John Gilmour

got the Aspen Base Ikon Pass....

EPIC and IKON those are the main ones those are the ones I would like to focus on. Mountain collective are sorta more obscure and done offer many days. Powder Alliance are more like ski areas than resorts. These places have more affordable lodging so I won't address those. I'm gonna list the resorts in North America at the bottom. Really Im mostly concerned with EPIC and IKON. and I probably won't get EPIC this year because for me Beaver Creek is the main motivation and lodging there is insanely priced (no bargains to be found ) and parking is frankly pretty annoying for me to deal with every year. Aspen has some decent priced lodging here and there. The issue that we face if we ahem EPIC or IKON is to use the "multi pass" we need "Multi lodging". The old days of buying a season pass and renting out a ski condo...w ell thats getting out of date. AIRBNB isn't all that reliable and lets face it , who wants to be hunting for a different place every night? So the question here... Should we try to put together Lodging for carvers? Like lets say you decide to take 2 weeks to go carve Colorado.... wouldn't it be cooler to stay with other carvers- like people did at the Expression Sessions? Between paypal and shareable calendars there has got to be a way to make this work so carvers can get more runs in under great conditions each season. I'm in the Electropod™ or E-pod™ ..for short, when solo so its not as big a deal to me, but it would be nice to have the GF and her son have a place to stay. Any ideas? Like ...lets say ........ you decide to rent a ski condo that can sleep 8, but you are only 3 people.... wouldn't it be nice to make available the extra beds or even floor space in an office at a reasonable rate? If we all did this for a week somewhere .... Like for instance I had a rental in Squaw Valley (IKON) last year for 10 days. It was just me an my Gf's son. I had an extra bedroom that I would have gladly shared with carvers for $30 a pop and had people to ride with instead of riding alone. If we all rented a nice place for a week , and rented the extra space... it might work. heres a list of the resorts. I think we could get this to work for Colorado. EPIC EPIC EPIC EPIC (vail resorts. ie Every Person In Colorado) unlimited access VAIL, CO BEAVER CREEK, CO WHISTLER BLACKCOMB, BC BRECKENRIDGE, CO PARK CITY, UT KEYSTONE, CO HEAVENLY, CA/NV NORTHSTAR, CA KIRKWOOD, CA STOWE, VT WILMOT, WI AFTON ALPS, MN MT BRIGHTON, MI PERISHER, AUSTRALIA - 2020 ACCESS FALLS CREEK, AUSTRALIA - 2020 ACCESS HOTHAM, AUSTRALIA - 2020 ACCESS OKEMO, VT MOUNT SUNAPEE, NH CRESTED BUTTE, CO STEVENS PASS, WA MOUNT SNOW, VT ATTITASH MOUNTAIN RESORT, NH WILDCAT MOUNTAIN, NH CROTCHED MOUNTAIN, NH HUNTER MOUNTAIN, NY LIBERTY MOUNTAIN RESORT, PA ROUNDTOP MOUNTAIN RESORT, PA WHITETAIL RESORT, PA JACK FROST, PA BIG BOULDER, PA ALPINE VALLEY, OH BOSTON MILLS, OH BRANDYWINE, OH MAD RIVER MOUNTAIN, OH HIDDEN VALLEY, MO SNOW CREEK, MO PAOLI PEAKS, IN IKON IKON IKON IKON IKON IKON STEAMBOAT, CO WINTER PARK RESORT, CO COPPER MOUNTAIN RESORT, CO ELDORA MOUNTAIN RESORT, CO SQUAW VALLEY ALPINE MEADOWS, CA MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN, CA JUNE MOUNTAIN, CA BIG BEAR MOUNTAIN RESORT, CA STRATTON, VT SNOWSHOE, WV CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN, WA TREMBLANT, QC BLUE MOUNTAIN, ON SOLITUDE, UT Limited access to ASPEN SNOWMASS, CO ARAPAHOE BASIN SKI AREA, CO JACKSON HOLE MOUNTAIN RESORT, WY BIG SKY RESORT, MT KILLINGTON-PICO, VT SUGARBUSH RESORT, VT BOYNE HIGHLANDS, MI BOYNE MOUNTAIN, MI THE SUMMIT AT SNOQUALMIE, WA SKIBIG3, AB REVELSTOKE MOUNTAIN RESORT, BC CYPRESS, BC SUNDAY RIVER, ME SUGARLOAF, ME LOON MOUNTAIN, NH TAOS, NM DEER VALLEY RESORT, UT BRIGHTON, UT ALTASNOWBIRD, UT The MOUNTAIN COLLECTIVE Not sure I really see the value of this pass. could someone enlighten me? The POWDER ALLIANCE Sorta small mom pop type places again unless you REALLY needed cheap lodging and food and valued that over grooming and number of trails.....

