bigwavedave

Wed Still snowing! Sometimes heavy. Temps in the teens. 2-3" on top of the groom. Some runs have just 2 groomer passes down the middle with 8-9" of fluffy tracked pow on the sides. Some runs have been left ungroomed since the storm began. A bit lumpy, even though the snow is soft and dry. Intermittent snow squalls with dim sun all day. Like lake effect, but not. An additional 2-3" fell through the day. Got to make some turns on the tesi8 (the metal 8rw). Man I really like this board. Feels light, nimble and smoother than my 8rw. Could be the skinny waist, the metal or maybe it's the intense blue. I'm gonna have to go back tomorrow and see how all this new snow grooms out. Snow should give way to sun tomorrow. Word from algunderfoot is that it rained at JCS (Indianhead) yesterday. Lutsen (like GR) faired better being on the cold side of the low. 15" reported there. I might head up to Lutsen Friday...for the lake view. Too bad Spirit closed. Over 2 feet reported here over the past 4 days.

Tuesday. More of the same, a little colder in the upper teens. Another 6 or so inches overnight and coming down thick all day. Half the runs were not groomed after yesterday allowing things to pile up making for some deep and bumpy runs. 3-4" of fresh over soft groom everywhere else. riding the magic big board again...TSm²...floats like a powder board, carves like...a carving board... Some windrows and drifting. Only lasted 3.5 hrs. Not busy, no lines, even with schools closed for a second day. P.S. Man, it just keeps snowing! I'm gonna have to go back for another helping tomorrow.

Awesomeness Big storm, lots of snow. What a nice end of season gift. GR still has a 24-36" base, so I bought a 2024-25 pass on sale which can be used now through April 7th. 5-6" fresh over a soft groom this morning. Snowed all day and more through tomorrow. Rode the big board all day... Made it for 5 hrs including an obligatory burnt onion soup and beer break. Planning to go back tomorrow.

Sunday It's snowing and blowing pretty good now, 4" so far down by the river. The forecast says 12" by morning and several more inches tomorrow. With Spirit closed, I'm thinking of heading up to GR tomorrow. Kinda wish I didn't change out my winter tires before driving out west, but I'm pretty sure it's why we're getting all this snow.

Even though I didn't manage to sneak this one into my car, I think it's worthy of this thread. Mark's personal XC... one way to make use of sidewall scraps.

Was thinking the same thing. Being the same width as your 8rw, it will be a great opportunity for comparison. I'll try and get over there before the end of the season. Hopefully you don't get too much rain on the tail of this storm.

Uh-oh! Don't tell Mark, but I found this in the back of my car when I got home after 3 days at Schweitzer. I took a few runs on his personal Tesi 8 and was hooked a few turns into the first run. A typical Thirst experience. I knew I wanted it. Not sure if it was the narrower width (18.5cm), the metal, or the whole package. It felt super smooth, damp and nimble. It was 50°+ slush, so maybe not the best conditions to get a real feel for it, but I expect I'll get a chance in the next week after our biggest snow storm of the season passes. 183cm otherwise similar ee and scr to an 8rw

Okay, wait a minute. 1-2 ft of snow in the forecast Sun-Tues? Is this what happens when we leave town? I made it back just in time. Spirit was making snow last night? Forgot they were hosting the XC Super Tour national championships today. Maybe if we get a foot or more it might be fun to hike and ride Spirit. Otherwise, GR, Snowriver and Lutsen are still going. Spirit 49 / GR 12 / JCS 5 / Lutsen 1 / Schweitzer 3 70 days

If I were you, I'd ride it first sans plate so you know what you're dealing with. Those old V1 BP's are very stiff. Some people modified them either by narrowing the waist or cutting a long hole in the center. There's a picture somewhere. Found it....I believe it was a Fin approved mod... I had the lite version and had my front toe over the axle. @barryj ? I found standard TD3's to have an unwieldy stack height, like riding in high heels might feel and felt too squishy loose. F2's will be just as good or better than bp bases on sidewinders because they have direct contact under heels and toes. With the extra height you can use shallower angles for more power to the edge while still avoiding boot-out.

day3 more of the same, fewer people on the hill. A fun day of carving and making deep trenches... Mark riding his metal superconductor

Day 2 same weather as yesterday I followed Mark and Annie on a tour of the mountain today. Warm and slushy on the front side, a little harder on the backside which softened pretty quick. Steep sections got moguled up pretty fast when the snow got warm. Ran into Dane in the parking lot when we stopped for a board change (we brought a bunch of boards) and found Russ on the backside a little later. A fun day. Happy, Thirsty people

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The "arm swing" technique?

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.

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 no 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.

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?