bigwavedave

Too bad he's not having a good time^^^ Can anyone view the pics? Do you have a link to the google drive?

Yes, this: Saturday > Spirit Sunday > Indianhead Picking up the Indianhead passes this afternoon. Wonder if we'll see any local carvers? @Algunderfoot ?

Another busy day at Indianhead. These are my first few turns after noon. Slopes were refreshed between runs by lake-effect snow spread about in the breeze.

Wow!!! Another unreal day. Near zero degrees most of day with some up slope wind. All in all, it was a surreal day, one minute there would be bright sun, then a plume of lake-effect snow would come barreling in over the hills from Lake Superior to the north. Often there was sun & snow at the same time. Seems that the cold kept folks at home (it wasn't that cold), just a handful of people riding the chair at any one time. I started at Blackjack for some early morning powdery turns in 4-6 inches of fresh on the edges with plush groom down the middle. Had to battle it out with 5 other pow-crazed people to find fresh tracks Once tracked out, it was over to Indianhead about noon and...nobody there! 1-2 inches of un-tracked over beautiful groom... Got a case of the just-one-more run and ended up riding til 3:30 again, chilled to the bone. A magical day! Weather updraft on today's lake-effect with some cool satellite images: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/02/13/lake-superior-lakeeffect-snow-plumes-visible-from-space

Indianhead will likely have holiday crowds. The snow is so nice, it will be worth it. Make some early morning turns at Indianhead, and if it gets busy, go over to Blackjack on the same ticket. It started snowing mid morning today and is should continue into tomorrow. Snow with filtered sun. It was so good I rode from 9-3:30. Might go to Blackjack tomorrow for some pow surf. They're not open M thru W, so the snow accumulates for Thursday. 1st tracks this morning... Last track this afternoon...sun and snow!

They might be older than you, definitely younger than me. The exact same chair they have at Turner! We felt right at home. It's like going back in time. Everything is old, but well maintained--just like us old carvers.

Woke up early this morning and thought why not drive to the Indianhead? Turned out to be a good idea! 2-3" of dry, fluffy U.P. baby pow over a soft groom Nobody there for the first several runs, just me and the lifty. Rode for 5 hours. It was hard to stop, but my knees said "no more!" and my head said, "just one more". ...in the land of milk and honey, where the snow carves like buttah. @bobble I can get a couple of $25 tickets for Indianhead. Wanna do a day trip over there this weekend while you're up here? The snow is way better than Spirit.

2-3" of fluffy U.P. baby pow over a soft groom Had the place to myself for first 3-4 runs! Indianhead, Aka Buttahmilk East!

This is where I'm at now. Subtle changes, getting pretty close to where I like it. Going 6° on both toe and heel lift made a difference for me no canting same wide stance (20"), same angles (inside the edge of board) No preload on springs No forward lean on front and ¾" on rear (measuring from the bottom pin to the spring base). Still playing with this and it's so easy on the hill. I'm considering making something that has the range of motion of a dgss, about another ½" for toeside, although I might get where I want just by increasing forward lean, as it doesn't have that locked-in feeling of spring systems that came standard on other boots.

I have a couple of $10 passes for you, compliments of Russ.

Out for a few hours this morning. Flat light to start and then some sun. Gandy and BlueRuin had race courses, and fat bikes on JugglerJoe. Still finding nice groom under the express chair and in the deserted, untracked park. Met a college racer riding an old Rossi Throttle, and ran into Leighton riding his OES. Over on the race courses, skiers scraped off the inch or so of "surface groom" to reveal the true secret of the Spirit ice base. There's a nice washboard-like groomer tread imprint in the ice that produces that lovely vibratory sensation when carving. Hard to complain though, after seeing @lonbordin 's pics of Paoli. @rwmaron Thinking about a trip over to Indianhead for some soft groom. Maybe Tuesday. I've heard the water tastes like wine.

Is this gonna be in the raffle?