I bought my Aspen pass. I should be there. Trying to find lodging so I can bring my GF and her son too.

Though I was the first East coast Rep for Sims and as such a rival of Burton , great sadness to hear of his passing . I was just in Burton Santa Monica o n Halloween with his son who was in a hilarious Wonder Woman coustune. horrible to lose a parent at any age. so ...Alpiners who May have gotten their first start carving on a Safari PJ, M6, Burton stat etc. I don’t have access to Burtons social media, but what I would Like someone to do is similar to what I did for my snowboard shop in Boston.... please put out the word for BIRTIN FANS IN MULTIPLE CITIES to go to ANY LOCAL ICE SKATING RINK .. outside they always have a huge pile of snow the Zamboni dumps from resurfacing the ice every day. PEOPLE SHOULD FILL their pick up trucks to the brim with the snow and deliver it in front of the Burton stores nationwide. candles then should be stuck in the snow,. and if you have any Vintage Burton gear that meant something to you it should be used to decorate the snow pile . Any graphic printer guy should print up an image of Jake. Jakes off to the great Heli-boarding resort in the sky .

The ikon destinations are so spread out and limit you so much for days at so many resorts. More unlimited options for EPIC. The Aspen pass at least now gives you some other mountains ...which is great if you are living in Aspen and want to ski elesewhere . Chamber pass for Aspen also includes base Ikon so that's great for parents who want to see their kids race and not have to be buying even more tickets. If you have a big family of skiers.... it's kinda bad because 6 season passes ..well you could buy a car, or lease a wakesurfing boat.. all this "all you can eat". Has people skiing a lot more and has Joe Schmoe getting used to 40 day + seasons which for those of us who go a lot makes it harder to find the good runs not overloaded. I might end up with Aspen again...i.e. Work for race dept. which means... I gotta get thee DJ RIG And ANNOUCING and ALL THAT GOING ...for a comp pass.

Ahem. These are SoCal problems faced by SoCal carvers...of which there are few of us in SoCAL So a few changes occurred. Arapahoe is no longer unlimited EPIC (their early season ribbon of death isn't worth it anyhow) its just a week of IKON, which won't fix much of anything because there are still 250,000 or more IKON pass holders that can flood Araphoe, many of which BOUGHT day tickets anyhow. Now Sun Valley has a week or 5 days on IKON... (Major plus I think). Ikon also got Zermatta and the Matterhorn, so you an finally feel like your re in a James Bond ski chase. A few years ago I bought the EPIC pass and used friends free passes and 1/2 price passes to get in a. few Aspen days. 2017-2018 , and. 2018 2019 I bought IKON and EPIC to get Mammoth and June , LOCALLY for a early season conditioning warm up at Snow Summit in the San Bernadinos because I never could ride back to back FULL days early season . The year I only bought EPIC 2015-2016 was ok because I thought I could avoid Vail and front range crowds by doing Beaver Creek instead and Centennial was a decent alternative to Ruthies Run in Aspen. I almost said FORGET IKON BASE because it only gave me 5 days at Aspen which is almost not worth the hassle, except I get. few 1/2 price tickets and early season $35 vouchers so I could make a 2 day trip, a 3 day trip and a 5 day trip. But it was always a EPIC vs IKON choice between Some Aspen and. long season of not very good carving in windy conditions with not very good grooming at Mammoth and Snow Summit warm up with IKON. Or lots of decent Colorado carving at Beaver Creek and a few cheap pass days at Aspen. EPIC only... your are screwed for SoCal riding - even though a R/T Denver ticket is only $79 from SNA and if you bought your airline via Cheaptickets.com you can get $10 rental cars. And you need Full Epic for unlimited Beaver Creek or you get a paltry 10 days of Vail and Beaver combined. so thats $969 IKON only Your 5 days of Aspen run out fast. Full IKON gets you Steamboat but not the half IKON. And Copper (read windy) but ok grooming. I wasn't impressed with Squaw Valley compared to Colorados offerings. So.... theres one other option. Aspen Season Pass gives you Aspen plus Ikon Base (so you get Mammoth , June, Snow Summit) but at a price $2049 (the extra $49 is to show you they hate their customers). So It's like getting the Aspen pass for $1300 Ill continue this thought tomorrow.

