{"id":2451367,"date":"2019-11-20T22:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T05:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/powder-poll-awards-headed-to-aspen\/"},"modified":"2019-11-20T22:48:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T05:48:00","slug":"powder-poll-awards-headed-to-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/powder-poll-awards-headed-to-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Powder Poll awards headed to Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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John Spriggs of Frisco skis pillows in the backcountry of Colorado in the ski film “The Book of Pow.”<\/strong>
Courtesy John Spriggs<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 While riding the high of releasing his ski film \u201cThe Book of Pow\u201d just weeks ago, John Spriggs of Frisco found out Tuesday that he\u2019s been nominated for Powder Magazine\u2019s Powder Poll awards for his Colorado skiing featured in the film.<\/p>\n

The 20th annual Powder Poll asks readers and skiers to choose their top three male and female \u201crepresentatives of the sport\u201d from a group of skiers chosen by the Powder Awards judging panel.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the honor Wednesday afternoon, Spriggs said he thinks he earned the first-time nomination thanks to the all-around backcountry skiing he, friend and pro skier Taylor Seaton of Avon and filmmaker Edward Clem showcase in the short film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to revisit places that I maybe skied 10 years ago,\u201d Spriggs said. \u201cWe kind of focused on every aspect of backcountry, in terms of deep-powder skiing, skiing pillows, mini-golf lines (short steeps after a big storm). And then we had a big-mountain section where we were hiking, camping big lines. And a jump section. So it\u2019s showing that we love to do all kinds of backcountry skiing available to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Dec. 7 Powder Magazine awards show is slated for Aspen\u2019s Hotel Jerome rather than Breckenridge\u2019s Riverwalk Center, where the show has been hosted in recent years during the annual mid-December Dew Tour week. Dew Tour has moved to Copper Mountain Resort in early February.<\/p>\n

Having attended the Riverwalk Center awards show the past couple of years, Spriggs said it\u2019s an honor to be nominated for the first time. It\u2019s a highlight for a ski career that also has included smaller spots in bigger budget Warren Miller and Teton Gravity Research ski films.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe level of riding is right up there with what\u2019s in the other big films right now,\u201d Spriggs said. \u201cSo I think that went into (the nomination), as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the much smaller budget for \u201cThe Book of Pow\u201d compared to some of this winter\u2019s most highly publicized ski films, Spriggs believes it portrays the dedication and devotion needed to safely seek out, scout and ski all kinds of powder lines in the High Country during last winter\u2019s epic season. It was also an opportunity for him and Seaton to be in the editing room with Clem and have a strong say on what would ultimately make the cut, kind of a true beginning-to-end influence on a passion project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that our movie portrays how passionate we are about the sport of skiing, being outdoors, the joy that powder itself \u2014 just the substance \u2014 brings to our lives,\u201d Spriggs said.<\/p>\n

Spriggs said the film\u2019s showstopper might just be the final segment, which was initially scouted in early February, researched further via Google Earth and then hiked to for a follow-up scout in late February. After reaching the top of the line in late March after last winter\u2019s historic avalanche cycle, Spriggs and company decided conditions were ideal enough during a 10-minute window of good natural lighting to drop in for what became the film\u2019s closer.<\/p>\n

With his own direct experience of skiing pillows up in Montana and British Columbia \u2014 which Spriggs referenced as \u201cthe land of a billion pillows\u201d \u2014 Spriggs said he is proud the film showcased the quality of local pillow skiing, namely that final segment. In the scene, Spriggs skis a very high consequence 500-foot line deep in the Gore Range, 12-14 miles from an accessible road. The nature of the line\u2019s terrain was that it was so steep that trees, it seemed, couldn\u2019t really grow on a cliff-like face halfway down the line. The zone had enough rocks situated in a certain way to create, with last March\u2019s conditions, almost a backbone of pillow snow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely doesn\u2019t look like something you\u2019d see in Colorado,\u201d Spriggs said. \u201cColorado is kind of forgotten about in terms of backcountry with all the resorts out here and the terrain parks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a very technical line where it was basically a pillow line that was on each side, one you couldn\u2019t fall off of,\u201d Spriggs said. \u201cIt went straight into the valley floor of trees, so you had to really control your speed. If I fell anywhere on the line, I could have gotten hurt, potentially died. There\u2019s only a few lines, maybe one a season, that conditions have to be perfect. You have to be feeling it, all of these things have to come together at once to ride lines like that and not get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on Powder Magazine\u2019s 2019 awards and to vote in the Powder Poll, visit powder.com\/powder-awards\/vote. Voting ends at 12:59 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 28.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Spriggs of Frisco skis pillows in the backcountry of Colorado in the ski film “The Book of Pow.”Courtesy John Spriggs FRISCO \u2014 While riding the high of releasing his ski film \u201cThe Book of Pow\u201d just weeks ago, John Spriggs of Frisco found out Tuesday that he\u2019s been nominated for Powder Magazine\u2019s Powder Poll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 05:29:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}