SKI magazine story in Steamboat

This is out now in the March/April SKI Magazine. I got a call from Sarah Lavigne over at SKI Magazine asking if i would be interested in going to Steamboat in Colorado to do a story about the NASTAR ski championship being held there. Of course I had never heard of NASTAR as I'm not super duper skier dude, but I do ski so it piqued my interest. She told me NASTAR racing is a program where recreational skiers of all abilities can test their skills on a course with gates just like the pros and "we want that Nathaniel Welch take on a slightly kooky event without being ironic or mean". Sounded like my perfect assignment. The key words are "skiers of all levels" and "kooky" because thats who shows up, skiers of all levels, shapes, ages, sizes and abilities there to test their abilities, meet new peeps, maybe win a medal, and drink lots and lots at the parties at night. Sounded like a fun story as it was about the people and the overall atmosphere of the event, not the actual skiing. I really had a blast on this one, as once again I got to meet so many interesting characters and hang out on a mountain for a few days (and drink lots and lots at night). It was challenging for my assistant and I as we had to shoot pretty much all over the mountain at the different courses and had to lug around the cameras and a profoto 7b (those of who know about the profoto 7b know its a 40 pound beast) all on skis just the 2 of us. There were definatley times when we looked at eachother and thought "do we really need to go to that course on the other side of the mountain"? But of course I had to be the general and rally the troops (promises of a great dinner and whiskey). It was great though as the weather was perfect, the people were great, and we stayed an extra 2 days just to ski and enjoy the mountain without the gear. Although, the best part of the whole deal for me was my contributor picture, as Henry made his print debut to the world. In that snapshot we were on our cruise this xmas and we were playing Lawrence of Arabia.........