jishaq

I live in Tahoe. I can tell you that you don't want to be anywhere near Squaw, Alpine, Northstar, Tahoe City, Kings Beach, or Truckee this coming weekend, because Squaw is hosting the FIS world cup. Please heed my warning as a fellow carver and don't even bother going west of Incline Village: The traffic and lift lines on normal weekends this winter has been legendary because we have a record-setting snowpack and everybody and their cousin wants a piece of it all weekend, every weekend; I can't even imagine how bad it will be this weekend. Most locals I know, myself included, are heading out of town to avoid the chaos. Do drive up to the summit of mount rose to check out the insane snowpack at the summit. The resorts near Incline aren't really caving meccas -- if you want awesome carving, take the time to drive east around the lake to Kirkwood. They've received almost 600 inches of snow in two months, so they have full coverage. Fuck Heavenly and Sierra at Tahoe. Kirkwood is doing IFSA Junior National this coming weekend so it might be a little busy, but probably this will be isolated to one part of the mountain. Get there early. Carve up Lower Zachary (upper if you dare) and Buckboard to start the morning, and then when it starts to get busy, ditch the crowds and head over to Flying Carpet and carve it up, and then finish the day on the backside on Elevator Shaft.

Thanks for the great input guys! I just got back home from some travels and I'm going to try out some of these ideas. I think probably the first thing I'll do is ease off the 6 degree cant on my rear leg. I did this a million years ago and it seemed to make my carving much better and I haven't looked back. It makes sense that I have too much leverage for initiating the heelside turn, and a correspondingly not-enough leverage for toe-side turns. I don't think this was a problem for normal hardboot carving because toeside carves have always been super simple for me to initiate. I'll also try to pay attention to my body mechanics next time we have fresh pow. Which, given the huge winter we've had so far, won't be long!

Hey gang, I'm riding an (8-year old) Prior ATV with Power Plates, El Hefe bindings, and Malamute boots. I just got my power plates and I'm trying to dial in the setup, and I need a little advice. With this setup, I can carve fine on groom - I've been carving in hardboots for about 15 years and feel fairly competent there. But I'm having trouble initiating toe side turns. I noticed this only in steep choppy pow, where I'm a little lower to the board; freshie pow and normal groomers are not a problem. When I want to transition from a heelside to a toeside turn to change direction, I find myself kind of hopping my weight across my front foot, and also using my back foot to kind of kick-pivot my board so that it's pointing in the direction of the toeside turn. In other words, I'm cheating the first third of the turn. I feel like I don't quite have the leverage to unweight and transfer my balance from heel to toe edge for the first part of the toeside turn so I have to cheat it by kicking the board around. Is there anything to focus on when tweaking my setup (binding angles, cant, stance, position on board) that might help fix this? Right now, I have a 20.5" stance, 42 deg front and 35 deg back, with 6 degree cant disc on the back and flat cant up front. I am 6'5" and 200 pounds. Normally for hardboot carving I have 70 / 65 degrees, otherwise everything else is the same. My intuition is to bump my front binding forward toward the nose a little bit (keeping back where it is), effectively increasing my stance -- I'm a little nervous because I've been riding 20.5" stance for many many years, but who knows. Before I remove the 11 screws necessary to do this (my only complaint so far with the power plates), I thought I'd ask! Thanks for your help!