Sept 2 the EPIC pass goes up in price. Last year i bought both the IKON and EPIC. but frankly I think I'm better off with EPIC. IKON IS TOO LIMITING FOR ASPEN 5 or 7 days and really doesn't offer enough good unlimited resorts by comparison. The only advantage I can see for IKON is. Long season at Mammoth ...particularly a long LATE season. Plus Mammoth has superchargers. Also Aspen Buttermilk has Superchargers. ERRR. so really IKON is the pass for people who have their crew of friends and hook ups at Mammoth only and if you like Mammoth you also have to like lots of wind, and flat light and powder that isn't nearly as good as Colorado. Epic lost A basin which was its early season draw, but it just gained 7 days at Sun Valley (definitely on my hit list 2019/2020). Well, my beef with EPIC pass is the resorts it serves are the most crowded. Since EPIC stands for every person in Colorado. For East coasters all thy get are Sunapee (you best fast quick mid week hit for decent vertical ) and Okemo which is only good midweek ..sapphire is fun, but the colliding fall lines are just flat out some of the most bizarre trail cutting I have ever seen ...only NY Hunter Mountain is more dangerous for handling people.

The need for double width identical course restricts hills and shortens distance across the hill to half. The only benefit is both riders face possibly similar wind and possibly similar snow conditions, but typically the courses are never truly identical as one side of the hill may be in shade or more wind protects wind strong stripped... etc. ...even in skateboard slalom on unchanging pavement the surface is rarely identical and one course is typically faster. IMHO in general 2. Courses proves to be of little advantage on days with no wind or steady wind. Only on irregular gusty days does it become useful just had to answer that old thread. also worth noting Agression stealth asymmetric had tighter sidecut on the toeside.

Caught the Flu. Was down for the count yesterday.

I might head up, legs need the work out

I’m up at Mammoth looking for carvers. I’ll be hereto ably at least until April 4 . Fast and Hardbooter rippable

Looking to head up to Squaw valley for that insane snow. GF and I - possibly her adult son. Anyone want to split a house or have one want to rent out a room?

funny I was just at RDU then at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina 3 days ago. Missed it darn! Also near Kitty Hawk. very challenging for those toddlers, but as a rule I won't got 50+ anywhere near anything less than 5 feet tall.

I have ridden alone for years, you get about twice as many runs in. I just run the same trail under a chairlift and people ride for a few runs and move on. Having Ultrasone Edition 9 headphones and a TTVJ Portable tube amp and 80GB of tunes helps too. CMC would ride with me as he would just ride behind and try to get the same attack line, Adam Bolonsky at the Wa , and Paul Miller rode with me and Andre at Beaver Creek Centennial last season both fast... also Ray Shriener (Virus) would ride with me on Ruthies...until his back blew out. I ride with Will Garrow at Mammoth So just go out and ride solo and be VERY visible until you find some ride buds of similar speed and terrain. IMHO probably Forget about teaching your GF to ride, just find people who are matched already to your speed whether women or men.

I did cruise around with Paul Price and had a really nice time but nothing like Aspen or Beaver Creek so far . Just mentioning what I thought was “ best” . For instance Telluride has great pitch, and really some of the most amazing views far nicer than Aspen or Beaver Creek ... but the trails grooming was not consistent (one “groomed trail “ the Plunge was like they dragged a comb over slightly decapitated moguls ... plus you can’t easily cycle long runs without multiple slow lifts ... so I took it off the list. Telluride is an EXCELLENT skiers mountain , but not so much for snowboard carving - the wider runs aren’t very steep and lack carvable features too. I based my my list off of what a good carver should pick if he only gets to go Out of his local resort every other year. For isntance ... the Outback as well as the front face at Mt Bachelor is simply FABTASTIC but weather might not cooperate enough for a 5 day stint to have enough blue sky and more snowfall at night as opposed to the day.

