Monthly Archives: March, 2012
Wild forms of skiing
Skiers are certainly a crazy kind of people. They’re always pushing the limits of the sport, despite the numerous ski-related injuries and deaths that occur every year. Perhaps the most daring skiers are “extreme skiers” who take helicopters to the top of ungroomed mountains and forge their own paths down the slopes. Often they’ll ski …
The mind-bloggling word of online ski communities
Besides the use of puns in headlines, I’ve learned a lot while maintaining this ski blog. If there’s one thing that stands out, it’s that information comes from all sorts of places for the blogger/aggregator of niche news. My absolute favorite, especially because of its local angle, is Boston.com’s the Ski Guru blog. It’s part …
Final project outline
I’ve looked into two different story ideas for my final project. The first is a profile on ski blogger Heather Burke, who is the main writer of Boston.com’s Ski Guru blog. She’s a member of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association, the North American Travel Journalists Association, and the Eastern Ski Writers Association. She’s the …
Exploring the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library
A stroll through the Back Bay takes a tourist past the architectural and historical marvel of the Christian Science Center. Next to the church sits the Mary Baker Eddy Library, so named for the woman whose writings formed the basis of Christian Science. The library houses the Christian Science Publishing Society, most famous for The …
The hilarity of ski fashion
Heather Burke at Boston.com’s Ski Guru blog reports on the 2012 ski fashion show in Denver, and some of the trends border on ridiculous. She writes, So mom was right, again. Everything eventually comes back into style. Take a look at ski fashion, hats with huge pom poms and shiny metallic ski jackets are back. …
Digital mapping: Is it journalism?
Today in class we discussed online mapping as a journalism tool, with a specific look at SeeClickFix.com. The site allows users to report a problem in their community such as a pothole in a road or graffiti on a nearby building. The site then sends a report to the relevant government authority, and problems are …
Judging ski conditions at New England resorts
A recent article on Ski the East got me thinking about ski condition reports and how valid they can be. Ski the East “Editor at Large” Zander Basedepth (a pseudonym, I’m guessing), wrote yesterday that base depth measurements at eastern ski resorts are widely unreliable and can fluctuate enormously, even between two resorts near each …
Colorado ski trip: Days 3 and 4, Breckenridge and Keystone
Exciting ski week so far! Except the sore knees and bruised shins. And I have a terrible sunburn/windburn from going all day long, three days in a row. The weather here has been incredible. Warm – in the upper 30s to low 50s – and sunny. Today got very windy, but yesterday was all sunshine. …
Colorado ski trip: Day 2, Copper Mountain
We spent today at Copper Mountain Ski Resort, a good start to the week, I think. Copper Mountain is about 75 miles west of Denver. It has 126 runs, a majority of which are blue, black or double black trails. It has almost 2,500 square acres of ski area. In addition, for this ski season, …
Hit the Slopes 