Let's Binge Again !

The bums are back and while the slopes here are starting to look bare, our TVs are full of goodness, so we’re talking about what we’re watching these days.

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Summer skiing in South America is shaping up to be one for the books! Last week and into this past weekend, the Andes were pounded with yet another big early-season snow storm. Some resorts saw more than eight feet of snow fall! See who made out best:

Portillo, Chile received a staggering 118 inches of snow in the last seven days.

Valle Nevado, Chile, opened early on Friday, June 10 thanks to 50 inches of new snow.

Las Lenas, Argentina saw more than three feet of snow fall.

Wagner also says detectives don’t know how long the remains were in the clearing.

The battle over who owns the rights to the "Park City" name is growing even more contentious. In mid-May, Vail Resorts filed a trademark application to protect the Park City brand, arguing that they needed to do so to prevent other ski area operators from using the name.

Soon after, local businesses filed formal oppositions to Vail's application. Companies like the Park City Powdercats & Heli Ski fear that if Vail Resorts earns trademark rights, they might force Park City Powdercats to change their name.

Vail asserts that the trademark application is not intended to infringe on anyone's business, and instead is just to prevent another ski mountain from using the Park City name.

But the firestorm generated by the trademark debate shows the contested position Vail holds in the Park City community. Vail Resorts recently purchased Park City Mountain Resort in September 2014 after a protracted legal battle left many locals feeling jilted. While the official name of the ski area remains Park City Mountain Resort, in July 2015 Vail Resorts rebranded the newly combined PCMR-Canyons ski area as just 'Park City.' All that change has made the trademark application a hot-button topic.

Muhammad Ali downed opponents in the boxing ring, but he took some knocks of his own during a ski lesson on the slopes of Mount Snow.

During the lesson, a woman nearby asked Ali if he enjoyed skiing

The bums are back and with summer ramping up quickly, we take a look at options if you want to ski even when the mercury starts getting into the triple digits.

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Detectives in Colorado are ruling out for now the possibility that human remains found inside a snow boot at a ski resort belong to a man who disappeared in January.

Boulder County Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Mike Wagner says a 20-year-old man from Lafayette who worked for the resort remains missing. He disappeared after leaving work.

Investigators resumed their search for more remains Thursday but reported no new findings.

Wagner says an employee at Eldora Mountain Resort west of Boulder called police Wednesday after finding the size 13 boot in a clearing near the base of the mountain. Wagner says detectives searched the area but didn’t find any additional remains that night.

Wagner also says detectives don’t know how long the remains were in the clearing.

Mount Snow, in West Dover, Vermont, announced last week that its $52 million EB-5 funded business plan to upgrade snowmaking and build a new lodge got a federal green light.

The funds will be used to complete the resort's West Lake snowmaking project, which is expected to increase water storage capacity sixfold, and to build the new Carinthia Ski Lodge, a three-story, 36,000-square-foot building.

A concrete sign that foreign investor business is carrying on as usual, the announcement came on the heels of news that the federal government filed fraud charges in mid April against the owners of Vermont's Jay Peak Resort for allegedly misappropriating in a "Ponzi-like fashion" more than $200 million of foreign investments raised through the United States' EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.

EB-5, which Congress created in 1990 and is administered by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, helps foreign investors gain U.S. residency in exchange for a minimum $500,000 investment in projects that create or preserve at least 10 permanent full-time jobs in federally designated "targeted employment areas," which either have high unemployment or are rural.

"I'm very concerned. I'd be foolish not to be concerned," he told The Commons last month, wary of poor EB-5 publicity. "But it's important to know that we are in good standing with the state of Vermont. I think the future of Mount Snow is great."

South American ski season is just around the corner with most major ski resorts scheduled to open around June 20th.

A couple of storms came through in t

The bums are back and they’re going to find ways to avoid the summertime blues. They’re also talking Memorial Day and edible six-pack rings.

NOAA is saying this about La Niña right now:

The last time we had a Strong La Niña was in 2010/11 and the USA got huge snowfall totals.

The U.S. ski industry eked out an increase in skier and snowboarder visits during the 2015-16 season despite poor snow conditions in the eastern half of the country.

Ski areas generated an estimated 53.9 million visits, up from 53.6 million the prior season, according to the National Ski Areas Association, an industry trade group. The estimate was based on the annual Kottke Survey commissioned by the organization.

Skier and snowboarder visits are a basic metric used to gauge ski-industry business.

The record season was 2010-11, when 60.5 million visits were recorded. The low was 51 million visits in 2011-12.

This season's tally was 4.6 percent below the 10-year industry average of 56.5 million.

Even though this year wasn't a record overall, it was a record for the Rocky Mountain Region, which includes Aspen and the other Colorado resorts. The region was up 8 percent over last season, the ski association reported. The Rocky Mountain Region includes Utah, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico and Idaho in addition to Colorado.

Resort regions in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast were all down from the prior season.

The exact origins of skiing are a bit murky, but one thing is clear. Skiing was originally designed to create movement. In ancient times, skiing was about getting from A to B on snow efficiently. Walking in deep snow was exhausting, snow shoes were OK, but skis were king. The Sami people of Northern Scandinavia knew that skis were a superior form of snow transportation because their ancestors invented them and the Sami used them on a daily basis. The Sami are widely credited with being the inventors of the ski.

The exact origin of the Sami culture is also unknown. Historians have traced their lineage and language back to the Ural mountains, Europe, and dee

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In an age where snow guns sometimes make or break a season (here's looking at you, Mad River Glen), it's easy to forget that without Mother Nature, there'd be no first tracks, tree runs, or face shots. Let's face it, rising global temperatures are putting that precious powder into jeopardy.

In honor of Earth Day 2016, our friends over at Teton Gravity Research (TGR) decided to embark on an interesting thought experiment: just how much is an epic powder day at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort actually worth? TGR teamed up with the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation to calculate how much money, energy, and water it would take to create a man-made powder day at Jackson.

And guess what? It's a lot. To coat Jackson Hole Mountain Resort with 12 inches of goodness, it would require 2,723 snow guns to pump out 108,900,000 cubic feet of snow. All in all, that powder day is worth about $59 million.

36-year old Al Machell from Hertfordshire has done what no-one has done before – the marathon in a pair of ski boots. PlanetSKI has tracked him down.

Al drew the attention of the TV cameras and others as he completed the 26-mile course in a pair of 15-year old salomon boots and his ski racing cat suit.

It took him 8 hours and 1 minute to finish the route on Sunday and he is now applying for recognition in the Guiness Book of Records.

“I went round in a series of lunges at walking speed. And I feel surprisingly fine today, though I'm looking forward to seeing my girlfriend later as she is a physio and will help me with some muscle aches,” he said to PlanetSKI on Monday.

Two weeks ago the Securities and Exchange Commission and the state of Vermont filed civil fraud charges against the owners of Jay Peak Ski Resort, accusing them of misusing more than $200 million from foreign investors intended for development projects.

Now, a federal receiver appointed to oversee Jay Peak and Q Burke Mountain says that the two resorts may not be able to open without additional money. According to the SEC, more than $200 million was misappropriated by the owners of Jay Peak, Ariel Quiros and William Stenger, in a Ponzi-like fashion. The defendants allegedly diverted millions of EB-5 money into their own pockets instead of towards the facilities investors were told would be built. Then, money from investors in later projects was used to fund deficits in earlier projects.

The Burlington Free Press first reported that receiver Michael Goldberg filed a court declaration Friday saying the entities named in the fraud case “have very little cash and numerous upcoming expenses,” and if more money is not obtained he will be forced to shut down the operations of Jay Peak and keep Q Burke closed.