Funding Friday: Ski Maps
This coffee table book of ski maps looks awesome. I backed it today and also got one for our coffee table. You can do the same here.
This coffee table book of ski maps looks awesome. I backed it today and also got one for our coffee table. You can do the same here.
Comments (Archived):
That’s a great book idea. Will back it. I wonder how many of these maps are outside of North America, specifically in Europe. Once you’ve skied in the Alps, it’s another dimension.
Curious on how you compare skiing in the Alps to the best of the backcountry in the Rockies.You seem to be implying no comparison.
Alpine snow is a little bit whiter.
Plenty of alpine in the Rockies of course.
Yes. Rockies = alpine, Alps = alpine.
I am finding that skiing in the Alps to be more inspiring and majestic than the Rockies. Maybe because I’ve already done a lot of Rockies and now discovering the Alps with awe. See this list, and Whistler was my stomping grounds for years. Surprised that Lake Louise, Breck or Vail aren’t on this list. And I haven’t done Telluride which I’ve heard is breathless. https://www.cntraveller.com…
Take inspiration wherever you can find it.
When you are over with that, the volcanoes will be waiting for you. :)https://lucypierce1.wordpre…
Vail is #11 on the list here… but the bigger misses in my view are Snowbird & Squaw Valley…. and possibly Park City & Deer Valley.
Yup. I overlooked Vail.
Need to be in Milan in the new year so maybe you have inspired me to bring my boots and take the train to Savoie where my friend has a ski chalet.For that I thank you!
Or Dolomites. Chamonix is in Savoie.
Yes, my interest has been peeked.
.Alps – longer runs, larger drops (because lifts and villages are at lower elevations), ski across entire interconnecting valleys. Better food. More off pitsche but dangerous. More food on mountain.Rockies – better, drier snow. Better, regular grooming. Better range of terrain by difficulty.If you don’t ski the entire mountain’s length, some of this is not important.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
You characterized it very well.
I grew up in Colorado so know the Rockies well. Also have skied the Alps for several years. The Backcountry in the Rockies is far trickier ( as far as avalanches) due to the low water content of the snowpack. Laters formed early in the season can last until spring. In the Alps, a common rule is that you can ski 3 days after a storm. Back country is the rage in the Rockies, definitely some inexperienced people out there. When I was in Europe they were far more cautious. Much of the Alps is above treeline and most of Rockies below so you won’t find the broad expanses in the Rockies.As far as the awe of the mountains, telluride is beautiful, the views of the Gore range from the top of Vail is amazing, Jackson hole the most spectacular in the US. Still, that doesn’t compare with the Grindelwald (Eiger), Zermatt ( Matterhorn), Chamonix (Mt Blanc), Ciurchevel (Dolomites). These places and other’in the Alps are other wordly. Skiing off-piste in those surroundings and ending up in a tiny village reminiscing in a local traditional restaurant is a rich experience.
.Tree line in the Alps is 3000′ lower than in Rockies. You can ski in almost every direction.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
What a great comment and I thank you.First hand knowledge opens up my thinking.Learned to ski in Aspen and have been skiing Colorado with my son for a long time.I’ll do a trip to Europe and try it out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi… – “Niehues’ work has drawn numerous comparisons to famous artists: he has been called “the Michelangelo of snow”,[1] “Rembrandt of the ski trail”,[7] “Monet of the mountain”,[5] and the “Norman Rockwell of ski resorts”.
It shows he has devoted his entire life to his art. Beautiful work.His style reminds me about old National Geographic magazine illustrations.
I think there is a positive association in the brain with the ski map design of Niehues. It’s similar to (in an odd way) the impact of the warning on cigarette packs that was found to not reduce smoking. The point is even with a negative warning people were not turned off. They were turned on. Why? Because my theory is that the brain is associating the warning with the future positive. So the warning is not a negative it’s a positive.Now in the case of Niehues maps (back to that) the design (which of course is nice as you and others say) is associated with the positive of skiing. As a result anything else will not get the same uplift in the brain.I am not sure I am explaining it the right way (and I definitely don’t know the psych principle) but seat of the pants I can fully understand what is going on here with these maps and why they are loved so much. Even I remember the Niehues name and I haven’t seen a ski map in a long long time.(No doubt this plays a small part of Fred getting the book. If they were not the Niehues maps he might still get the book but he would not view it as highly as with something the reminds him of actual skiiing the style of the maps).Make sense?
Let me sleep on it 🙂 Edit: Possibly, but it’s a fatal false association people were making. I assume the tobacco industry was allowed input about the style of those warning designs, using psychologists to flip a seemingly positive action message to a passive ‘action’ behaviour. Similar sinister marketing playbook techniques we read about in the New Yorker piece on Purdue Pharma and OxyContin. I do see the ski maps book as a potentially valuable document and testament to the effects of climate change. I haven’t seen a Niehues map of Chamonix, but the glaciers there have retreated dramatically, especially the Mer du Glace glacier. In less than thirty years it has vanished from view; http://www.bestourism.com/m…
Love it. Just backed. Great gift.
Very cool. A lot of people probably don’t know this but there still are a lot of illustrators today that hand paint their illustrations and then take them to digital. I was privileged enough to be there at the beginning of the transition from paint to computers in the design industry. I would put money on it that a majority of the hand drawn illustrators can out produce the digital illustrators. I’ve seen both in action and hand drawn/painted illustrators are wildly impressive.
The movie “Loving Vincent” was an animation done from original oil paintings. It’s an amazing work. This guy is great, what a wonderful calling.http://lovingvincent.com/
I love his maps…. this is the time of year when I start looking at ski maps and watching YouTube ski videos in anticipation of ski week.
Great project. I cooled off on kickstarter after they did nothing about Joel Ifill using the Cubit project to scam 80k out of backers. But Niehues book is worth the risk.
I went skiing for the first time sharing a room with the son of the author of this book (David) – loved and pretty much knew by heart the ski-trails sketched (as a proxy for skiing all-day everyday which was all I wanted as a kid).https://www.amazon.com/Love…A large part of why I live in Switzerland now.
Great nugget. Thank you for all these great finds. Just backed the project.