It’s HERE!

Area 52. Hot Possie. Tight pants. Handplants.

Skiing so rad and French it will melt your face… into a baguette.

Powder.  The elusive.  It exists.  THIS season.  In the three minutes and nineteen seconds of this video from Line am Dylan Siggers, there are exactly zero shots without a faceshot and an enormous pow cloud billowing around the skier.  They say these kind of days are almost upon us in our barren freshwater haven here in Lake Tahoe.  Please God or Tim Tebow or Tom Brady, let it be so…

Soooo, I’ll be practicing that in my living room all week. Oh, but is he holding poles? God, that question is even boring when posed sarcastically. Sorry.

Seems to be turning OK.

Look at all that snow just sitting around back in 2010/11. Urban movies are gonna be very bare this season.

Best People in Skiing for the 2011 Calendar Year

1) JP Auclair: Last year JP made the decision to step away from Poorboyz and work on a different type of segment. The result? The viral edit of the year. His All.I.Can street segment crossed over to an audience beyond skiers. The only thing to rival this thing’s popularity with the non-skiing set is perhaps Tanner’s “my ankles” video. And thank God this is what went viral and not some video of a superpipe cut into “cubes.”

JP is also very busy helping those less fortunate. All in a year’s work.

2) Ian Compton: The Weak surprised us all when it lasted a month. Then it came back for a second season and continued to be awesome. Moreover, Traveling Circus is undeniably better when Ian appears, and he held it down in his Level 1 segment.

3) Leo Taillefer: Everything he does with GPSYfeelin is soooo good, and Dunfee, the only BroBomber who doesn’t get bored with powder segments, says that Leo charges in the backcountry. Not to mention he’s a favorite of Garrett Russell, so he’s our favorite skier’s favorite skier.

4) Phil Casabon: B&E edits are the shit no matter what style you are and he is the only comp skier skiing with style. Period.

5) JF Houle: His Level 1 segment again was badass and worth repeat views and at the end of last year I believe he won Euro X, which was close enough to 2011 to be included. To win comps and still put out core segments is legit in our book.

6) Logan Imlach: Winning Superunknown was starting to look like more of a curse than a blessing, but Logan broke the streak and lived up to the hype. His After Dark segment kicked ass and to top it all off, he’s a pretty talented and funny writer.

7) Rob Heule: The Group Home edits and his season edit that dropped in the fall kicked ass. Rob is what skiing should look like in 2012.

8) Chris Helberg: Big part of the freight train of Scandinavian goodness that is Happypro’s TrashParty. If a skier can make sliding a log and wallriding frozen tree branches look fun then he should be on this list.

9) Indie Filmers/Editors: Shayne Metos, Nick Hickling, and Dylan Siggers among many, many others. These dudes do so much good shit for free that they may just be killing the “big” production companies. Hopefully we can get the best of both worlds and someone will throw some cash behind these fellas’ visions.

10) Ryuta Iwasaki: He appears to be the face of Muddy Films, which needs much more recognition for doing their own thing. He also makes stylish tricks look attainable and fun, and he clearly doesn’t care what the rest of the ski world is doing when he is riding fat 160s with no poles.

PA generally, and Big Boulder specifically are well documented incubators for ski talent. Witness Jamie Ficco, Cody Gushlaw, and the one and only Sean Jordan.

Japanese skiing is so damn cool. Why don’t American crews ever shoot with them when they go over there? Oh well, check the sequel after the jump.