Awesome Snow

Truckee the labrador helps out people in distress as part of South Lake Tahoe’s Avalanche Rescue Dog Program. But when he’s not hard at work, he likes to slide down the slopes of Heavenly Mountain, occasionally chomping on the snow for a quick pupsicle.

Crescent Moon’s innovative snowshoe design does away with the stiff old stompers and replaces them with flexible foam soles and hard plastic cleats for grip on ice and snow. Their rocker shape makes walking and running more natural on the white stuff. Avail. Fall 2017.

Equipped with deadly looking spikes on his tires (and balls of steel), MotoGP champ Marc Márquez managed to race his bike uphill on a snow and ice-covered ski slope on the Hahnenkamm mountain in Kitzbühel, Austria.

We here in Chicago know what it’s like to walk dogs in the snow, but we can assure you it’s nothing like this winter wonderland that Ante Fabris captured as he took his husky for a walk around Croatia’s Plitvice Lakes National Park. Damn, Mother Nature is awesome.

To show off their nanofabrication process, scientists at Western University used elecrton beam lithography to create this microscopic silica and platinum snowman that measures less than 3 microns tall. For comparison’s sake, a human hair is about 100 microns thick.

For the action sports documentary Supervention II, Freeskier Jesper Tjäder pulled off an epic trick in which he built up enough speed to grind a 360º rail that looped him upside down. It took him a few tries, but like most great feats, practice made perfect.

While we’d prefer to have a snowplow robot clear our driveway, this kid from Wisconsin came up with the next best thing as he shoveled out the recent snowfall with an added boost from his non-hovering hoverboard.

A truly insane man in Kodal, Norway demonstrates his love for winter by frolicking in the snow with nothing more than his boxers on, and a bottle of booze to warm his cockles. Hypothermia be damned.

A storm glass is a contraption which was invented in the 18th century as a (not very effective) weather forecast device. As NightHawkInLight demonstrates, when its crystal-growing action is sped up, it looks like a self-operating snow globe. DIY video here.

Freeskier and car enthusiast Jon Olsson outfitted his Lamborghini with studded tires and proceeded to drive it to the summit at Norway’s Fonna Glacier Ski Resort. It’s not the most practical way to traverse the snow and ice, but it might just be the most entertaining.

It’s a rare enough sight to lay eyes on a Ferrari F40, but to see one hooning about in the snow is something we never thought we’d witness. Driver Takeshi Kimura made some powder fly in an F40 at Japan’s Ryuoo Ski Park, with the help of some chains and tire studs.

General Electric engineers dropped a snowball into a vat of molten metal slag, yet it did not melt, thanks to the amazingly well insulated superalloy container they placed it inside of. These materials are designed to withstand the extreme heat produced by a jet engine.

After turning his living room into a ball pit, Roman Atwood is back to turn his house into a play place yet again. Only this time, he’s loaded his home with a mix of fake and real snow, which we’re guessing is a little more difficult to clean up than plastic balls. BTS here.

Why carry a sled to with you to the hill, when you can just wear one on your legs? Sled Legs let you slide down the slopes without a bulky sled. They’re made from a hard-formed ABS shell, with thick and comfortable padding for your knees and shins.

Mazda sent us to Colorado to test their latest all-wheel drive tech (and we’ll cover that on 95octane soon enough.) But they also gave us a special treat – time behind the wheel of new MX-5s shod in Bridgestone Blizzak tires, then set us loose on the ice and snow.

Skier Nicolas Vuignier performed a cool visual experiment that resulted in an awe-inspiring 360º surround view of himself as he swung his iPhone around using a tether. Combined with slow-motion, he created a sort of Matrix bullet-time effect on the slopes. (Thanks Adam!)

YouTuber Mark Rober and his brother created a rapid-fire snowball gun using a landscaping leaf blower and a few ABS pipes. Its magazines can hold up to 15 snowballs, all of which the gun can unload within a second. Instructions here.

While much of the East Coast was paralyzed by the recent blizzard, Tian Tian the panda was thrilled with the snow. But he wasn’t the only one. Jeffrey Perez of Millersville, Maryland was just as happy to frolic in the fluffy stuff.

When we think of picking a car to drive in the snow, a Lamborghini isn’t exactly our first choice. But The Stradman’s video shows us just how much fun can be had in the winter with his all-wheel driver Gallardo, as he makes some delicious powdered donuts with his supercar.

A single-engine plane comes in for a landing in the snow, then its pilot decides to hot dog a bit by drifting his plane through the white stuff like a car doing donuts in a parking lot. Once he’s had his fill, he proceeds to take back off again. Show off.

Nissan’s NISMO division pits its ridiculously treaded-out JUKE RS against a group of husky dogs to see who can handle the extreme weather in Lapland best. We’re not sure who won the race, but we feel like winners just for watching.

Snow removal trucks are supposed to angle plows away from cars and oncoming traffic. But that’s not what happened here, as a driver who was on a perfectly clear stretch of road is suddenly blanketed in snow by an idiotic plow operator.

So it’s time to dig out from the latest snownami. You could shovel by hand, or you could send off to Japan for Yuki-Taro, a robot that not only can plow snow, but that turns the white stuff into compact bricks of ice to keep things tidy.