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Here are some photos. They are size 30, and about 15 years old. A little work has been done adding padding to the liners to mitigate a heel spur on my right foot, and the screw holes for the wear pads were drilled thru (but the threads are intact). Otherwise they're pretty much in original condition, with only a week or so of riding time. I replaced them with Heads so I could use Intec heels and get a little softer shell, being old and wimpy. Let me know if interested. I'd like to get $125 plus shipping out of them, but can dicker. Need any bingings? Dennis

I have an old pair of Burton Furnace in nearly pristine condition. SIze MP30 if I recall correctly. I'll check tonight and send a photo. Dennis

Here's my wife in front of two successive runs we made in the big meadow out to far (riders) right off the top of the lift at Pom. We made two more lines (me on softies, Karen on skis), then some skidder ran a raggedy line across the middle. We made four more passes before it was touched again. May have been on a thursday or friday - several years ago.

I'd recommend the Burton bindings with the cap-style toe straps. They are a lot easier on the transverse arch. I squashed mine with conventional straps badly enough to trigger Mortons Neuroma, eventually requiring a couple of surgeries to make it quit hurting (a LOT). I'm riding a pair of 2-year old Drivers that ar estarting to shed rubber and get a little squishy in the front foot. THey've been great boots, though, and I'm scouting around Whistler evenings this week for some new ones at a decent price. My hardboot setup feels so much more powerful and secure that it's my preferred ride for anything but powder in the woods, and I'm getting quick and comfortable enough on it that the woods aren't all that scary anymore. Having torn both calf muscles in soft boots I really like having a supportive boot that protects the calves and ankles from damage, especially if I sketch out on a hard toeside turn. BTW - Blackcomb was excellent today. We got 6" of unexpected pow overnight. Still needs another 3 ft - there's a lot of talus exposed and many of the interesting lines are out of the question.

Anybody care to recommend some bib-style pants that are compatible with step-in binding release cables?

Carvedog Sorry to have missed making contact. I met a few other hardbooters on the hill. Got some really nice runs in with little traffic to worry about. Do you know an instructor named Marc? I chatted with him and another guy on a Donek on the chair one day, but I was on my softboot setup. Dennis

Hey Jon I'll watch for you. I'm racing, and will probably ride my softboots - either the Zephyr or Roundhouse, and be in a brown coat and black pants.. I'll have to check in first thing and take a course inspection and qualifying run, probably in the morning. I'll try to remember to bring my FRS radio - my wife Karen will be there as well and our phones don't work up there. We usually use 7-37. Failing all else, I'll keep an eye open for you, and if the conditions are good I'll switch to my hardboots after my run. We're staying in Glacier. Are you commuting? Dennis

I recall making it all the way from our lodge room at Big Mountain down to the parking lot with my ski boots on the wrong feet, once long ago. All I can think of to mitigate the memory is that they were rear entry boots, so I didn't have 8 buckles to notice on. Doing a face plant on glassy ice at the top of a chair at Snoqualmie was bad enough. Sliding utterly helpless, facefirst over a small cliff, rattling down a chimney and tumbling down the talus slope below, uninjured but with a broken ski kind of sticks in my mind, too. Rather miraculously, all things considered...

WHile I grew up in Bellingham, learned to ski at Baker and love the place for the scenery, the vibe, the terrain and generous snowpack, I don't think of it as a great place to go carving. If you like riding all sorts of terrain except wide groomers on your plates, it's fine. Try to stick around through the first weekend in Feb for the LBS. Worth watching! Dennis

I dunno. It's gotta get into the bloodstream - more specifically the hemoglobin. Oral supplements might give you well-oxygenated (pink?) poop. I've also I've also read that Viagra helps alleviate altitude sickness. Do you really want get up and try to take a leak several times a night in that condition, though? In a room you're sharing with guys you'll be riding with for days? I think tingly toes would be easier to live with and live down. Your mileage may vary... Dennis

