Welcome to Louis (Lou) Dawson's backcountry skiing information & opinion website. Lou's passion for the past 50 years has been alpinism, climbing, mountaineering and skiing -- along with all manner of outdoor recreation. He has authored numerous books and articles about
ski touring and is well known as the first person to ski down all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, otherwise known as the
Fourteeners! Books and free ski touring news and information here.
All material on this website is copyrighted, the name WildSnow is trademarked, permission required for reproduction (electronic or otherwise) and display on other websites. PLEASE SEE OUR COPYRIGHT and TRADEMARK INFORMATION.
We include "affiliate sales" links with most of our blog posts. This means we receive a percentage of a sale if you click over from our site (at no cost to you). None of our affiliate commission links are direct relationships with specific gear companies or shopping carts, instead we remain removed by using a third party who manages all our affiliate sales and relationships. We also sell display "banner" advertising, in this case our relationships are closer to the companies who advertise, but our display advertising income is carefully separated financially and editorially from our blog content, over which we always maintain 100% editorial control -- we make this clear during every advertising deal we work out. Please also notice we do the occasional "sponsored" post, these are under similar financial arrangements as our banner advertising, only the banner or other type of reference to a company are included in the blog post, simply to show they provided financial support to WildSnow.com and provide them with advertising in return. Unlike most other "sponsored content" you find on the internet, our sponsored posts are entirely under our editorial control and created by WildSnow specific writers.See our full disclosures here.
Backcountry skiing is dangerous. You may be killed or severely injured if you do any form of ski mountaineering, skimo randonnee and randonnée skiing. The information and news on this website is intended only as general information. Due to human error and passing time, the information, text and images contained within this website may be inaccurate, false, or out-of-date. By using, reading or viewing the information provided on this website, you agree to absolve the owners of Wild Snow as well as content contributors of any liability for injuries or losses incurred while using such information. Furthermore, you agree to use any of this website's information, maps, photos, or binding mounting instructions templates at your own risk, and waive Wild Snow owners and contributors of liability for use of said items for ski touring or any other use.
Nice work on the mobile. Loads fast, skipping all the graphics.
Posted from /dev/iPhone
Thanks CJW, I’ll add in some text links for the advertisers, but it sounds like it’ll be good and actually improve quite a bit as I convert all my old website pages to WordPress pages that’ll get picked up by the mobile theme…
I’ve always been partial to this captcha system, since it’s actually doing something useful:
http://recaptcha.net/
Didn’t even realize you had a subscribe to comments function… and I don’t think I will sign up now that I do know.
Lou, I love the notification of other comments feature. I am not sure if I have used it here since I just noticed it the other day, but I use it on other forums. It keeps me from checking in on heated debates if nothing has changed
John, go ahead and see if it actually works. If it’s used by just a few of you guys I have no problem leaving it. Thanks.
Robin, that looks excellent, I’ll give it a try when I have time for yet another itteration…
Just a test, I am one of those Mac users. I enjoy your site
The new mobile layout works very well on my Android phone. Two comments:
1) The title wraps around wasting some vertical space, you might consider shortening it.
2) If you do that, you could insert a thin top ad above the content, helping your monetization without getting in the way of the reader.
Lou,
I like the subscribe to comments features if only because it notifies me if I write an entry or review and someone has a comment or question – then I’m notified. Otherwise I invariably miss it
I like the mobile version! All the info, bur loads quickly. Surfing on safari w/ iPhone OS 3.x
Cool you guys. Thanks. I’ll be tweaking the mobile theme. I have to do something for the advertisers in the mobile theme (we did have them in the last one), but we’ll keep it tight. I’ll probably do some stuff on it later today. Main thing is, it looks like my spam blocking is working 100%. Some of the human spammers will probably slip through, but they’re easy to deal with. Main thing is that the spambots are 100% blocked, as those things eat up hours of time.
I’ll leave the comments subscription feature. It seems to be pretty benign.
Mobile theme is evolving today, hope to get back to regular blogging tomorrow!
Can barely read the Captcha, had to refresh 3 times. Do keep it all numbers though, I hate the ones that use upper and lowercase alphabet.
I do like the subscribe feature but I only use it on particularly interesting threads.
Hi Lou
Not sure if its anything to do with the changes you’ve been making, but using the Safari browser on my Mac, I’ve recently been getting garbled pages which don’t load properly. This tends to be on archived items and not on the home page. Firefox is OK. I’ve emailed you a screenshot.
Ali
Lou, the subscribe feature is good.
I have been unable to use the search feature on your home page for the last two days.
Lou,
as usual the site is fantastic. I use a Mac w/ Firefox. I check here most days in the winter, but dont use my mobile phone for this site. I think that the more stringent spam filter you have the better. I enjoy not seeing nike shoes and ED pills for sale here.
