Miltie

Anyone been up there recently? Still worth the trip? Thanks!

Thanks Neil! Jonesing to get back out on the snow but don't arrive back in LA until late June. Hoping my schedule and conditions allow for one more run up to end the season. Have fun up there and lay some ruts for me! Tom

Anyone been up at Mammoth lately? How are the conditions holding up?

Yo Neil and crew, Looks like you all had fun and awesome weather. Will be back Stateside next season so looking forward to it. Arclite - Nice video dude! :) Best regards, Tom

Slopestar, Look me up in about 3-4 months. I am moving back to Huntington Beach and may have some Raichle SB that will fit you. Take care, Tom

Mark, Nice work with the videos and with your team. Looks like a great group of riders. Take care, Tom

Flywalker, Thanks for the tips at Kiroro. Will check those runs. FYI - Went to the SG Cup race at Dynaland on 3/27. 190 hard booters showed up. It was insane! Never seen so many hard booters - ever. Thanks! Tom

Hey Flywalker, Flying in tomorrow morning with wife and kids. Will be based out of Kiroro area and probably stay there for boarding. Will be riding with my wife on 3/31 (kids in ski lessons that day). Only bringing an SL deck with TD3s as my lower back is toasted right now - so probably will be taking it easy. We fly back to Nagoya on 4/1 (late). Heading up to Hakuba47 in Nagano on 4/2 or 4/3 to watch the season end race and check out the snowboard demo tents. Bomber Japan (Wintertree) will have demos going. My cell is 090-9100-0313 if you make it up to Kiroro or shoot me a PM through BOL. Thanks! Tom

SG Japan has been delivering supplies to the quake/tsunami areas with their company truck for the last week or so. This is no easy task as many of the roads in the damaged areas have heavy traffic jams due to road problems. Tomorrow, 3/27, SG Japan will host the SG Cup (race) at Dynaland (Gifu area). At this event, they are collecting donations and warm clothing to transport up north early next week. It is real cold up there now and many of the people in the shelters only have the clothes on their backs. SG Japan is also selling the T-shirts that Hans provided the info for with the proceeds going to charity. Koji Sugimoto, who runs SG Japan, is a real nice guy and stepping up huge to help his fellow countrymen. I am prepping clothing right now to take tomorrow for donation. Living here as a foreigner I am truly amazed at the strength of the Japanese people. Very calm and keeping a positive outlook. The compassion and support for each other is admirable. I have little doubt they will overcome this situation.

Hans, I currently have my BBP mounted with UPM hardware on my new Donek Metal 167. Have about 20 runs on it and like the way it rides. The biggest issue is that I find myself going way too fast and the sidecut may be a bit tight for the speed. Really like the leverage and Cadillac ride. Tried the BBP on a Donek 182 Metal Race and my Donek 171 Metal FC. My favorite with the BBP is the 171 as this sidecut works better for me. I also have a Donek Plate mounted via UPM on Donek FCII Glass 171 that I am comparing. Try it on the shorter board. Think you might like it. Take care, Tom

Flywalker, Sounds like you had a good day at Kiroro. My wife just bought plane tickets this afternoon for next week. Will be riding there from 3/30 to 4/1. Sounds like there is a solid alpine crew based there. Dynaland, in Gifu, has a solid crew with regular gate training set-up by the snowboard school which is Run by SG riders. Usually 20+ riders on the hill any given weekend. How is the snow in Hokkaido holding up? Thanks!! Tom

Mr. Gilmour, Glad to hear you enjoyed June. My favorite in CA hands down. Never had a bad day there. The only minus is the drive from LA. Mammoth can be good too but I much prefer the Mom and Pop feeling at June. Grooming at June is the shiznitz. We usually stay in June Lake as well. Real nice small town and with down to earth people. No hype. Only drawback is limited food choices. Hope to ride with you next season when I am back in the LA area. Take care, Tom

It was shaking pretty heavy. I work in a highrise office building on the 27th floor. My guess is that we swaying about 2-3 feet at the peak of the shaking. Not much damage here as we are about 600 miles or so away from the epicenter. I heard Tokyo is a mess and Up north along the coast is real bad. Sad situation. Just heard the nuke power plants may have some trouble. Hope that is brought under control quickly.

There is much groom to be had in Japan - you just have to get up early! By far, the best groom I have ridden was at Rusutsu (Flywalker's home mountain). It was one day last March after a big dump and was just unreal. BTW Flywalker - You missed the JSBA Technical Carving event which was held at Rusutsu this week. Matsui-san of SG won. Good guy. Goto-san on SG was like 5th. dblbasscleph, Where are you based out of in Japan? Dynaland in Gifu has good runs and groom but have have to get it early. Many alpine riders there including many of the SG team riders. They usually have Alpine training on weekends - gates or freecarving. This is currently my home mountain. Echo Valley is in Nagano and popular among alpine riders. Access is realitively easy (near Suwa city). You might also check out Royal Hill not far from Suwa city as well. The Hakuba area has some decent resorts. Sun Alipina Kashimayari has a solid alpine crew. Would recommend you go to top parking lot at mid mountain. Lower mountain is either steep and ungroomed or relatively flat. Ciao Ontake - Decent mountian with groom. Usually they run into May as they are at decent altitude. A bit of a challenge to get to but worth checking out in the spring. Good riders - many very talented riders here. I see a lot of mediocre carvers on the hill (myself included) but if you run into some of the top ranked local riders, you will be amazed. Equipment - As Flywalker wrote - foreign is usually perceived as better. SG, Kessler and Oxess are popular. I have owned several Moss boards and a few Gray boards. Quality is primo. Everything is expensive here so many riders still support the local companies. Ogasaka and BC Stream are also good quality. Hans, I got check out the new SGs today. According to Koji-san of SG Japan, they have a new camber profile. Construction is similar to last year. Take care, Tom

