Cabin — Rogers Pass — Spring Skiing TR
  • Skiing The Hardrock 100 — Day 1
  • Rado Camparo, Amigo — Dynafit Radical ST 2 x 1
  • G3 ION Ski Crampons — The Real Deal
  • Ruby Tuesday – PNW Trip Report
  • Combine Dynafit Radical 2.0 with 1.0 = 3.0?
  • Evaluation of Tech Binding Release Function
  • Throwback Thursday — Aspen Climbing School 1976
  • Bikini Cut or Straight — Climbing Skin Shape
  • Quiver Arrow of the Week — Voilé V6 Ski Review
  • Multi Use Uni-layer: Patagonia Women’s One Piece Suit
  • Quiver Arrow Review – Volkl VTA88 LITE Tour Ski 2016-2017
  • Ski Touring – 16 Things to Know
  • Whistler Powder Skiing Weekend TR
  • Mammut Light Removeable Airbag 30L & Ultralight Removeable Airbag 20L — Review
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  • Greek Trip — Louie’s take
  • Beginner Hut Trip — 10th Mountain McNamara, Colorado
  • Avalanche Airbag Waistbelt Mods
  • Anti-Communist Binding — Polish Ingenuity Keeps Shipyard Workers Skiing
  • Feel The Fear — Colorado Persistent Avalanche Slabs
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  • Outdoor Retailer 2016 – On a Mission for Women’s Bibs
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  • Fritschi Vipec 12 White 2014/2015 & Black 2015/2016 — Camparo
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    5 comments

    kevin December 30, 2016 - 6:14 pm

    I am a little confused. Are the posts listed by most views? Would be cool to see them listed by highest view count. It would be hard to believe that your salomon review, that just came out, would compete with some of the older pages.

    Lou Dawson 2 December 31, 2016 - 6:57 am

    Hi Kevin, unlike some of the super commercialized websites out there, we don’t live by metrics, instead we go with our gut. Thus, for this post we looked at every post of 2016 and combined our overall impression of the post, as well as the type and yes sometimes the number of comments, to come up with our “top” post. I included some of the more recent posts simply because I had the feeling readers found them interesting, and in the case of Salomon my feeling was that the issue of re-branded gear came up and it’s important for people planning their shopping over the next year.

    In reality, some of our News Roundups got a lot of reading and a lot of comments as well, but most of those didn’t do it for me as “Top Posts” so I left most out during the curation.

    We actually don’t put much energy into developing metrics on what our most viewed posts are. Instead, again, we go with our gut feelings on what to publish, for better or worse.

    This is a very different philosophy than that of many internet publishers, who spend literally thousands of hours obsessing on their numbers, and let the numbers lead them.

    What originally got me off the metrics kick (yes, for a while I sat here drooling over Google Analytics, thinking it was the key to the universe) was when I realized that nearly all website metrics are skewed by what has become an unbelievable amount of random criminal bot traffic and targeted attacks (said by some to be something around 50% of all internet bandwidth!), much of which is said to be very sophisticated in that it’s designed to emulate humans who are web browsing. (And yes, much of this traffic comes from Russian and Ukranian IP numbers, but U.S. IP numbers are at the top of the list as well… Indeed, we get attacked by “Russia” all the time, though I doubt any of it comes from Vladimir Putin, but instead it comes from what has become a huge virtually unregulated money generating hacking industry in those countries, and in other Eastern Block countries as well.)

    Just an FYI on the above, over the past few years I refined our methods of website defense and we’ve filtered our traffic to a much more realistic flow of “real” people. It was a tough journey and I learned a lot of stuff, and our methods are working for now. We’re actually saving some money by not needing as much server bandwidth as we used to, because we’re doing better blocking of the attacks. We’re also giving our advertisers a better deal because they pay for “clean” traffic rather than numbers inflated by the criminal traffic. Though it’s all an imperfect science and there is no way of knowing what new exploit or attack method the criminals are going to try next.

    Funny thing is, the old tried and true attack methods still work best. Witness recent events, and watch out for what you do with your emails (smile).

    Oh, and as for the order of the posts, they’re simply chronological with newest first. Not in the order of “most viewed” or anything like that.

    Lou

    Joe John December 31, 2016 - 9:14 am

    Thank you for all the outstanding reviews! Wildsnow is my back country Consumer Reports review source! Happy New Year and all the best to you all in 2017.

    Evgeny January 1, 2017 - 11:14 pm

    Lou, Not all traffic from Russia is criminal! I read your site for 2 years and find a huge amount of useful information. But sometimes its really hard to get it, because of “criminal traffic filters” (smile).

    I wish you good luck and a lot of snow in 2017

    Evgeny,
    Moscow, Russia.

    Lou Dawson 2 January 2, 2017 - 8:34 am

    Evgeny, thanks for visiting and tolerating our security measures. Of course, I know that not all Russian web traffic is criminal. In fact, IP numbers in the United States are up there at the top of the list as well, simply because we have so many computers and IP numbers that can be compromised.

    Difference in how we treat countries in terms of security issues is a matter of ratio. Most of our North American and Western Europe traffic is legit. Most coming from Russia, Ukraine, Romania and so on is not, likewise, most of our traffic from Brazil is not legit, nor that from China, and so on.

    Thus, to reduce server load I tend to do more aggressive blocking of traffic from those areas. Regarding Russia, I removed overall country blocking of Russia some time ago, but a huge amount of your IP numbers are used by criminals, resulting in those IP numbers getting included in the blocking systems used by our various security software solutions.

    Thus, if you browse from Russia and still encounter an IP block, that’s because you are using an IP that has been compromised at one time or another and is still on a block list. Solution is to either change your browser IP if possible (using a VPN or a reset if your ISP provided dynamic IP number) or in the case of WildSnow you can always request bypass access by contacting us using Facebook.

    Apologies for any inconvenience from above, but we don’t have the budget or risk tolerance to simply open up our server to all traffic.

    P.S., I know a little bit about hacking and computer security. After much study of reports such as that linked below, from Wordfence (our amazing primary site defense tool), as well as observing our own security issues, I do not believe it was your government that hacked our Democratic political party. I do appreciate the BIG HACK of 2016 drawing attention to how easily all of us can be attacked, and would hope that instead of our president doing this hand slapping routine based on unproven source allegations of amateur hour (yet successful) hacking, both our existing president as well as our president elect would direct their attentions to helping us little guys deal with the burden created by the worldwide criminal hacking enterprise culture.

    https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2017/01/election-hack-faq/

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/12/micros_pos_attack_expands/

    Lou

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