bigwavedave

Rained pretty hard all Friday night and intermittently on Saturday. This morning was encouragingly sunny and below freezing . Not surprised to find frozen groom, although with a deceptive dusting of sugar, otherwise known as "surface groom". Areas that were not frozen solid felt like carving on frozen marbles. It was a bumpy ride. Managed to find some isolated carvable piles of sugar (more like frosting), but I still called it quits after about 1 1/2 hrs when it began to get busy. We need some lake effect snow please! Oh, I saw a young woman on carving board & hard boots heading down as I was coming up, but never saw her again.

LOL! I hope @lonbordin is reading this, although Paoli is probably getting dumped on today. Similar report for Spirit Mt today.

Got out on my new Super yesterday (opening day at Spirit). Normally I avoid opening day, but they had made tons of snow with several runs open. It was above freezing so snow was mostly soft, yet very fast with occasional buried icy chunks to surprise you. Such is man made snow. This board carves like you're in a dream--completely sure footed, somehow seems to smooth out the inconsistencies between the soft snow and the hard icy stuff. You feel and hear them, but it doesn't throw you off. Rhythmic turning produced snappy air-born transitions. Super lively and super fun! btw, the colors in the topsheet graphics on these boards are really cool having a sort of 3d, iridescent (lenticular print) quality that you can't really see in photos. Kind of like those tilting picture toys that change images, except it doesn't change images (thankfully). That would be dangerously distracting going edge to edge! 12/28/18 update: Just thought I'd add to this review after riding some late day, really chopped up crud (chud?) from a wet snowfall from the day before. I swear this board goes through this stuff like nothing I've ridden before, as if It had a plate, but with no loss of snow feel. As it slices through rough stuff you can feel the ends of the board moving, but it barely seems to reach your feet. The bumps just seem to get smoothed out before they reach your feet. My knees are so very thankful. There were occasional soft pockets and it seemed to magically float over, rather than dig in, even in the middle of a hard carve. At the bottom of the hill the snow transitioned to icy hard and the board handled it fine, even if I hadn't adjusted my technique yet. I'm still learning to trust that this board will handle a wide variety of conditions with an ease I'm not used to. WARP design virtual plate effect? Not that this matters to me one bit, but in the lift line I heard "look at that board" or "cool board" and on the chair, "hey mister, I like your board" quite a lot today.

No opening day "white ribbon of death" this year. Groomed full width! I sat back and managed to get out of sync with the 50 or so people who fought to get those first chairs. That way I had a clear slope riding down as they were all riding back up. After about an hour it started to get busier so I called it a day. Snow was pretty good. Everything was groomed just before opening at 10am.(4pipe, double jaw, scissor bill and Bindle stiff). It was above freezing so the snow was mostly soft, yet fast with some of icy hard crunchy patches. Deep carves could find a hard under surface. My new Superconductor was making snappy air-born turns and never lost an edge even though I could hear those icy spots. Update 8pm: Well it's raining pretty good out there now and 39 degrees. Maybe Sunday will be better when it gets cold again.

Blackjack (not Indianhead) open Fri-Sat-Sun until Dec 14th when Indianhead starts daily ops.

Finally moved my tiny house up to the St Louis river at the base of Spirit Mt. I'll be up there this weekend working on the house. I expect I won't be able to resist taking some breaks to make some turns on the slopes, despite it being opening weekend and with the snowmobile cross. The slopes are looking better than usual for this time of year, hoping Friday's warm-up doesn't change that. I'm now living the life of @bobble only 5 minutes from the hill which I can see out my back window! btw, Indianhead is looking great on the webcams. They've had a bit more lake-effect snow than Duluth.

Buck conditions have been looking good on the webcam and thanks for the first hand reports. Wish they were open weekday mornings during this early season. Battling cross city traffic to get there at 4pm has deterred me. I expect to be down there for the NorAm races Dec 14-16.

Making mountains of snow on 4pipe now. Still making snow at the top and must be done with the center runs. Good snow making temps, but not much natural snow so far. Opening day set for the day after Thanksgiving, Friday 11/23. Webcam is live: https://www.spiritmt.com/live-cams

I was already thinking of trying to go to Sun Peaks for a few days before heading down to Turner, so this sounds perfect! It's right on the way.

Mark just posted this video of my new Superconductor before it ships tomorrow! This is the "negative" version of the new standard topsheet for the Super. It's like I've been in the Thirst board-a-month club all summer!

Just took delivery of this SF 162 today! Second of 3 boards for me from Thirst (small, med and large). Multi-board discount and came with a board bag! This really should be in the board porn section...

Told me he signed up same day I did--last minute, but don't bother him, as he's busy building my boards:)

Denatured alcohol will remove adhesive residue and prepares surface for good adhesion. I use contact cement to re-attach. I have reused many spike pads this way (removing them with heat), but then I don't travel with boards stacked together and haven't needed a base grind in years, so it's just when I'm trading out an old board.