You can greatly increase your chances of having a good time at Aspen by getting there a day or two before riding and spending some time getting acclimated. Fly to Denver or Grand Junction and spend a night there. Go out walking or running, maybe take a day hike into the foothills but SLEEP LOW. Then travel to Aspen and again spend a day walking around, laying in your groceries, checking out the scene. Put on some mileage and hike up as high as the roads are open. Bring or rent snowshoes if you want to push it a little. Drink plenty of water and go easy on the booze (a little beer doesn't seem to do me any harm, but your mileage may vary..). Take a couple of aspirin if your system is OK with it. Get a good night's sleep. You may well have a hard time sleeping at 8000' - I found myself waking up and gasping for a few breaths several times a night there. While I've climbed a lot in the NW and am in good condition I live at ~300'. On day 3 you may be fit to go high, but drink plenty of water, wear dark goggles and sunscreen, and pay attention to how you feel. If you get headachy or nauseous, head down to the lower lifts ASAP, and if that doesn't fix it, get back to town and lie low. If you continue to feel ill, either drive down to GLenwood Springs or go to a clinic. The general acclimatization strategy is to exercise high and sleep low for a few days, gradually increasing the effort and the elevation. Overdoing it can set you back and prolong the process, so pay attention to your body, and don't let the excitement and peer pressure make you stupid. Get acclimated first, then let the beer make you stupid. If you spend three days and nights nauseous you will neither have nor be much fun. Ask my wife - she spent three days in Aspen - mostly in bed - before getting acclimated enough to ski. Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) and High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) are nothing to fool around with. Either one can kill you. If you've never spent much time above 8000' you won't know how susceptible you are. Almost everyone has some threshold elevation for mountain sickness in some degree, and it doesn't seem to depend on general fitness as much as one would expect. You have to determine your limit and the severity by cautious testing. If you or a companion overdo it and start feeling really bad, get as low as you can as soon as you can. If you don't think you can ride down safely, get help from Ski Patrol. The early effects of altitude sickness can be reversed by putting the victim in a hyperbaric chamber (a pressure chamber - if it's done with a portable one on the mountain remember to tip the guy pumping it generously!), but serious damage can be done in the interval between the onset of symptoms and evacuation and/or delivery of hyperbaric therapy. You can use pharmaceuticals as an alternative. Diamox is the "standard" countermeasure. It's effective, but not without complications: It takes a day or two to take effect and it can cause various side effects including tingling and numbness in the fingers and toes, diminished appetite and a loss of interest in alcohol. It's a prescription drug, but I had no difficulty getting it through my MD prior to a trek in Nepal (to 18000'+). There's a newer drug being prescribed recently - I don't recall the name of it offhand. Look into AMS and you'll probably find plenty of info on it. Diamox will ward off mountain sickness for most individuals, but not for everyone, and I don't know that it's any guarantee against HAPE. HAPE would be uncommon at 14000', but not out of the question. THose of you attending who ARE acclimated - keep an eye on the flatlanders and don't push them into being stupid. Have a great time. I won't be there this year, as I'm going to the Mt. Baker Legendary Banked Slalom then Whistler/BLackcomb for the week. Dennis

I'll be in SV from 1/25. Riding a black Prior ATV and black/orange Head Stratus boots/TD2's or a green Venture Zephyr. Brown coat/black pants/black & red helmet. Carrying a diamond file. Hope to see some other carvers there. Anybody know if there's a good instructor there? Dennis

I'm real pleased with my Venture Zephyr 171 Wide, Burton Ruler boots and Mission bindings. Really damp and stable board, and supportive boot/binding combo. Not quite as stout as my Prior ATV 171 with TD2/Head Pros on real hard stuff, but more versatile for powder. Both setups work great for deep carves - getting close to a full 360 on toeside. Both boards are remarkably nimble in bumps if I ride agressively on the nose and both are perfectly happy making quick "wedel" lines. The only thing I'd change on the Zephyr is to sand and give the topsheet a gloss finish so it would shed snow better. I ride the Zephyr in a slightly duck stance, with about +18 deg forward and -6 aft. The Prior is more like 57/45 with 6 deg. cants. The snowpack is setting up this week in the NW, so I'm looking forward to some real nice conditions this weekend. The deep powder has been fun, but it'll be nice to get my edges into something solid for a few days. Looking forward to a week in Sun Valley, the Mt. Baker LBS, a week at Whistler, and of course the OES! Hope to see some of you out there!

I've posted an album of photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/ODMullen for your amusement. A couple of videos are there as well - sorry the quality isn't all that great, but if anyone sees one you like and want a high-resolution version, send me a note and we can work it out. Some great photos and video in the posts! Thanks to fin/BOL for providing the hosting for this - what a great resource for the community! If anyone wants to visit White Pass for a weekend, let me know. I can host you at the Olympia Ski CLub right at the base, unless I've got something really urgent already scheduled. Dennis

And I'm sure you all know which one... Great fun riding with you RJ!

