We climbed the couloir to the right of the S. Face. We left camp at 1am and reached the summit at 5pm. So ya, a whole day thing..

As for ski mountaineering, the descent is only half the fun. I hope to ski Mt. Shasta and drop 7300 ft this spring--I don't know any drops like that at a resort.

[Edited on February 25, 2010 at 12:12 AM. Reason : x]

2/25/2010 12:05:41 AM

dude you just won hardcore skier of t-dub award!!

the only thing that i have remotely done similar to that is hike to the summit at Lake Luise in Banff Alberta. We took the lif tas far up as it would go and then hiked the ridge for about 3 hours. got to the summit where there was this huge virgin bowl and dropped in. here is a pic form the summit.



[Edited on February 25, 2010 at 9:28 AM. Reason : .]

2/25/2010 9:25:36 AM

^^that's pretty nuts. I'll stick to the resorts, I don't want an avalanche to get me

I suppose if you're baller enough you can have a helicopter drop you off?

2/25/2010 10:38:23 AM

taking the slope & sail to wintergreen tomorrow..to those that have been do they secure the bus during the day if i was wanting to bring a laptop?

2/25/2010 10:54:02 AM

^^Yeah, that's called heli-skiing. It's pretty much for the ridiculously skilled backcountry/pow riders... wicked common in Alaska.

2/25/2010 12:15:33 PM

I said I suppose b/c I'd imagine the wind shear could be pretty nasty on some of those peaks

2/25/2010 12:30:37 PM

Quote :

"Have any of you done any research on skiing in europe?"

I've skied all over Europe (Sweden, Poland, Slovakia, Bosnia, the Alps) and I agree with what most others have said. While it is a lot of fun and a very different experience, from a cost/quality standpoint it just can't beat going out west.

That said, if you happen to have a trip over to Europe in the winter for some other reason, it is def worth taking a few days to ski. Just don't expect the same snow conditions as out west. The snow tends to be much heavier and not as powdery.

2/25/2010 1:26:43 PM

Tried out my new Sierra Crew (rebadged 2008 Burton Custom) and Ride RX bindings last night.

Awesome! This board is so responsive. It just reacts to all the fundamentals so well. Does just what it should. Really lively and fun to ride. So happy i'm going sunday, thursday, and off to Killington the following weekend.

2/27/2010 4:24:46 PM

Will someone teach me to snowboard... like next weekend?

2/28/2010 10:23:37 AM

Take a lesson if you really need someone to teach you how it's done. They're not that expensive and it saves your friends from wasting half a day on the mountain telling you things you could figure out on your own.

2/28/2010 6:26:39 PM

Since I already know how to ski, I can skateboard, and I pick up shit really fast... didn't think it'd be that much of an inconvenience. But yes, a lesson is in order.

2/28/2010 7:50:56 PM

i hot waxed my board today. surprisingly easy and fun. scraping it for an hour was theraputic. i feel like my board and i are now one.

2/28/2010 8:59:19 PM

Quote :

"Since I already know how to ski, I can skateboard, and I pick up shit really fast... didn't think it'd be that much of an inconvenience. But yes, a lesson is in order."

You probably could just rent/get a board and go figure it out without the lesson. Maybe read some tips for starting out online first.

My first run down the mountain was sketchy as hell; my second run I was pretty much getting it down. By the end of the day I had ridden every black diamond run on the mountain (some resort up in the Pocanos that I can't remember the name of). I've seen several of my old skate rat friends pick it up insanely fast too. It is nothing like skateboarding or wakeboarding, but I think the balance and feedback that you pick up in other sports translates well.

The only thing anyone told me before I tried snowboarding was a tip from the guy who worked in the rental shop..."Whatever foot you put the most weight on is the foot that will go down the mountain first."

In other words, if you ride left foot forward, put your weight on the left foot and the board will straighten out and head down the mountain in that direction. When you need to turn, assuming you are already at an angle towards the mountain, you put weight on your front foot and the board will turn automatically to create the first half of the turn. The second part of the turn takes some negotiation, but you really just have to continue the motion that you created by the first half of the turn. You'll probably figure it out pretty quick as long as you really commit to it and don't let the fear of falling rule your motions.\\\

Quote :

"i hot waxed my board today. surprisingly easy and fun. scraping it for an hour was theraputic. i feel like my board and i are now one. "

I hate taking the time to do mundane shit like this, but I feel you on it. There is something therapeutic about putting your board on sawhorses, waxing, and scraping it. Grinding the edges with an edge grinder is a nice finishing touch.