One word.. SIMULATOR. Find a snow simulator like http://virtualsnowla.com This is a pretty low quality one but will still get the job done. Then go to a resort with a simulator (Mountain High in Wrightwood has one ) and the instructor there word with Bill and takes you on the snow. You may not even have a single fall your first day on snow! Then once you can turn left and right, and skid to a stop come find me. I'll reprogram your riding completely . I teach carefully so that EVERY carve ends up with your gently lying down on the snow. That way you learn how to literally embrace and love the snow and not have any significant impact if you have to fall on the snow. I teach that your speed limit is your ability to stop completely in one carve. And we slowly up that speed within your comfort level. I make you feel what is happening with your boots and knees. In the 1990s I made a low friction low impact suit out of a Silver metabolized proximity fire fighting suit and 1.5" thick closed cell foam on the butt and knees (about 10" wide knee strips the rear was about 20" wide wrap around" that in combo with wrist guards and a helmet and the chick can flail and bail without breaking a nail. I still have an unused Proximity suit if your have a roll of gaffing tape (super strong duct tape) and some packing foam from computers you could make one of these.

IMHO. And I like trails with flow where you do not have to wait to build speed for more than 8 seconds. These are just trails I have ridden. Some I could be happy if I only had that run all day. To me Colorado is mostly ASPEN (no wind and warm) and Beaver Creek because of warmer temps and grooming and lots of luxury near the carving trail. Colorado 1. Ruthies Run: Aspen Ajax ( fantastic wide fairly steep run very high speeds carving attainable on this one, harder to film, and slow double chair) No easy food access have to go to Bonnies or Sundeck to warm up. I run this all the time. It's good up top for late season as it won't get hit by rain like Centennial and get trashed. Longest FAST trail. 2. Centennial: Beaver Creek (Good vertical drop, killer Chondola with Combo big fast chairlifts and gondola when its cold. trail can get icy in some shaded spots early in the year. Everyone in the resort can see you rip so its easy to find the rest of your party. Chairlift runs right over trail. Park Hyatt Buffet breakfast is a AWESOME start to the day. Seriously treat yourself to this for $33 its better than any other $33 you can spend on food in Colorado. 3. Back of Bell Aspen Ajax (short and steep and a super wall for medium speed carving. Advanced- don't fall here as you will have trouble self arresting). No fun for non experts. 4. Aztec (groomed only) Aspen Ajax most people would not try to carve this in soft boots. Also hard to self arrest so be careful. Not an all day trail, just to say you can do it. Zero fun for non experts. 5. Copperbowl: Great LONG RUN when its later in the season and you have the legs for it, gondola spectators . Its relentless pitch and slightly narrow forcing you to stay on it. 6. Sneakys: Snowmass (easy long wide groomer steep in parts.) Probably the best carving run at Slowmass, Gets destroyed fast during busy season times. 7. Thunderbowl : Aspen Highlands (variable snow conditions could be chunky) Actually I prefer the narrower trails of Gun Barrel and Grand Prix just above the Merry Go round Restaurant. Also you can check the scene at Cloud 9 restaurant for champagne. 8. Spar: Aspen Ajax. It's like a giant carving halfpipe. New England. Gondolier Stowe. Long and fast but don't even think of going their in January as your wax won't run only your nose will. Stratton is a COMPLETE waste of time. Too crowded , ridiculously overpriced for what your get. ...cold and flat light. mixed clumpy grooming can hit you unexpected on Upper Standard and National . Seriously if you wanna do 4 days at Stratton ...instead buy a $117 R/T ticket on Frontier from the East coast and go to ANY resort in Colorado, you'll have better snow, nicer accommodations and everything will cost less. Forget Killington . expat Brits who can't ski ... slide turns and trash everything by 10:15 am. Their accents only work in the bars. Loon. Fun easy carving. Bretton Woods the ideal NE place to teach a girl to carve. Utah Brighton is fun and has night skiing. Park City wasn't very good, search and found no good carving on any trail. California: June is a cheaper version of Bretton Woods. Easy carving . Mammoth: too windy. like ridiculous 40+ mph wind.. Marketing tries to sell Wind buff as something desirable, like saying a car with 300K miles is well broken in. Stump Alley is good for about 40 minutes first thing. The hot spring is the best thing about Mammoth.

