Rob Story, top right, with the auteurs in Norway

To aid your cause, we've assembled our Snow Report 2000, a jam-packed guide devoted to high adventure far beyond the groomed slopes of mega-resorts. Just when you thought there was nowhere left to go, we've uncovered 126 miles of nordic perfection in Minnesota, 465 inches of Colorado powder, 2,153 vertical feet of the best glade skiing in North America, and seven crowd-free Montana hills for telemarking, skiing, and snowboarding off the margins. Plus, we've collected cutting-edge techniques and equipment to help you master the terrain and make this your wildest winter yet.

For inspirational purposes, we bring you the story of the four powder junkies who founded Teton Gravity Research, a scrappy Jackson Hole movie production company that's known for making adrenaline-and-speed-metal cinema paeans to suicidal skiing. "They're definitely pushing the envelope of filming," says Outside contributor Rob Story, who trailed TGR's crew on a gonzo mission to Norway (page 62). "But they're ski bums at heart, just trying to make enough money to stay on the slopes." In fact, TGR is now a million-dollar company that has achieved cult status among a small corps of hotshot skiers. A larger following may be on the way—if the stars can survive the stunts. (Which raises the question: How wise is it to risk life and limb for a low-budget ski flick?)

Story understands TGR's obsession. Based in Telluride, he averages 50 days on the slopes each winter and—like the boys at TGR and all of us at Outside—still gets stoked by new gear, fresh tracks, and heart-stopping films. Here's to satisfying all your downhill yearnings this season.

When contributing editor Mark Levine traveled to South Africa to report on wildlife management in Kruger National Park ("Eyes on the Veld," page 72), he was overwhelmed by what he witnessed on the park's outskirts: thousands of destitute people living in shantytowns. "It's a striking example of the danger of thinking you can separate the human environment from the natural environment," says Levine. "The division is totally artificial." A South Africa–based photographer for the past 25 years, British-born Anthony Bannister has had some memorable run-ins with the nation's fauna. "Once a lion tried to fish me out from under my car," recalls Bannister, whose images accompany Mark Levine's story. "She eventually lost interest, but it gave me a terrific fright." This is Bannister's first assignment for Outside. Marshall Sella—whose satirical take on the current vogue for vintage expeditions, "Journey to the Center of the Edge," appears on page 96—knows about danger: The New York–based writer was once flying over Alaska in a single-engine plane when the motor conked out, leaving only the sound of wind, silence, and his own barfing in the backseat. "I'm not one of those sedentary bastards," proclaims the longtime Outside contributor. "I am unafraid!"

In the past year and a half, Washington, D.C.–based Adam Goodheart has chased Stone Age tribesmen of the Indian Ocean, gone wine-tasting in the Loire Valley, and, for his first story for Outside, survived a Boy Scout–chaperoned backpacking trip in New Mexico ("Thrifty, Clean, and Brave," page 86). "One week I was sampling foie gras in France," he notes, "and the next I was eating squeeze cheese with adolescents." Goodheart writes for Harper's and Civilization. Ever since contributing editor Hampton Sides started writing The Wild File (page 41) in June 1998, he's found the scientific elite to be an entertaining lot. "No matter how obscure the topic, there's always someone who has devoted his life to studying it," he says. This winter, Sides will take a sabbatical in Japan to research his forthcoming book on the Bataan Death March. "The last time I skied the Gunflint Trail," says correspondent Stephanie Gregory of the nordic network she describes on page 112, "I was mad at my husband the whole time because he was so far ahead." The Minnesota native is currently tracking the wildest outfitted adventures for our annual Trip-Finder Travel Special this January.

Clockwise from top: Greg Von Doersten; Craig Cameron Olsen; Eric Swanson; Stephanie Gregory; Klaus Schoenwiese