bigwavedave

ExtreemeCarving forum started a thread to review these for free carving. Final evaluations are not published yet. Might be worth checking for their findings later. http://www.extremecarving.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13110

I'm thinking about the Sunday-Thursday pass for $199 (also good for the rest of this season).

Maybe you should look at ski boots. You could probably try the fit at a local shop without having to buy them first. Some racers and freecarvers use them. Maybe @BlueB knows...Dalbello boots? or something similar.

I seem to remember Sean at Donek posting a video of riding a plate with softboots...

Monoski madness today, so it got busy pretty quick over on the express lift. Started out with flat light light and became sunny in short order and then Ken and Jane appeared. Snow was great everywhere and the grooming better than usual, on par with GR. We gravitated over to the Gandy side as monski-ism bogged down the express lift. Mere grooves morphed into trenches in the sun drenched the snow, and it was all good On Gandy... In the chalet I overheard some skiers talking about the trenches" those boarders" were making, holding their hands about 6" apart to demonstrate the depth of the carnage on the hill , an exaggeration! I'm thinking, they complain about boarders who go sideways scraping the snow off the hill and then they complain about clean carved turns Then one of them noticed me and asked if I was leaving. Not sure if he knew I was one of "those boarders", and it could be my imagination, but he seemed happier when I said, "Yes, my work is done here".

^^^That was towards the end of the day and I can see the fatigue in our faces...and the lack of wisdom to call it a day when legs are depleted. Burnt onion soup and a Castle Danger stout made for a good rejuvenator at the end of the day. Here's where we spent most of our time: Orange lines are the runs wide enough for big boards (12m+scr); Yellow lines for steep&narrow and best on a SL board; Yellow/orange line is where you can usually find untracked groom on a wide steep slope later in the day, but pay for it with a long run at the very bottom to get to the lift.

So Palmer skis are made by Kessler?

Maybe about twice as long as the ride down on a big board doing big turns, so about 4 min?...and it was good

Man oh man, nice carving today at GR. Really nice snow, groomed to perfection. Sunny and warm, but not too warm─the snow held up nicely. The new lifts are great. Rode all day with Russ. Big boards mostly, then a little SL fun on some of the steep and narrow Some tracks...and a lot of tracks, laid under the new express lift...

Nice! What's different about the Palmers, scr?

Thanks for posting that @noschoolrider. I found it hard to believe that there was only one qualifying run. Sometimes, if they're really short for time or if conditions suck, they will just do the qualifiers, no finals (at NorAm and World cup contests). Seems somewhat common to end up with single run eliminations in finals. I've never seen them resetting between qualifiers and finals. There are no practice runs, just slipping the course. So, top 16 men from each course got a second run and the top 8 women from each course got a second run (the rest go home). Can you imagine going all the way to the Olympics and getting just one run and you're out?

Oh, and I rode up the chair with a guy riding a 170'ish asym Alp, Burton step-ins and Nordica boots. He was not a small guy and seemed to be trying to make it do big GS turns and blowing out a lot. Must have like a 10m scr? Plus the snow was getting a bit soft by noon. There were a couple of ski carvers that were trying to get as low as we do and trying to bring it all the way across the hill. One of them was getting both hands on the snow, but it looked like quite a struggle, didn't have effortless grace of carving a board. We had one run down Olympic where these two guys dropped into the entrance between Bob and me (me last) and it was fun to watch the effect of 4 of us carving under the chairlift and all the heads turning and fingers pointing.

Heading up to G.R. tomorrow!

Yea, I'll tell that story later....bad vibes The good is that it was 2nd day groom and it was good... Olympic before: And after:

About 8" fresh powder on the hill today! Got to try out a vintage Fishwith super-soft step-in hardboots. With 3cm taper the Fish really floats up on the snow. Even with just 8" of powder I barely felt the bottom. I think it will be great in the deeper stuff, and turny enough for going into the trees. I arrived just after opening, so missed the first tracks, but found some... The hill was all tracked out after about an hour, so I switched to the 164 Incline and had a blast carving through the crud. Trenches were so deep! