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Posts
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bigwavedave last won the day on February 24
bigwavedave had the most liked content!
Details
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Location
Duluth
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Home Mountain/Resort?
Spirit Mt, MN / SnowRiver,U.P. Mich / Lutsen, MN
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Occupation?
retired
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Current Boards in your Quiver
7 Thirsts: 9sw 195cm 18W; 8rw 185; Superconductor 175; XC 171 (all 20cm W); TSm² 202cm, 22W; PC swallowtails 181 & 169 (22.5W) / Donek REV 175 20.5W, 11-12scr w/ F-plate / 166 Coiler Contra / Past: Kesslers, SG, Doneks,Coilers
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Current Boots Used?
Mountain Slope .951 (C shell) w/ ZipFit liners
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Current bindings and set-up?
TD3 sidewinders and F2 race Titaniums
on carving boards:
~55-63° front, 6° toe lift
~50-58° rear, 6° heel lift
20" stance width
on powder boards:
~53° F & ~47° R
20.5" stance
using Geckos w/ td3sw w/ BP base on my 3 smaller carving boards -
Snowboarding since
1993
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Hardbooting since
1993
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Schweitzer Mountain resort 2023/24 season
bigwavedave replied to Pusbag's topic in Pacific North West
1st day on the mountain. Temps are close to freezing overnight and up into the 50's and sunny. Bunch of carvers on the hill today. Mark and I had some fun at the end of the day making trenches with the 9sw's. -
An admirable effort of moving snow around to open up. GR has a lot more base. Probably the best conditions anywhere and it's likely they'll make it to the end of the month. I'm packing my car to drive to Schweitzer, Idaho. Likely you will get snow while I'm gone. It always happens when I go west looking for better snow.
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Schweitzer Mountain resort 2023/24 season
bigwavedave replied to Pusbag's topic in Pacific North West
Looks like you finally got some snow. I'm getting a $169 spring-fling pass and plan to be there next week. Gonna be visiting Thirst international headquarters and tour the factory. Looks like it will be full-on spring weather by then. Should be good, right? Maybe frozen groom in the morning, slush in the afternoon? -
Altering the turn radius of a carved turn on steep terrain
bigwavedave replied to nicholaswmin's topic in Racing
Go hang with the Alpine racers and coaches. That's what the FIS level race teams started doing here ~20 years ago. -
Tuesday Spirit wasn't planning to be open today, but it was 70° down by the river! It will take a miracle to squeeze more days out of the hill. As it is, I've already gotten more (small) scratches on the bases of my boards during this winter of marginal conditions than in the past 10 years. It looks more like the end of April! I'm thinking of going to Idaho next week. Schweitzer had 5' of snow over the past couple of weeks. A spring-fling pass for the rest of the season is $169. I need to remind myself what it's like to carve on snow sans a bone rattling ice base. I seem to remember it being a ton of fun.
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Monday 28-48° sunny Giants Ridge is pretty good right now. Still has a meter thick base with 2-3" of soft groom on top. Hard carves found the underlying ice base and it was a rough ride on some slopes. Had to go easy. The carving got smoother in the afternoon as it warmed up. It was good, not awesome, but better than most days this winter. I think there will be some good carving days here before their season ends. April 1st? Rode for 4 hrs, so maybe it was pretty good after all. Yes, burnt onion soup was consumed with a glass of Voodoo Ranger. I don't think Spirit will make it past next weekend as conditions are already pretty sketchy.