One more - way past bedtime...

First - THANKS to Mike & Bonnie, Don and everyone else who helped organize OES-08! A great event, thanks to their efforts and to a great group of participants. I even felt comfortable cruising with you in my softies Saturday morning. It was definitely worthwhile staking out the Summit chair! Here are a couple of photos. I'm going to put the rest of my decent stills onto a Picasa site shortly. Does anyone have facility for hosting the videos at useful quality? There is just over 3GB of video. Some of it isn't all that great, but may be of interest to the riders. A few clips got tossed because they were of Sasquatch sighting quality - sorry to those who got Sasquatched... I have DSL so I could send them readily enough, but only a CD burner. I could post them all on Picasa, and send individual files to folks, but the quality of vids on Picasa is pretty significantly degraded and you might have a hard time even identifying yourself. I'm looking forward to next year! Well - next weekend, then the next, then the AASI SYmposium at Bachelor (where Don gets to update his education requirement by taking a carving clinic - I am so looking forward to THAT! I'm going to have to wear goggles and a facemask - not a chance of keeping a straight face.) Dennis

Might be there for monday if the forecast pans out. Or not. Did a human ballistics test weekend before last in packed snow over sno-cone. It's almost as effective as plasticene. Set back rehab on my shoulder tune-up by a few months! Remarkable how little time it takes one's head to drop 3' when you're more used to 5'!

Here's a photo of the bindings I have. Original 1995 box, documentation, gaskets and even a stomp pad. Probably collectable, come to think of it. Dennis

I have a pair of Carriers - barely used. I'll dig 'em out and post a photo soon. Dennis

Yeah - soft boots are not a lot of help, but they are forgiving and they will teach you smooth transitions. If you can get to where you can make a quick transition from the old edge to the new (in 1 - 2 board lengths) and apply the edge pressure smoothly and progressively so you carve a clean, narrow track you're most of the way there. Skidding or lurching onto a new edge often as not gets a vicious chatter started. You can ease into a fairly tight carved turn on soft gear - not as hard and tight as on carving gear, but very gratifying. You will hear and feel the difference - smooth and quiet, not noisy and rough. You have to feel out the edges on any board - find out where the pressure needs to be to initiate a turn, to settle into the groove, and to finish the turn (usually starting the next turn). Be patient, work to reduce skidding more and more as you get familiar with the board (and the new skill), try holding the highest traverse line you can ( a little speed helps a LOT). Be aware of boot-out. If you have a lot of overhang, you'll tend to crash a lot when you try laying it over. Soft boots may require a wider board and low stance angles (and some risk to your calf muscles) to get the tilt you need without dragging yer dogs. There are lots of variables in the setup and in how you ride. If you can hook up with an AASI instructor certified at least Level II he/she should have a good idea how to at least teach you the basics of cruiser carving on soft gear. Lots of instructors are fairly gifted jibbers at best, and aren't going to be able to teach you much beyond park/pipe skills. Not to slam the playpen, but I've never understood how one can spend a whole day banging off of playground apparatus when there's a perfectly good mountain right there. Not that I mind - it leaves more room out there on the hill. Anyway - give it enough time for your bod to figure it out. It's different, but edges are edges (not wheels!) and it'll click pretty soon. Have a great time. I started at 40 and am still having a blast at 54. Regards Dennis

We're going to be in Sandpoint friday night and riding Schweitzer Saturday, then on to Panorama and Kicking Horse. Dennis

I'm in the Tri-Cities and go to White Pass often (I teach snowboard there - mostly beginners). Been doing some pretty gratifying low-g carving on my Arbor Roundhouse, but just ordered a nice Pogo. If you want to get together for a weekend up there sometime I could do the drive from here. We belong to the Oly ski club and usually spend the weekend at their lodge - $17 for guest bed, dinner and breakfast. We're gone this weekend and next, but will be up there regularly thereafter. Get in touch if you're interested. We do Bluewood and Mission pretty regularly. Bluewood's not much of a carving venue, but plenty of fun in the gumboots. Regards Dennis

What boots are you riding that don't fit the TD's so well? I have some Burton Furnaces and both a set of carriers and race plates, but no 4x4 cantlifts. I do have a pair of 3D cantlifts and Burton discs for them if anyone out there is interested in them. If the TD's are compatible with Burton boots I might be interested in a trade. Dennis

If GMan hasn't consummated the deal, I'll take it.