Hmmm. Back to Beaver Creek and Aspen For more carving fun factor

Moderator feel free to delete this after a week. Groom is nice today a lot less cold than yesterday. Plunge was “ groomed” but still has bumps with groom lines. 347-263-7238

What’s a really good trail set for this particular Mt. I’ve never been there but thinking of going there in the next day or so

What's LCI .? My goal is to carve everywhere with everyone, . so I plunked $49 for epic pass with blackouts, and I'm still on the fence about the ikon.. just a few hours to decide. Ikon the draw is 5 days of aspen , and perhaps Squaw... but how is the snow at Squaw,? I hit it once with perfect packed pow 15 years ago, an before that 18 years ago. Beaver creek even with little snow had great snow grooming. Would I think the Ikon is a waste if I have the epic? I get 2 -4 free days at aspen anyhow. For me aspen is all about Ruthies. Which, for me is one of the faster well groomed runs, haven't hit sun valley and bachelor is good but they aren't on any season multi ticket. vail and beaver creek had more.. _ eav_r. Far more ... energetic Apres ski scene Aspen is much much older and even evening powder now would land them in the ER.

Likely you active military people already know this but the Season EPIC Pass is only $99 . And 40% off the regular price for dependents. That's a lot of drone pilots stateside . Hmm..maybe I'll have more people to carve with at beaver creek next year. I'm wondering if steamboat is worth it for carving vs beaver creek.... because I might go for the black out date IKON that has only 5 days at Steamboat as opposed to unlimited. Annoyed that Aspen Is to unlimited but you only get 5 or 7 days .....they might end up being all pow days though...

Looks pretty good. How long are you up there? Do you know if the Whitmore hot springs roads are dry or muddy? Might bring the turtles .

Well that's great. Everyone is a bit different. When you find something you like stick with it until, you see someone else with a new theory that seems to work well. I rode 16.5" stances and 65 degrees on my Checker Pig G6 for years, until The F2 Checker board race boards came out, went wider, flatter. And then with the Madds ended up wider still. I think Barry has gone for a softer board with a tighter stance that he can easily flex at 225 lbs so the board isn't exerting much force back on him, that allows him to ride the stance he rides . If he was looking for higher speeds deeper carvers and more force into the snow he would have to,go with more conventional flex and angles. His current set up will not carve deep arcs over 35 mph IMHO. Btw I really like the Graphics on the MK. Barry, this is for a traditional stance of less than 63 front and less than 58 rear...more likely 59 front and 55 rear on your board with your boots. you should have maybe 1/4 -1/8th on the front heel of overhang and say 1/4 - 1/2 on the rear. If your board is soft, you might tend to overdrive it at 225 lbs and yes your legs will be shot with a traditional stance on a traditional medium to medium stiff caring deck carving deeper trenches at speed....but isn't that the whole point? You get more fit and your skills improve together. tall people with bigger feet tend to have a lot of leverage on boards and tend to ride steeper....in part b cause they just can. Andre the Russian guy I rode with rides very high stance angles on his 18cm virus, because he can, and also because he has to,with a 29.0 shell. And because that board works best really heeled over somhe can't have any drag at inclination over 55 degrees at all. A stance like your on a softer board let's you drive from the rear of the board and really do tighter turns at lower speeds. It's fun but not fast. If you want performance you go with the traditional way, if you want to just carve and trench at low speed that's what a softer board will do for you. It's not invalid ...for instance. I rode a F2 M.A.D. In the 1990s at Wachusett Mt. ( kinda like a early Hovercraft) with 1000 ft vertical drop in part because by the time I got up to speed for fast deep turning, the hill was over in 3 turns. Having a softer flexing wider directional board let me screw around and have. more fun while going slower and getting 30 deep trenches in instead of just a few each run, all while being very easy on the legs. Thrilling? No, but fun yes. Did it make me a better rider, no, but I got to mess around with buds on freeride boards going their speeds and still trenching all over the place.