In Tahoe, Kirkwood is king when it comes to carving. Most bay area carvers prefer Kirkwood because it has a good variety of intermediate and advanced carving runs that are relatively wide and have a nice consistent pitch. Carving runs are Lower Zachary, Upper Zachary if you can carve steeps, most runs serviced by The Reut #11 such as Buckboard, Wagon Trail etc; Flying Carpet and Elevator Shaft. Don't miss Buckboard and Flying Carpet. Closest economical hotels would be Motel 6 in South Lake Tahoe, and Best Western in Jackson. Northstar has some good grooming and some great carving runs. It's also wind-sheltered and a good bet on super windy days when upper Squaw, Alpine, and Kirkwood are on wind hold all day. Ax Handle, Luggi's, Logger's Loop, Surprise; Challenger and Iron Horse. On the weekends, Northstar is insanely crowded with gapers, jibbers, and families. Parking sucks, you have to shuttle from your car. Alpine & Squaw have a combo pass, and affordable accommodations can be found in Truckee, Kings Beach, Tahoe Vista. I suggest VRBO / AirBNB rather than actual hotels. Good carving at Squaw would be anything off Shirley Lake chair, sometimes Siberia Bowl before it gets bumped up, most stuff serviced by Gold Coast lift, and you gotta do the top to bottom mountain run a few times. Dog Leg and Red Dog face can be nice. And at Alpine Meadows, there's Alpine Bowl, Wolverine Bowl, Idiot's Delight, D8, any runs that pass by Yellow Chair. A word about other people. On a normal winter day, anywhere in Tahoe is going to be a zoo on the weekends. You will think it's really uncrowded the first two or three runs, and then the family types with children and people who aren't serious enough to get their shit together and arrive half hour before the lifts start spinning start to trickle in around 9:45-10ish. After 10, you'll be waiting in lift lines after every single run for 5-15 minutes. If you are misfortunate enough to be at Northstar or Squaw on a weekend, you can spend a lifetime in the lift lines. Kirkwood is nice because, though it does get a little impacted around 10AM, people then start to discover other parts of the mountain and between 10-12, people disperse out a little bit and the lift lines aren't so bad. But really ... it's all about Kirkwood.

From last night's system, we got 4" at north lake (south lake got a little bit more) and prob 8-10" up in the mountains. We are slated to get another 4-12" tonight. A dusting, by Tahoe standards, but it's nice to see a little precip. Best bet for carving is probably Monday on-piste, on the rider-packed powder. I am leaving town, unfortunately, so I don't get to experience it. Off-piste is still pointless unless you want to ruin your board or break your leg, though tell that to the masses who will inevitably come up this weekend and try to shred it up in the trees in a foot of powder on top of dirt and rocks. The p-tex repairs and hospitals will be in full swing. At least they will help pack down that pesky powder so it can hold a carve better!

I've been out carving the past few days at Squaw & Alpine. There are good carving runs at both, and the snow (mostly man-made) is great carving. I was thoroughly entertained and carving like mad for 2-3 hours. Spending an entire day on the 7-10 opened runs might get tedious around 2 or 3 PM; I've just been hitting it in the AM. But I have to say, I am really impressed with the quality of the snow, and most of the locals are saying "it's actually pretty good, and there's nobody up there." I think Alpine has better carving than Squaw at the moment. No off-piste stuff, obviously. We haven't had significant snowfall since Dec 7th. But the snowmaking has put down some nice stuff, and I'm kind of surprised at how un-crowded the slopes are. Just my $.02. -Jeff

I had the shells fitted to my bare feet when I bought them many years back. I don't remember the details, but I do know we went down to 28's and deemed them too small, so went with 28.5. But who knows, that decision might have been based on going with the stock liners vs getting more space-efficient custom liners, I don't remember. When I go in, I will certainly make sure the bootfitter goes through all of the motions again, as if I were buying new. It makes sense that the shells might still be too big based on the symptoms, and downsizing shells is always attractive because it allows lower binding angles. Also I have some reading to do, there are some good links in this thread that I've dog-eared. I'll be sure to follow up with progress and pictures. I'm sure you're all looking forward to pictures of my stinky feet!

Thanks for the input guys, it's really helpful. I originally bought & had these fitted at Elite Feet in Squaw Valley back when they still sold them to support Flo (Brian) and Christian, so I think they are sized correctly. I just didn't shell out for custom liners, it was painful enough buying the boots at retail prices. Foot volume: I should have mentioned that I have high volume feet, mostly because they are comically flat -- I don't think my ankle pulls up when I ride (but that sounds really annoying). Sizing: I wear a size 12 normally, and the Stratos Pros are 28.5 which I think are more like a 10.5. When I put them on, I usually spend about 2 minutes per boot in a whole-body static contraction as I jam my foot into the liners, frantically wriggling the tongue, forehead veins bulging out, teeth gnashed, arms waving about trying to make myself heavier to wriggle in that last half inch before my foot plops down inside. Once they're on, they *very* snug when walking around, but not to the point of actual discomfort ... well unless I have a partially-detached and bruised up toenails, horribly-bruised and rubbed-raw shins, that kind of thing, and then any notion of comfort is replaced by excruciating pain. But it tends to go away once I'm locked in to my forward lean so I just man up and carve. So from your guys' input: * I am pretty confident that the shells are sized correctly and aren't too big * My fat feet probably have packed the **** out of the stock liners by now and that's not good * I should definitely invest in getting custom heat-molded liners for my existing boots, rather than trying to switch brands Regarding custom orthotics, I actually am getting some made by a physical therapist in Incline Village -- that is why I brought all of this up in the first place. I plan to use these orthotics as the basis for the custom liners, so if that doesn't dial me in, I don't know what will!