WTH were you scraping by the end of the hour though? Did you wear through the wax, through the plastic, and into the metal?"

[Edited on March 1, 2010 at 12:31 AM. Reason : l]

3/1/2010 12:25:32 AM

ha i hope not. from what i've read adn seen on youtube, you scrape till the wax stops coming. i used a plexiglass scraper and from what i gather you can scrape all day and not mess the base up w/ that. i put a shit ton of wax on it apparently. you can see and feel where there is still wax. then i scotchbrited the whole thing a bit.

3/1/2010 7:19:44 AM

About every three days on the mountain I do some routine touch ups and wax my board. I really enjoy it. Good play list in the background(normally the one I plan on taking to the mountain my next day out) and I'm good to go. I've gotten pretty damn good at it too. Ask dubcaps. That shit is like lightning.

- Take a razor blade and cut off any top sheets nicks along the sidewalls.
- Diamond stone the edges to take out burs and pits, as well as cleaning the rust off.
- Gummy stone the edges to 100% smooth out burs and pits. (this stone is like a ridiculously fine sand paper)
- Take a moist rag to the base with quite a bit of pressure to take off any dirt I can.
- Apply wax.
- After letting the wax sit for 15 minutes I scrape.
- After scraping I take a board brush to the base.
- Lastly I use a scotch-brite the base liberally to make it smooth as glass.

The more practice you have waxing your board the faster and more efficient you become. When I started I was putting too much wax on, which in turn meant I couldn't feel my hands after scraping for an hour. The less you put on, the less you have to scrape off. Just use that iron, and take your time making sure there is wax on every part of the board no matter how thin it is and you're good.

As far as scraping goes you can take 2 diff approaches. Scrape every bit off wax off knowing that you will need another wax sooner than later, or you can scrape until there is a thin layer left on the base. If the latter is the case you can go twice as long without a wax. Time between waxing also depends on the type of base your board has. Sintered bases need to be waxed more often than their extruded counterparts.

3/1/2010 7:49:06 AM

I have a toko wax iron for sale if anyone's interested. New in box. I bought it last year, but quickly came to the realization that I just don't have the time to DIY.

3/1/2010 9:41:42 AM

I just hot waxed and detuned my Burton Twin 152. It's 4 years old, so it's well broken in... the best jib board I've ever ridden, sooo buttery. I had an air bubble in the bottom from going off of a rock face, so I had to poke a hole with an exacto knife, and melt my base layer back to being smooth. I love working on my boards like this, it makes riding them so much more worth it...

3/1/2010 10:12:14 AM

^So does it make the board like, wicked buttery?

3/2/2010 10:18:20 PM

Like yes, my board is like, wicked buttery. I apologize for having a New England accent, I sincerely do. This has already been established that I have an accent, so don't act like you're the shit when you only have 230 posts.

3/3/2010 8:19:42 AM

I just went up to Beech this past weekend. Its the best I've seen it in a few years, but thats not saying much at all. I thought with decent conditions and it being a weekend, it would be crowded, but there wasn't many people up there at all. NC skiing/snowboarding isn't the best, but now seems like a good time to be going for those that don't get the chance to go a lot.

3/3/2010 11:29:05 AM

lol says the one with 136 posts. Welcome to Tdub, get used to the bullshit

3/3/2010 11:33:45 AM

Quote :

"Like yes, my board is like, wicked buttery. I apologize for having a New England accent, I sincerely do. This has already been established that I have an accent, so don't act like you're the shit when you only have 230 posts."

I don't believe we can make fun of your accent on a message board. That is if the meaning of 'accent' is the same where you live as it is here. However, we are making fun of your choice of words that scream 'I'm 17!'

3/3/2010 11:39:01 AM

Instead of my "accent," how about my dialect? Golovko, does that get your approval?

...or my spoken diction, either one works for me (probably not for you though).

[Edited on March 3, 2010 at 7:02 PM. Reason : ...]

3/3/2010 7:01:20 PM

I don't really care to rip you, but choice of words does not necessarily = dialect. The people I know from Boston do not use 'wicked' on the reg.