Sounds...not so idyllic ...but, yea, that's funny, I remember reading about that Burton guy when I lived in Vermont back in the 70's ...invented a new sport---surfing on snow with plywood boards, what a crazy idea. but, back to the Kessler email saga...

Thought I'd relate this tangentially related story, that may or may not relate to difficulties in communications with Kessler. At the last NorAm race at Buck hill I rode up the chair with a coach who told me about the time he visited the Kessler "factory" several years ago. He was in Switzerland for some races, and decided to take delivery of a custom 162 in person. He said the only way to get to Kessler's small workshop was by tram or gondola to a small mountain top village in the Alps. Located in an old wooden structure in a remote mountain village---I can't remember all the details, but was left with quite the idyllic image of a place to live and work.

Can't say I like auctions either, but since this is probably the best place to buy and sell used (and now new?) alpine gear, I don't have a problem with asking folks to make a donation for using the site for profit. I listed a pair of old boots for tiny feet with a suggested price , open to any offers above the cost of shipping, which will go towards the website.

That's a good point (roughly 20% off) , but don't Canadians have to round their 2 cents worth down to zero now? Also consider that Bruce is working on a graduated schedule of increased pricing into winter and is apparently rebalancing his work to play ratio (less work/more play).

Okay, a full WARP carving quiver. I'm assuming the "PC" is a powder carver? split tail? Yea, I suppose I'll "need" one of those too. I'm pretty sure my mother warned me to steer clear of guys @Algunderfoot in the parking lots at ski areas with a trunkload of "merchandise" to sample. So, now I'm a thirsty junky?

I may as well confess---I was going to wait until later this summer, but couldn't, so I talked to Mark last week and sent him a deposit for a full quiver of Thirst WARP boards---small, medium and large. Rode both the Super and 8RW and it was as eye opening as the first time I rode a metal board (a Kessler) compared to the ride of my then favorite glass FC1. Plus, I'm not getting any younger, and as Dreadman has said "so many boards, and so little time"....and I was also a little afraid that with all these great reviews he might get too busy.

Check this out...

I would like to offer these up for donation to the website. Shipping in lower 48 should be about $20. Anything above that will go to support this website. If anyone is familiar with these boots, feel free to comment.They look like nice boots, but they're way too small for me so don't know what they're like. I'm thinking...buy it now at $50 (shipped)...or make an offer. My wife used them a bit and I've lent them out to folks. Size marked on both shell and liner is 25.5 and they measure 26cm from heel to toe on the inside of the lace-up liner. There is a screw on the outside of the heel of the shell that adjusts the boot ramp (heel lift) on the inside. Three micro-adjustable buckles plus velcro cuff strap. Ride/walk locking mechanism with forward lean adjustment. There is one issue with them---while in storage there was some kind of rubbery plastic bushing in the ankle/cant joint left a gooey mess as it slowly dissolved or melted. Should be easy to fabricate some kind of replacement, I tried making a replacement "washer" made from a scrap of old car tire. Seems like it might work--see photos.

So, maybe all manor of inserts are hidden under that ptex topsheet and you just have to drill for them (so I've heard)?

Each of my used custom Kesslers had a different insert pattern for various plate systems (Hangel, , Vist and Allflex). The first two I had were from back when all Kesslers were custom made--before the white topsheet option and the addition of the Swiss cross to the "R". I had simply referenced the pictures on the Kessler website which shows (current?) stock boards with standard inserts and assumed they were representative of a stock board. Seems it would make sense, since insert patterns are evolving every few years with new plate designs and UPM ain't so universal anymore. I'm thinking those Bomber Kesslers were from the first year Kessler started making "stock" boards and maybe Fin was hoping to pair them up with Boiler plates?

A stock board won't have added inserts like UPM, so should be built to ride fine without a plate. All the Kesslers I've had were custom from racers and had extra inserts for various plates. The 180 I had rode great without a plate and it was my only board for a couple of years. I had two different 162's that were made for lighter riders and didn't perform well for me. Maybe a plate would have helped, but I don't like plates. I think the shorter boards are less forgiving of being overpowered if you're too heavy for it. The 180 I had was also built for a lighter rider (racer) and was perfect for me. The stock 168 I rode ( a couple of runs on frozen cord) felt as stiff as my custom Rev (I'm 185lbs), although not great conditions to really get a feel for it. It was a board a young racer was selling as he had gotten it thinking he could use it for GS--much too stiff for him. Selling it after he found the 171 much more appropriate.

One of those boats unfortunately lost a crew member overboard on that stretch of ocean in those conditions and had to do just that to search for him. One of the first things I learned as a kid was "one hand for the ship, and one hand for yourself". Although, in those conditions with heavy water crashing over the whole boat, you'd need 2 hands and be tied to the ship as well. Those boats go very well to windward too. They have a course race at the start of each leg before they head out to sea. The New Zealand start is fun to watch as every Kiwi sailor in all manor of sailing craft (practically the whole nation) was on the water to see them off, including windsurfers and foiling kite boarders that were able to keep pace with them as they headed off shore.