sic t 2

Well, I'm a Hunter regular and can tell you that Hunter is not a carve friendly mountain unless you are an accomplished "steeps" carver. Its generally pretty steep, narrow, moguls, sketchy grooming and plenty of unpredictable traffic (unless you are on the double blacks). There is a pretty extensive beginner area that is not on the main hill. However, you are going on the weekday so you should be ok with the crowding. Most Hunter slopes bathe in the sun so you really have to pay attention to the morning's opening temperature and how the sunshine warms up the slopes as it wraps its way around the hill. Hunter is all about sunshine. A word of caution: most Hunter beginner slopes off the summit are just glorified goat trails that have been blasted into the side of the mountain. You will spend most of your time on Belt Parkway it sounds to me but do not take that slope lightly. Get yourself into a left hand carve, that you can't get out of, and you will take a 40 foot plunge to the next world. Those leaves you are on eye level with are TALL trees. Take a peek over the edge for yourself. 38 degrees and bright sun: Hunter is one of the best mountains in the northeast. 30 degrees and overcast: You'll wish you had stayed home. PS: I have much work to make it up during the week (we have to work overtimes now to send our Information Technology jobs to Banglador, India. I'll have PLENTY of time next year ! Sic t 2 (I usually ride softies at Hunter)

My friend picked up his freestyle board from the Hunter Mountain tuning shop this weekend. First tune in almost 2 seasons. He went with 1 base / 3 side, with NO DETUNING. It was a "sick sharp" tune too. He was going wild on all the icy slopes. Then, on Broadway, in a modest carve on hardpack, I watched his nose fold and he catapulted. Broken collar bone. Badly broken with only partial contact. Looks like surgery. He is out for the season and maybe 1/2 the slalom skiing season too. I told him that freeride would be a lot more prone to folding: "be careful!" Nahhhhhh..... 8 days in Utah trees, over this past Xmas, and we were both unscathed. Thought for sure one of us tourists would lose a tibia aganst a buried horizontal log out there. Instead the detune god decided to bite us back east. Sic t 2

Someday, when you are an old, old man, you will look back on your life and think about all the dumb things you ever said or did in your lifetime. And when that day comes you will find that the above quote, from the 2004 season, is #1 on your "said" list. I'm really glad you brought up racing and compared it to recreational skiing. Because racing is my life from mid March through October. Clearly this is a subject you know very little about. For example; noone goes BACKWARDS on a race track. In fact it is so plainly UNTHINKABLE that there is no reason to put it in our rules book: http://www.mscmotocross.com/d34_2002_rulebook.htm (server is down right now but should be up by a.m.) I would like to add that "riding uphill into oncoming traffic" is clearly not in the Skier's Responsibility code for two reasons: #1 it would comical to have such a statement in there and #2 until a decade ago it was "technically not really possible". So, here is a case where perhaps you should petition the committee that issues this code so that you can have an 11th code added: Though Shalt Not Shat On The Lord Thy Gods Warped-Space Anomalies. Secondly, in racing the lead racer does have the right of way, as long as, the move is not "overly aggressive". On a more personal note (ie; use common sense) you don't do anything overly aggressive on a race track because the chances are great that even if you are 100% in the right you will still wind up sitting on the side of your track staring at your pale white femur bone and the big hole it made in your pants on the way out. So we purposely crowd out riders coming up on us (this is true) but it is done carefully in order to avoid personal pain and death. And "hooking a berm" and reversing direction on the track (and then citing the abscence of this rule in our official book) would definitely get you the horses ass award on race day. So the whole "racing analogy" thing is a red herring. We still love you Jack and you are one hell of a bright guy. Big fan of your technical articles. Say, pulled a nice 360 myself this morning too. And I love the way it scares the pants right off the spodes when you come straight back up the hill right at them. And that's the best part of it for sure. On that I hope we can agree. Otherwise I exit this thread for good now. I don't really feel good beating up on such a great contributor to this site. But its just the internet. No big deal. Sic t 2 http://www.acemotocross.com/closeparty_2003/Pb010031.jpg

Ok, let me get this straight: so now we can drive the wrong way on a one-way-street? Isn't it amazing how sometimes the simplest, most common sense rules (that have remained unspoken, yet effective since the beginning of time) are a still a challenge to some of us. Jack, sometimes even the best of us have a bad "thought" day. I think you just had yours. But we still love you. sic t 2

I was at Mountain Creek from 9 to 12 today and was bombing everything. Ok, that slow sign (with the ambassador pointing at us to slow down) on Bear was a surprise at first but after I carved around him a few times no more hassle. However, last year I was followed down by two patrollers (medics) on Bear peak and they proceeded, not only to stop me, but bring me into their hut for a "good talking to". They explained that they would love to have someone who could board like me on the Mountain Creek Ski Patrol and wanted me to take the October medical courses. I thought about it then declined. I'm too old for that job. I defer to the young men here. Yeah, they are all real bastards there. I don't know what their problem is. sic t 2