I also commend you for you moderation, I don’t look at many sites like TGR etc… because I cant stand the attitudes and general nastiness displayed there.
Keep up the good work! It’s refreshing to see someone with a rational spiritual connection to the outdoors do well. Your mix of environmentalism and appreciation for jeeps and snowmobiles is much needed in today’s world.
Scott
I really like the comments subscription feature. Relieved to know the problem with the old spam catcher was my Mac and not my (admittedly) dismal math skills.
Ali, from your attached email image it looks like somehow my server thinks your browser is trying to hotlink the site background images. Do you have a fairly standard browser and web connection? Or something different that could be trying to build a cached version of the site or something?
Everyone, I got the mobile version pretty much where I want it. Nearly all is text till you drill down to the posts. Only thing that doesn’t work that well are the sub-page menus, but I’ll get that fixed eventually. Will also do some kind of top banner so it’s a bit less plain…
I’ll leave the comment subscription feature in there.
Agree that the captcha is too hard to read — nearly impossible on mobile. I’ll change to something with larger images.
Thanks everyone.
Harpo, I didn’t change anything to do with the search feature… anyone else having problems with it?
Also, all you guys should always remember you can use the “site” operator with Google to do a specific site search. For example, the following string searches Wildsnow.com for Scarpa if you enter it into the regular Google search box (not the box on Wildsnow).
site:wildsnow.com scarpa
Lou,
On a Mac using both Safari and Firefox. Keep encountering error 404 when using Search Wildsnow. Could easily be an issue at my end, but entered Dynafit as a test and encountered the same results. Seems like I should get some results with such a wide search?
No big deal really. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same problem.
Big D, it should work for any test search, even for the word “test.”
I just remembered that I’d changed my SEARCH page to a “draft” to prevent it from showing in an automated menu system I’m experimenting with. That seemed to work well in Windows Firefox and IE, but might be the problem on Mac…
I changed it back to a “published” page, please test for us if you don’t mine.
Thanks.
Problem solved. Thanks for the quick response.
Best,
I am on a Macbook Pro (Mac OS X 10.4.11) and just logged on to Wildsnow from both Safari and Firefox.
Thanks ‘D! Huge help. Last thing I need is a Mac sitting around here just to test my website, but then, perhaps I do?
John G, please test the search function, and is the page holding together (three columns with a header and footer, little to no overlapping of text or graphics?)
BTW everyone, when I’m working on a lot of websites or hacking hard on WildSnow I subscribe to browsercam.com for testing, but it gets expensive. So thanks for the informal help…
Give it shot. You may never go back to your PC.
Keep up the good work.
Oh, I know they’re good (unless you’re running Safari on WildSnow, grin). But when you do web development it’s not a bad idea to just be on a PC for better or worse, since most other folks are as well… Also, PCs work a LOT better than they used to, and you can get a lot of computer for your money. At any given time we’ve got 4 or 5 PCs running around here, 6 when Louie is here, and they’re all fine (though the one junker we have has gotten pretty slow.)
But whatever, if you get a box full of wires and it works, so be it. People make too big a deal of the Mac/PC question. Like debating telemark vs AT?
Lou, the search function works fine and the page looks good.
John, GREAT! Thanks!
Touche’, Lou. What ever works best for each of us. Kinda like the backcountry experience, eh?
And they ALL get slow way too soon. (Gotta keep those wheels of commerce turning.)
Sitting here tonight with a spanking new MacBook Pro setting my bookmarks with WildSnow at the top of my Ski Folder. My iMac was actually 10 yeasr old and will converted to an aquarium. I am a diehard Mac fan so I am testing the waters..
BTW … Also bought a …..SNOWBOARD!!!(used burton) . I am jazzed to learn a new way to turn. Self instruction….. or destruction likely…dudes.
Lou, I must commend you on staying relatively current with blog/Internet technology. Most people your age are clueless! Keep up the good work
12 to 15 hours a day of working with computers (when I’m not out skiing, and even some days when I do ski, as in who needs sleep?) since the first Tandy Radio Shack PC that wasn’t a toy, in what, 1983 or something like that? I’d better know something after all tha :blink: t!!
Back at it again this morning, fixing the Google ads that are blocking the site load sometimes…
Thanks for fixing that Spamblocker, Lou. I couldn\’t post anything to your blog with the old one. And it wasn\’t my poor arithmetic!
Had one of our biggest days ever yesterday (Monday), so something must be working! Thanks everyone!
The photos are cut off on the right margin with my iphone.
Chris, that’s strange, we’ll see what we can do but it may be that way for a while… are you seeing banner advertising or just text links for the advertisers? If you’re seeing banner advertising you’re not seeing the mobile version.