3/3/2010 7:09:34 PM

wicked sick nasty, breh

3/3/2010 7:27:19 PM

Like I said, more your age and less where you come from.

3/3/2010 8:54:40 PM

I don't understand the whole thing about the box I made being "wicked buttery." When you skateboard, you manual, when you snowboard, you butter. Maybe it's just because I added 'wicked' to it? I'll just have to quote Stuart Scott when describing John Wall, "silky smooth buttery."

3/4/2010 6:39:02 AM

Got back yesterday from Utah. Had a great time out there! Hit up Park City, The Canyons and Deer Valley (in that order). There was about 2-3 feet of snow on the ground, but we did not get any fresh snow while I was out there and it was above freezing every day (and in some cases above 40). The sun was out 2 of the 3 days I was skiing so that made things very warm.

As such the conditions varied and were never outstanding. Most of the ungroomed bowls were crunchy and hard to turn/dig into. The softest powder was found in the thick glade runs (I guess b/c the sun couldn't penetrate down there).

I wasn't terribly impressed with the layout at Park City and The Canyons (in regards to their most impressive looking bowls). I say that b/c there were no lifts that went anywhere near them. I'm not going to waste 30-45 minutes walking along the ridge to go down some bowls. I can get 4-5 runs down the mountain in that time. They might as well not even be listed on the trailmaps.

Overall I liked The Canyons the most (I think everyone in the group agreed) with Deer Valley next and then Park City. However my favorite run was probably Centennial, a huge (63 acre) double black glade at Deer Valley. The snow in there was very soft and it was really easy to find a good rythmn carving through the trees.

I have my own skis but didn't bother taking them out with me. Instead I rented some demos and really loved them. I had K2 Apache Xplorer MXs and they seemed outstanding in most respects. They were a little unstable when flying down high speed groomers but I was mindful of that since they're an all around ski.

For shits I used the iPhone app "Speed-o-Meter" from time to time to see how fast I was going. For the three days I topped out at 57, 54, and 56 mph though I'm pretty sure I went faster in a few areas where I couldn't get a GPS signal. I had to be carefulthough, I didn't want to keep trying to go faster until I'd (probably) crash, lol.

Now I'm sad, my 2010 ski season is officially over

[Edited on March 4, 2010 at 9:59 AM. Reason : bad word choice]

3/4/2010 9:50:19 AM

50's on skis is hauling! I doubt I get out of the 30's on my board. Riding flat on a board is so much more sketchy than on skis though.

3/4/2010 9:57:48 AM

^haha thanks. It's quite a rush with the wind noise and the skis slapping against the snow.

I went over some rollers going 40+ and have no doubt I was in the air for at least 50-60 feet (horizontally) lol I love the feeling of flying from getting big air like that.

3/4/2010 10:02:18 AM

Quote :

"For shits I used the iPhone app "Speed-o-Meter" from time to time to see how fast I was going. For the three days I topped out at 57, 54, and 56 mph"

stellar move. have wanted to try that for some time.

3/5/2010 1:12:02 AM

Quote :

"Now I'm sad, my 2010 ski season is officially over"

You need to move out west. The heavy California snow season means I might be skiing into June.

3/5/2010 2:00:43 AM

Quote :

"I went over some rollers going 40+ and have no doubt I was in the air for at least 50-60 feet (horizontally) lol I love the feeling of flying from getting big air like that."

i did that last year, hit rollers over 45+mph on my snowboard and two rollers came down on the wrong edge and fell backside hitting my head, 2 mild concussions in one day.

went to breck for 3-days, did the double black hike-to terrain:

-

[Edited on March 5, 2010 at 2:14 AM. Reason : .]

3/5/2010 2:13:34 AM

^Prospero, the photo on the left shows the beginning of the chute where I tore my ACL

^^True enough, it is tempting but I'm an east coast guy

[Edited on March 5, 2010 at 8:14 AM. Reason : ]

3/5/2010 8:13:36 AM

Quote :

"I'll just have to quote Stuart Scott when describing John Wall, "silky smooth buttery.""

No. don't ever quote that cockeyed faggot.

3/5/2010 11:41:32 AM

The signature bowl off the McConkey lift at Park City didn't look like more than a 15 minute hike. I've never skiied hike to bowls but I was at Alta last spring and it looked like a significantly longer hike to get to their main chutes off Mt. Baldy and they say it takes about an hour or more to get there. The one at PC looks to be about 1/4 of that distance, and not as big of a hill.