Just got back from 8 days of riding Snowbird, Brighton, Park City, the Canyons, Powder Mountain and Snowbasin in all that lovely powder (snowed 6 feet while I was there). YES YES YES: "real powder" is not found on the resort's standard trails. Its mostly found in the woods and its bottomless and its the only true test of a board's "float" (and your physical training too). BUT .... This much I can tell you: off trail will eat your boards to pieces. If you think for one moment you are going to ride a quality, sharp edged carving board in REAL deep pow then expect to have a piece of garbage on your hands after 8 days. All our freeride boards were perfect. They are now a total mess (core damage & edge displacements). Trust me on this one. 10 feet of pow does nothing for 9.5 foot rock pinacles except hide them from your eyes. There are rocks EVERYWHERE no matter how deep the pow is at every resort when you are off the standard trails. So if you think you are going to use your east coast carving board out west... expect to fly back with junk. Better yet: just toss it in the trash bin before you board your flight back out. Saves you the trouble of looking for it in the oversize baggage areas. Wish I had. PS1: saw just one guy on hardboots out there on the WHOLE trip (on a twintip). And I was looking because of this thread! And we rode from 9 to 4 every day. I did find that "under represented" statistically. PS2: And all the soft booters are skidders on packed powder. Not 80%, not 90%. We are talking 100%. I found that odd too. Gee, no ice and skids???? Looked like extra work to me. It was a blast and our good fortune to have so much snow. sic t 2

Be spending New Year's Eve week in Salt Lake City. Need help from someone who has been there before: If I stay in Ogden and do the Snowbasin / PowderMtn resorts: How far is the commute from Ogden to the resorts? Also, what would be a good, basic Ogden Hotel. If I stay in Salt Lake and do the "Park City / Canyons" resorts: How far is the commute from Salt Lake to the resorts? And could you recommend a good, basic hotel? Slopeside is not important to us but we expect an efficient shuttle to get us to the slopes in the morning. We are a party of 3 adults. Will be mostly powder boarding out there on steeps and interested in getting in full days and tons of vertical. Nightlife not terribly important. Didn't plan on renting a car. THANKS !! sic (Alp)

any ortho surgeon should be able to grab your leg, manipulate it for a moment, and immediately conclude the degree of damage your ACL has (or doesn't have). If your knee is not "loose" then you really don't have any ACL problems regardless what anybody says. My only caveat here is that its so soon after your injury that tissue swelling alone may be distorting everything. If you choose to let it heal (as I did -- and if that is possible for you, damage minimal enough) I would recommend this: #1. Whatever you do allow that thing to heal properly. Exercise/therapy will not do it any good right now and will only cause damage to it. Liken it to exercising a broken bone. It makes no sense right now. I was casted for 6 weeks. Then a surgical brace (not a sports brace) for another few months. #2. After you are released from the doctor's care the best thing you can do for you weak knee is to lift weights with it often in the gym. As long as your voluntary muscles are always "sore and tight" they will act as ACL "helpers" and will help hold your knee together further protecting the healing ACL. But this means never letting them relax. You have to be in the gym every 2 days. Its not the amount of muscle but their constant state of soreness and tension that holds the knee together. Some of my worse displacements afterward were watching TV. Put you leg up on a pillow and relax all voluntary muscles and BANG out it slips. Yet you can board all day and not have a problem yet in a very calm moment you injure your ACL. So keep the hamstrings and quads always in a state of recovering from a hard gym workout and they will help protect it even when you are not consciously activating those muscles. #3. My knee doesn't displace anymore at any time. I would say it took about 5 years for that to happen. But it does feel weak and I try never to forget I only have a partial ACL. So I always sit on the right side of the chair at Hunter Mountain and miss the astro turf and the ramp. That and I try not to endo my motorcycle anymore (which is what did it). http://www.acemotocross.com/closeparty_2003/Pb010031.jpg I hope it all turns out well. From the sounds of things you have a non-surgical chance here. And its your rear binding foot. So at least lady luck is on your side. sic t 2 (#62)

Hope its not your front binding leg since getting off the lift always puts incredible stresses on it. And there is always the moment when the board sticks on the ramp and launches you over the nose (while your ankle is basically immobilized by a stiff hardshell racing boot). That is the defining moment of ACL "hyperextension" stress. Ask me about the green astro turf that Hunter Mountain allows to stick through every year on their main unload ramp. Under those conditions one healthy ACL isn't even enough. When you are boarding with a weak one I am terrified when I have to unload on a bad ramp. And soft boots tend to put pressure on an injured lead leg if you do a jump and land on something that sticks your board. Like a hole or just bad ground. That force wants to displace the knee sideways back towards your rear binding. Again, the front leg is a problem. So I hope its your rear leg. It will make all the difference. Obviously, mine was my front leg, lol. Point being that if its your rear leg you may be able to still board with a weak and/or healing knee forever. If its the front one then the stresses placed on it will be great. And braces do next to nothing except prevent another gross hyperextension of the knee and give you false confidence everywhere else. As for rotation injuries and side displacements I found it completely useless. So don't have any high hopes for the brace. Yes, mine was a custom fitted, high end brace. Just some observations from another ACL survivor. Hope it helps you decide what course of action to take now when you analyze the ortho's opinions. They don't understand the sport and "which leg" you injured and why that's so important to us. sic

Oh, my god. It doesn't get any better than that. Unless ... one of our brethren actually bought it and presented it at ECES as their "main ride". Get some "old" Burton Carriers and some rear entry Ski Boots and you are all hooked up for the week. Imagine how hot that board would look between all those Donek's and Coilers in the morning lineup? Extra points awarded if the rider immediately begins talking smack about Euro Carves before he is even introduced. sic