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Sunday Sunny 30-40° The river refroze overnight 25° Went up ½hr after opening waiting for temps to get above freezing. Parked by the park again. Rode for an hour in the there finding good carving snow top to bottom making 2-4" deep trenches. Feels good making smooth turns in nice groom. But, it gets old after several runs 'cause there's basically one carving lane through all the jumps and I mostly avoid the jumps. So, I went over to the Express side and found Ken there. Rode several different runs on the Express side. Rough ice and slush piles made carving difficult. Maybe it was better first thing, before the "surface" groom was all tracked out and scraped off. They've done a good job of moving snow around to cover the bare spots. Because of that, I'm a little hesitant to really commit to a carve in questionable areas. Several free-heelers on the hill today. A mini spring tele-fest. ...and the river is open again... P.S. Heading up to GR tomorrow. day 49 at Spirit plus 7 days between GR and Snowriver
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Saturday 30-35° & sunny Back to the park for 1st tracks. US masters ski racing on BlueRuin and practice races on SchinderSchnapper. Everybody knows the best snow is in the park, although I was surprised how well Mt ops was able to fix most of the other runs, moving snow from here to there to cover bad spots. Still pretty icy and chunky most everywhere with areas of snow mixed with dirt, but not in the park. Ran into Ken over on the Express side. Saw a couple of softbooters doing the Knapton on 4Pipe. Rode for a couple of hours. Thirst XC.
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Carving Snowboard manufacturers & websites - March 2024
bigwavedave replied to SunSurfer's topic in Carving Central
Oooh, Pogo. Beautiful looking boards, saw one, never rode one, but if they ride anything near how they look. Carving boards, giant surfboards, and boarderline skwallish skinny carving boards. https://www.pogo.biz/en/snowboards.html -
Friday Sunny 32-35° Drove to the top of the BigAir Park and parked at the side entrance in the "B" lot. Made 1st tracks... Snow was nice for carving with 2-4" of granular spring snow over the ice base. Made about 10 runs through the park, riding the Gandy chair. Didn't go anywhere else. GandyDancer has scattered thin and bare spots as I suspect most other runs have, except for the BigAir park which has nice coverage. It's very close to the end. They could knock down all those jumps and keep that slope going for another month.
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The "arm swing" technique?
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Wed warm & windy 35° dim sun Started from the top at 10:45, 15 min before 11am opening. Ran into @khoward and @nelsonboat at the bottom of the Express. Rode all over the hill looking for carvable snow. It was a mix of softened ice, gravely-crunchy ice, slush and thin spots. You had to stay on your toes and keep a light foot on the accelerator. It was equal parts slarving and carving. They're poaching snow from some runs to fill in others. Scissorbill has been sacrificed to save 4Pipe . We found the best carvable snow on CinderSnapper and DoubleJaw. BindleStiff and JugglerJoe were okay. 4Pipe was variable with thin spots. BigAir was closed for grooming and still hadn't opened when we called it quits around 2:30.
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2023-24 Tuesday overcast, giving way to sun. temps 25-35 Up to GR today since Spirit is closed M - T the rest of the season. Plus, I keep hearing that conditions have been good here. They still have a substantial base 2-3 ft thick, with no bare or thin spots. Looking like Spirit was 3-4 weeks ago. No snow in the woods. The hill was apparently groomed wet. It was a crusty, frozen groom over an ice base 1 inch below the surface. Almost all groomer passes had promenant seams that made carving across the hill pretty bumpy. Reminicent of Spirit grooming last winter. I took some breaks to kill time hoping that the sun and warmth would soften things. Onion soup, but more stout on tap! Snow got marginally better in the afternoon, but not great carving. As the surface groom softened you were down on the ice base, which was pretty rough. At least it wasn't busy. I ran into a few Spirit Mt regulars. I'd wait for a day with temps into the 40's, or after some new snow. P.S. Rode all 5 carving boards I had with me, from 166 to 195. The funny thing was the most fun runs were on the 195 9sw down a wide green run. Screaming fast, big turns across the whole run, teetering on the edge.
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Since I've been called out here, I will have to say that the Thirst TSm² (202cm TankerSpanker) is my favorite powder carver (and I have both of Mark's swallowtail PC offerings, a 181 & 169). I have owned and ridden several other boards that have claimed to both carve & float in powder. The carving performance was always disappointing, but not with Thirsts. The X model EM177 is a scaled down TSm² and might be better for your size. The PCjv 169 or CC+ might be a better choice if you really want maneuverability in tight trees and moguls. @Keenan is kinda close to you and also a Thirst connoisseur. Might have something you could demo?
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Just bought my pass for next year. New age categories. Senior now starts at 80 yrs old. The "mountain message" says they are planning 7 days/ week next year!