Man, that ice base is still under there within reach of a 2" deep carve. Sunny day, so I drove around to the top to get the 1st track, and there was already a single line laid down. Turned out to be a woman who carves pretty nice with a softboot setup. Told her we might have a hardboot setup for her to try. @rwmaron , do we know where those small Oxygen boots are? Rode for a few hours. College team racing over on BlueRuin, so Gandy was pretty carved up from warm-up runs, almost as good as RTTC at Buck. Took a few runs in the park just to feel what a turn feels like without bottoming out on a gravely ice base. 3rd day in a row that the orange-jacket photographer was out shooting Spirit promo photos for next year. I stopped and got his info as I have been buzzing him everyday hoping to get a good photo.

Same story here. Noticeable lack of grooming quality, from even last season. @khoward euphomistically refers to those unlevel seams, lips, drop-offs, holes and other grooming irregularities as "groomer features". Spirit Mt has an attachment called the Renovator which chews up the ice base to a depth of 6", but they havn't used it for years because it's too slow and costs too much to run it. I changed my ASB "rank" to the Renovator. My theory is the deeper we make our trenches we'll force the groomers to til deeper to erase our tracks, at least making for a softer groom. And then, we always find the nicest groom in the park, where they spend way too much time and energy grooming to perfection.

Aaah, awoke in a snow globe with giant fluffy flakes piling up. Looking at the weather radar showed it to be a localized lake-effect carried by NE wind off Superior. 2+ inches over a crunchy groom (must have warmed up above freezing yesterday) on the hill and still snowing when I left. Gonna be nice tomorrow! We needed some new snow. 5 PM update: Another inch and still snowing. 4+" of dry fluffy snow so far today. NE wind veering SW later tonight will shut down lake-effect snow.

Much softer conditions today Sunny, starting out with single digit temps and quickly warming up to near freezing in the afternoon. The ice is still under there, just takes a few passes before the surface groom starts breaking up and revealing it. Things are still hard over on the Gandy side, except for the park where we finished off the day slicing up some sweet zipper groom. Rode from 10-2:30, much of the time with Russ and Mike, a softboot carver we hope to convert. Forgot my camera, but maybe we'll see some pics from the photographer we buzzed on the hill today. Suspect he was taking promotional pics for Spirit.

@BorealBoard I've got some UPZ's that should work. For sale here...

This is interesting. I usually position my boots so the heel & toe are equidistant from the edge of the board, regardless of where the centerline on the boot is. Seemed to work okay with the UPZ's. Since switching to the MS I have noticed that my heelside turns are a bit stronger than toesides. Maybe some more tweaking is in order? I like these boots, but they are different enough from the UPZ's that I found I had to do a bit of tweaking (increase rear heel lift, no cant).

Well, after a couple of warm days, we're back to a crusty, frozen "surface groom" over gravely ice. At least it was sunny with a deep blue sky and temps in the single digits °F. Even the park had only one fresh groomer pass where an edge could penetrate. Even my metal board made a horrific noise as I traversed the hill trying to hold an edge. It was a rough ride. Looks can be deceiving. The 1st track...

Thanks rj. Bindings received today.

$250 shipped Has the upgraded swing away tongues. Wire strap buckle upgrades for rear boot (eliminates buckles getting crushed with boot flex). DGSS spring system, both blue (stiff) and green (soft) springs. Alpine wrap liners size 9½. Molded a couple of times. Should be able to mold these again. I slit the toes on these because they were tight. They worked fine like this. I used footbeds/orthotics. I still have the the original buckles and the original spring set which comes with. I have an extra pair of intuition foam wrap liners, size m28 if you want them. These are still for sale, contact @Grip

@KB303 Dang! I ordered them from Bomber by Gumbo just before your post. Thanks anyway for offering them up Keith. Just checked and they're already on their way. A big thanks to Walker for not letting Bomber vanish from the carving universe.

Out for 2½ hours this morning. Started out at 38°F with some sun, then overcast, then some sun again and wind. Snow was getting sticky, but the groom was nice and soft for trenchin'. There was another carver on the hill--black board, green circular logo on the bottom?--never linked up with him. paths that cross... ....and Jane was there too!

Nice! Love that view of the St Lawrence too. Le Massif has been on my list.

Out for a couple of hours this morning before the weekend crowds built up. Nice sunny day and good groom everywhere! Practice race courses on the sides of BlueRuin and Gandy.