bigwavedave

From last chair last night to first chair this morning with Jim O. Cold air and bright sun with fresh groom. Ken was there later and so was Jane. Again, Gandy Dancer had the best snow and the least people. Back over to the Express side about noon 30 and found a huge line, so just kept on going down to the car. ...and the Summit chair was running by then too! The 8rw makes everything smooth as silk (until you start hitting your own ruts)

Out for an evening sesh. 2-3" of tiny snowflakes and still coming down. Pretty empty hill made for good carving. Soft under surface with plenty of fresh on top. Rode the Squash with hardboots and had a blast carving some deep trenches. I think the this will groom in nicely and make for a superb morning carving session tomorrow. Spirit calendar shows a USASA halfpipe and rail comp Saturday and slopestyle Sunday, so I'd expect the upper parking to fill up early and lots of softbooters on the hill early too. Also a Nastar event tomorrow?, so no Scissorbill? I plan to be at the bottom when the lift starts turning at 9:30.

Rode with Russ for a couple of hours this morning. Flat light and monoski-ism forced us over to the Gandy side for awhile. Again, Gandy Dancer had the nicest groom other than the BigAir park, but Bindle Stiff gave us the most satisfying runs with nice carvable snow and better visibility (thank you trees). Scissor Bill was closed again today for a monoski GS course.(we got one run before they closed it). Started snowing around 11am. Might go out again when the lights come on and all the home schoolers and monos are gone Rode the 175 Super, but kinda wished I had the 162 SF to keep my speed down with the flat light. I hit an invisible roller during a transition and was airborne for about 10 -15 feet landing on the opposite edge with out so much as a wobble. Russ wisely chose to ride his Donek SL.

Great! Guess I'll just hang out in the lift ops shack I think pretty common with lifties, of course they're usually snowboarders, and it likely makes the job somewhat tolerable. Have noticed the same aroma at Indianhead, especially when I make first tracks and arrive at the bottom before the lift starts up. They're usually in a pretty good mood. Of course it's legal in Mich now.

The viewfinder on my camera says, "objects may appear steeper than they actually are" but, man the snow was pure Buttermilk groom I swear I saw @softbootsurfer coming out of the trees to make some tracks too.

Wow, nice day Arrived early at the top and the parking was already quite full (Monoski-ism hapnin'), so I rode down Skyhooker directly to the Gandy lift and made the first tracks on Gandy (never did that before). Turned out to be the best groomed surface on the hill today! So, I made a beautiful mess of it all morning--something for the groomers to work on tonight. Snow was rather firm, 1-2" trenches. Mostly sunny. I was surprised by all the rollers on Blue Ruin. Summit chair was painfully slow. The "D" chair was running too until the Express lift started up about 1pm and seems to be running fine now. Made a few runs with boarder patroller Don. Layin' tracks on the Gandy Dancer with the Super8...

@rwmaron @khoward I'll be up tomorrow for first tracks. Think the Express will be running?

I agree, but most racers like it. If you make it past qualifiers, you potentially get to do a whole lot more runs as opposed to just 1 or 2.

Well, it was a beautiful, calm and sunny day when I left Duluth heading south. Since Spirit Mt decided not to operate today due to winter-like weather I stopped at Wild Mt and found some really nice groom to carve up. Rode on the north side until the Expressway chair started spinning at 1pm. Got about 15 runs on Expressway and Competition before anyone else touched it and it had the best groom anywhere!

Wild Mt had some nice groom todayand nobody there...my first 2 tracks on Competition at around 2pm

I give up Heading to Wild tomorrow on my way south. Back to work for a couple of days. Al reports about 3 feet of snow in Bessemer from this storm! See ya in the funny papers...

WHY?

I'll take them! I can pick them up next time I'm in the U.P.

Very static, no up & down motion going on, ie, weighting/unweighting. Ankles, knees, hips should be flexing, at least a little. Try flexing up & down as you start out, before your first turn, then time your first turn to coincide with your weight coming down, decambering the board as it goes up on edge. If you can't flex up & down easily standing flat on the board, you might need to change your stance til it feels comfortable. Maybe softer springs in your boots would help?

Too bad. Might have been a fun day! @khoward, meet me at the bottom parking lot and we'll drive one car to the top and take a run

What about adjusting the length of the bail where it screws into the lug? ^Nevermind, only works with Bomber's. I remember that issue with Cateks and Snowpro's...

Soft 1st day groom over on the Gandy side and 2nd day groom on the express side. It was all goodSunshine til 2:30. Rode with Russ and Ken all morning. Saw Jim out in the afternoon. More snow tonight through Sunday. Looks like U.P. gets about a foot or more from this one. Rode the 185 ...Oh...and Jane was there too...

All my Thirst boards have a 20.5cm waist. Pretty happy with them. I've been gradually moving towards wider boards (from 18cm to 20.5) allowing for ~55-60° angles and have gradually widened my stance (from 18 inches to 20.5). I feel more stable with the wider stance and with more relaxed angles feel I exert more power through heel & toe weight to pressure the edge.

Rode with Ken again today. Jane was there too. Sun came out and there seemed to be fewer people on the hill today. Groom is getting firmer, still great carving! Rode the first chair with boarder patroller Don. BigWaveDave and the ripples?...Ken & Jane on a couple of my old boards...(the ripples would be my recycled old boards, not Ken & Jane)...

Hi John, In case you didn't see them, Johnasmo has several past videos showing the tree runs at Turner. Here's a nice one...

Another great day of carving Trenches 1-3" deep, hero groom 4 carversMore sun than forecast with scattered clouds and a brisk NE wind carrying intermittent flurries from the frozen lake and up the hill forced us to practice our best aerodynamic tuck at the top of the hill. Not quite as busy as yesterday. Managed to have a clear run most of the time. Moved over to Gandy chair after the first hour or so and found virtually no lift line. 4 hours and done! See you in the morning! Most of Lake Superior is frozen over, so the snow machine is turned down to low for awhile, at least for Duluth and western U.P.

Rode from first chair til about 1:30 and hooked up with Khoward and Jolson for a good part of that. Some of the nicest carving cord I've been on at Spirit this year. It started to get busy after the first couple of hours, but we managed to find clear runs. Went over to the Gandy side when it got busy on the express and found no line at the Gandy chair. The Summit chair started running around noon. I decided to quit when I came down to the express chair and saw the biggest line ever! Just kept on going down to my car. The first chair tomorrow might have 4 carving boards dangling under it.

Is the snow at Spirit just fantastic? Hoping to get out for a few turns on Saturday morning.

Pneumonia Ridge, 2nd run this morning, sun came out producing a beam of stardust...