Donek 4X4 Plate Review Location: Dynaland resort, Takasu, Gifu, Japan Conditions: Groomed packed powder, fresh powder (2”), Hard packed and chopped up areas Bindings used: Bomber TD3 SI with TD2 Erings and center disks Boots: Track 700T White with BTS and Fintecs Board: Donek FC Metal 171 from 09/10 season Donek Plate with 4X4 hardware weight: 155 – 160 without gear Rider skill/experience/style: Average / 20 plus years on alpine gear / race carve – upright Decided to mount the Donek Plate on a board I was familiar with and run on a mountain that I know well. That way I could evaluate the plate since some variables were eliminated. I took a few runs to get the feel for the plate. Overall, no issues but could feel the additional height. It took about 4 runs to get dialed into the low speed adjustments at a crowded resort. The first thing I noticed was how easily the board would carve and go up on edge. Some of this was from extra leverage the plate provides due to the height off the board. Second… was how nicely the board flexed with the terrain and carves. No real extra effort was required – just seemed like the board was happy on edge like a freight train on rails. The faster I went the better it felt and found myself going way too fast in areas that I shouldn’t have. Third… I noticed or felt that I could angulate better and really got the board on edge with very little concern about losing an edge. Always had excellent grip. Hardware: everything worked smoothly. Nothing loose and no rattles. The Aluminum plates on top of the pucks got iced up but no significant snow build-up under the plate. The extra weight was noticeable but not that significant. Overall: Very impressed. Fit and finish is good. Ride was much better than I expected. Can’t believe this is only like $400. Nice work Sean!

Nice! Wish I could have joined. Did you hang out on the Mt. Isola side of the resort? I had an epic day there last year after a good dump. The grooming was primo and no one on the slopes. We should consider to make it an annual gig.

Nice work Wintergold! Looks like you are having fun and that is exactly what this is all about. Strong!

Also had this happen to me with a set of Intecs last week. This is not specific to Fin-Tecs. Usually try to scrap off the ice and hard snow when I first click into the bindings in the AM or after a coffee break in the lodge. The best scraper device I have found is the heel receiver on the bindings or the rear bail if I am riding non-step-ins. I usually complete another scrape after the boots have "cooled-off" after one run or so. One other thing worth noting is that my front toe pads (stock Raichle or Deeluxe) do the same thing. No real magical fix other that just make sure you are super careful walking in snow with warm boots (especially stairs!) and scrape good before you attempt to click in.

Buell, That is a sweet ride! Looks like a real versatile shape. Enjoy your winter up in Utah! Haven't been up to Powder Mtn in about 10 years - love that place. Take care, Tom

Dave, They look great! Can't wait to see them in person. Take care, Tom:biggthump

Will be riding June today. Tons of snow here too.

Will be at the Mammoth main lodge to pick up my pass around 8:00 AM. Staying in June and it's dumping here now.

CarvingChef, Nice post dude. I agree with you 100%. I work in an engineering environment and see how much it costs to design new products, make prototypes, complete testing and finally put something into production at quality level that our customers expect. In my line of work it takes thousands of people to make this all happen. The costs are huge. In my case, I have chosen to do business with Sean and Fin because I can see how much drive and passion they have for what they do. They have small operations and the products we can purchase are a smoking deal compared to what I see in my line of work. The quality of their products are amazing considering their size. My guess is that Bruce, Frank, Chad and guys like Sigi all have the same passion for their gear. I hope these guys are able to make a good living, but imagine they are not getting rich off making us cool alpine gear. If you accounted for all the design work, testing, materials, labor, packaging, handling.... etc, the final products are very reasonably priced. The other area I really appreciate is the personal service and great customer support in the rare event there is a problem. That alone keeps me coming back. Maybe one suggestion I would have is for all of us is to go out and build a board ourselves. We would realize how much time, skill, specialized equipment and grit it takes to build a board. I did this with surfboards 10 years ago and would never blink about paying the going price for a retail surfboard as I know the shapers and glassers are squeaking by on thin margins. Will continue do business with Fin and Sean for alpine gear as long as my wallet allows. We should all support our little industry here and the custom gear makers while being thankful we can get high quality gear at reasonable prices. Thanks again for your post and perspective CarvingChef. Best regards, Tom

Was in Mammoth earlier and dumping hard at main lodge. Will probably ride Mammoth tomorrow and June on Sunday. Definite powder day tomorrow.

Fin, At the risk of looking like I am blowing too much sunshine up your butt... I feel the need to congratulate you on another fine product! Looks great and thanks for all the detailed info including mounting instructions. The mounting hardware looks really solid and durable. Thanks for all your hard work at keeping us gear junkies satisfied! Know you have a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this project so I wanted to convey my appreciation for your efforts! Thank you! Best regards, Tom