The main chute at Alta is on my to do list. looks friggin awesome.

3/10/2010 9:18:03 PM

^Yeah, to me none of the bowls I had to walk to looked worth it. Now...if there had been fresh snow, maybe. But it definitely wasn't

3/11/2010 8:53:17 AM

Snowshoe's running a promotion from now until the end of the season (April 5th). Buy 2 nights lodging and get 2 days lift tickets...free.


If only I didn't have a wedidng to go to in a few weeks

3/11/2010 4:00:18 PM

I did Heavenly on Saturday and it was a great powder day, 12" from the day/night before. It was my first time having to put chains on a car to make it up the mountain on US 50.

[Edited on March 14, 2010 at 11:08 PM. Reason : a]

[Edited on March 14, 2010 at 11:09 PM. Reason : .]

3/14/2010 11:08:01 PM

Did Killington, VT today. Great day of spring snowboarding!

3/16/2010 10:13:15 PM

^nice man, so jealous!





*technically spring starts next week

3/16/2010 11:29:11 PM

ibtspring

Beaver Creek today, awesome cookies, cocoa & corduroy, 9" of powder in some areas.

Seriously, got to the village and they were handing out freshly baked hot cookies, got to the top of the first chair and they had "Cocoa & Corduroy" at 9:30am cocoa with whipped cream in a paper shot cup, mmm.....

Beaver Creek's slogan: "Not exactly roughing it"

Day 14, well behind last year. Going again Sat/Sun next weekend

[Edited on March 20, 2010 at 6:04 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2010 5:56:44 PM

Just spent a week in Steamboat, Co

It was absolutely miserable. Hard pack, icy crusty shit that makes paying for a trip out there soooo frustrating. I mean it's hard for skiing out west to be "bad" when you compare it to what we have here in NC, but God almighty I finally had to admit it was shit. Right now they're at a 210'' base with an annual average of over 400

Then it snowed 4 inches the day we left!

3/21/2010 9:08:37 AM

thats more bad luck than anything with the weather. Shit happens this time of year when its not warm long enough for good spring corn snow conditions and it gets so cold at night that shit freezes solid. It happened to us in 2003 IIRC where park city was in the 50's for about 5 days before we got there but it got cold as shit with no snow during our trip. Deer Valley was the only resort that was any fun because they groomed a huge percentage of trails. Of course it snowed balls like a day after we left.

3/21/2010 12:00:12 PM

Even though there is still plenty of snow this might be my last time this year...

This weekend I climbed and skied from the summit of Mt. Shasta (14,170 ft):


This is my 3rd time at the summit and it also felt like the most amount of effort to reach the top! I drove from my house and reached the trailhead (elevation 6950ft) on Shasta at midnight. Two hours later I woke up and started skinning up the trail. At 11.5k I couldn't skin anymore and put my skis on my back for the rest of the way. Tough going but the views were worth it!





I didn't linger much at the top since I was totally wasted and concerned about the ski down. The top two thousand feet of the mountain never softened up and had a hard icy crust over it, good for climbing but sucks for skiing. The top of the mountain is black diamond terrain but felt harder with the snow conditions, being so tired, and skiing with a 35 L backpack. I went slow and cautious until I got to 11k where sweet spring corn snow conditions existed.



So it took me 11 hours to climb 7100 ft and an hour to descend the same!

[Edited on May 17, 2010 at 10:11 PM. Reason : x]

5/17/2010 10:10:38 PM

Wow...That's awesome.

5/17/2010 10:26:42 PM

awesome indeed

5/17/2010 11:28:34 PM

bump

10/25/2010 7:59:15 PM

Going to either hit up Whistler/Blackcomb, Jackson Hole, or something within reach of Denver this year. Very possibly more than one.

I originally was leaning W/BC, but I've recently been swinging more towards JH.

Anyway, it's going to rock.

Hard.

10/25/2010 8:19:32 PM

other than the summit county area, what's good out west that also features daycare/ski school for a 3 year old?

I realize that I may be the only skier here who also has a kid, who also wants to put them on skis, but maybe its worth a shot.

10/25/2010 9:44:02 PM