Hey guys, I've been riding Head Stratos Pros for about 7 years, I'm 190 pounds, ride a Prior WCR 181, and my calves are horribly inflexible. I carve in tahoe, mostly groomers, and for chop/post-11am stuff/powder, etc, I switch out to a softie carving setup. They HSPs were beating my legs up quite a bit - I would get rubbed-raw shin bang, and black big toenail pretty much a month into every season on them. The most common response from folks was that they were not tight enough and my feet were jamming back and forth in the toebox (makes sense), and to cinch down those buckles! When I tightened them enough to prevent toe-bang, they were so tight on my shins that they would get all swollen and rubbed raw. The boots carve great on perfect groomers, but if there is chop or anything that requires throwing the board around, I tend to get my feet banged up pretty badly. I put a BTS kit on to try to give my feet a little more mobility -- not sure they helped much, but they sure look cool. So anyway I was thinking of getting different, softer boots. A bootfitter suggested trying out the custom-molded liners first, and anyone I've ever talked to say custom-molded liners are the ****. Not sure if I want to risk investing any more cash in the Stratos Pros, or if it's time to move on to something softer. Just wanted to know if you guys had any input. Thanks!

Classic carving runs, in order of steepness from least-steep to most steep, are Lower Zachary, Flying Carpet, Buckboard, Wagon Trail -> Short Spoke, Elevator Shaft, and (upper) Zachary. It's not likely that you will be able to carve any groomers, since it's supposed to dump Thursday and Friday. If you brought your carving board, you might try to carve Lower Zachary, but otherwise it will be a powder day. On a Friday, probably traverse over a bit and hit Sentinel Bowl for some fresh powder, then there's some fluff around Norm's Nose / Conestoga area, and usually by then (10:30 or 11) they've opened up the backside and you can head over and pretty much take your pick. Since it's been a ****ty season, even though it's a Friday, there are probably going to be a LOT more people than typical for a midweek day. Trying to get their fix. Wish I could join you, didn't see your note until just now. Have fun! -Jeff ps: If you are a REI member, you can stop at a REI and get a discount on a ticket on the way up: http://slidingonthecheap.com/deals/Kirkwood.shtml

Hey guys, I'm getting ready to do this to my Stratos Pros. Curious what holds the fabricated 3/16" pins in place? Is the pressure exerted by the holes enough? If so, they must be a PITA to get in! Thanks, -Jeff

Thanks Jack! -Jeff

I've always preferred Bomber TD's for their simplicity. I got all dialed in with my bombers, and I want to translate my cant/lift settings directly to my Catek step-ins on my other board. Anybody who has a pair of Cateks knows that this is a very difficult task, involving counting # of screw turns, rather than just slapping on a 6 degree plate. :) I came across Catek's Tilt Calculator , which lets you enter a desired cant and lift (in degrees), and tells you exactly how many turns each of the four lift screws require to dial in. Stoked! Now I just need some help deriving these two values from my TDs, because the cant and lift provided by the TD plates varies with respect to the binding angle. I need formulae that yield cant and lift of a TD plate, in degrees, given the binding angle and plate degree (0, 3, 6) as an input. Specifically, I have a 3 degree (toe lift) cant plate on my front binding, with a 65 degree binding angle. I have a 6 degree (heel lift) cant plate on my rear binding, with a 60 degree binding angle. What are my actual lift and cant settings, in degrees? Thanks folks. Happy carving! -Jeff