Is Saint Nicholas delivering fat skis for Christmas? If so, then you may want to point them toward the Pacific Northwest where Mother Nature has been delivering tons of early-season snow.

Get your shred on, Midwest snowboarders. The seventh annual SO-GNAR Snowboard Camp Tour is hitting seven Heartland ski areas over the next few weeks. Five of the stops are scheduled over the holidays.

Updated 12/16/12: Americans showed up big time in competitions around the globe. Utah’s Steven Nyman who picked up his second career first place finish in the downhill at Val Gardena, Italy. Ted Ligety won another GS at Alta Badia. 

When you hear the exhortation to “Ski The Sidecountry”, think twice about it, says the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), leading avalanche and snow science experts, the U.S. Forest Service, ski area risk managers, patrollers, and others. 

Things just got a bit more interesting for World Cup freestylers and their fans, as now, athletes in halfpipe, moguls and aerials will be vying for victory on the same mid-winter weekend in the Park City area.

No one served longer as editor of SKI Magazine in its 75-year history than Richard (Dick) Needham. He died Dec. 12 in Sarasota, Fla. from complications of open heart surgery. He was 73.

Ski resorts from throughout New York’s 11 vacation regions have teamed with Ski Areas of New York (SANY), a trade association, on a promotion making 10,000 lift tickets available for $10 each. The tickets are good for use Friday, Jan. 10.

Any of these gift items can enhance any skier's experience; a few are all but life-changing!

Try these: Alta's 75th Anniversary Ale will help you kick off the New Year with a special toast to Alta Ski Resort. In fact, they're helping you celebrate 75 years of skiing with their own special brew. The beer is bottled and packaged by the award-winning Wasatch Brewery and it goes down as smoothly as any of Wasatch's popular ales.

The Southeast lights up for the holidays with two major events on tap. Sugar Mt. in Avery County, N.C., hosts its Sugarfest, while Ober Gatlinburg in Gatlinburg, Tenn., tests your mettle with a K2 High Ollie Contest.

The long-range forecast looks good for a snowy Christmas across the Heartland, and that good news couldn’t come at a better time as Midwest ski resorts get ready to celebrate the holiday season.

Snow sports industry leaders and resort executives have said it for years: instead of competing for the same customers, we need to grow the pool. That’s what Burton Snowboards and Jay Peak plan in their new partnership with the Disney Corporation.

Bertie Holland, Snowsports School director at New Hampshire’s Pats Peak has been named the 2012 recipient of the Einar Aas Award for Excellence in Snowsports School Management given by the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) and the American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI) Eastern Division.

The last thing you need when frantically searching for your best bud in an avalanche is for your beacon to switch out of search mode. Ortovox is recalling a small group of its brand new 3+ beacons when testing revealed that they switched to transmit mode after two minutes.

USANA Health Services is presenting the Ski and Snowboardcross Cup at Telluride, Colo. starting Wednesday, Dec. 12 with Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup qualifiers and running through Sunday, Dec. 15, with USANA Snowboardcross Team SBX finals.

Much has been made of the rising cost of airline flights to the mountains this winter, so three Idaho resorts have linked with Alaska Airlines to ease the cost of that seat.

A couple of old Midwest standbys, Wilmot Mountain in southern Wisconsin, and Caberfae Peaks in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, celebrate turning 75 this winter.

Ski resorts across Canada are planning a number of fun-filled events for every member of the family. Here is just a sampling. 

The name changed at the top of the U.S. Ski Team headlines from Lindsey Vonn to Sarah Hendrickson as the reigning overall champ won the first FIS Ski Jumping World Cup on the 2014 Olympic jumps in Krasnaya Polyana outside Sochi Saturday.