Sultan Guy

Super soft runs today. The groomed runs were the softest that I have seen in a very long time, certainly this season. Carving was challenging because I kept cutting too deep and booting out. Broadway was a bit firmer. Axxess 172 was a good choice.

WOW! Great teaser. 80 carving students. That is incredible.

Art and I made it back Sunday without issues. Slow going over the Cascades as it was dumping snow hard. Looks like our local run got 23" overnight. THANKS to the local Schwietzer hard booters for organizing this event. The early loads for my two days of riding were fantastic, although my legs were toast by 1:30 as a result. So worth it! Great grooming for Saturday. My favorites runs were: Ridge Run Cathedral Lower Kaniksu I have new confidence in my ability to ride in temperatures below 10F. Andy

Anyone watching this vid. It was -4F when this was filmed. That was the coldest weather I have ever gone riding in...but so worth it!

Lots of snow this morning in Seattle area and the passes. We were going to leave at noon, but my work is shut down so may as well get started. Honda CRV will hopefully get us there.

+1 for a base at 1 degree and side at 2 degrees. Good edge hold and still okay for flats.

The 2 man crew from Puget Sound is on schedule to drive there tomorrow despite the snowmageddon forecast for Seattle. I packed every layer I own :) Hope it is enough!

Epic powder day at Stevens! About 12" by 9 AM on top of the mountain. Snowed another 8 inches by noon. Stayed all morning on the back mainly near Southern Cross chair. Rode my Burton 167 Custom wide with the bindings set all the way back. Makes a decent powder board. I forgot how much fun a big powder day can be. It was fun to apply my carving technique in powder. :) Driving both ways was an adventure. Cars spun out everywhere, trucks blocking lanes, etc.

Got first chair at 8:45 sharp! Killer morning with few crowds until about 10:30. Bluebird and perfect snow. Rode with Bill (instructor at Stevens) for a bit. The mountain is in the best shape this past week of the entire season

I love powder as much as the next guy but..... every time we have a big dump it is SO crowded I end up hating it. Long lift lines suck! Maybe if I was at a mountain with deep powder and similar crowds to what I am used to on a weekday perfect groomed morning I might think otherwise.

So I am out at dinner with a friend of mine who happens to live in Bend. Occasional skier guy. I asked him if he knew what a carving snowboard was and asked him if he ever saw those at Bachelor. He said "Yeah there is this guy with a giant sled thing with crazy ass bindings". Kind of funny to me! So who is it?

Hmmm...looks like those could be used for special Boiler Plate E-Rings. :)

Limited experience so far(riding only 6 different alpine boards) but my fav so far is a 12-14 VSR from Donek on my FC 179. This alows me to carve a lot of different size arcs. A lot of what sidecut people prefer is what fits on their hill. My mountain does not have many wide long runs.

Not in the lift line but still a pretty good one from last night. The local ski racing team had set up a practice course and had roped off a section of a great carving run. I kept looping the run using the open side. A few instructors/coaches were stationed along the course. As I came by one of them yelled out "If you keep carving like that you can come on this side of the rope" :)

EPIC night of carving! Perfect snow conditions, no ice, no moguls, great visibility, and less then half the crowd from Tuesday morning. Started on the 172 Axxess but it was so good I switched over to the 179 FC. Board was really railing. Went so hard I could barely walk to the car. :) Met up with a guy on softies who was carving pretty good on a Lib Tech something. We did some runs together. He used to race on a carving board with plates. Best night of the season so far!

Butter soft groomed fresh powder.

Great way to start a Tuesday off before work! :)

The sun started coming out... 1) Poor skier dealing with a big trench! 2 and 3) Admiring our work

I thought some of you guys might like to see what we had today. 8 inches of fresh the day before and cold weather made for some great morning carving before work. Something about Tuesday this month...three good weeks in a row. One decent action shot of E. Fathead ripping the Coiler.

Sultan Guy-Large, short, any dark color

Saturday 2/5 Fair visibility but very hard and icy surface. Poor grooming with wet slushy snow that froze. Ran into another carver on hardboots with an old Rossi slalom board. Did a few runs together. He just moved to the area from CA and this was his first day of the season. Left at noon. Sunday 2/6 Website said 1 inch of new snow. There was 3 inches in the parking lot and about 5 inches at the top of Skyline at 9 AM. Snow was very wet and clumpy. Snowed medium hard all morning. First hour was awesome and then very bumpy. Lots of fog. No crowds. Used the Axxess. Left at 11.

E. Fathead and I were just walking into the lodge at Stevens Pass this morning. Older skier looks our way and says "Here comes the channel cutters again. I almost tripped over those yesterday" We answered "At least you could climb out" :) Hmmm. Channel cutting. Maybe I will tell people that is what my board is for

Thanks for this tidbit of information. Did you ever develop a theory to explain the 30% difference in readings between the two devices?

45F at 3 PM! Super hard and crusty underneath with uneven loose corn snow on top. Tough conditions on the legs. Very weird conditions. At least there was great visibility and totally deserted slopes. Am planning on Sunday AM for a few hours. Need snow bad!

From last night as I screamed into the lift area. "You need a speedometer on that thing" Me "I don't want to know my speed, that would be scary." The hill was a fast and icy and very difficult to get a good edge in, so I did a few bomber runs to see how fast I could go. :)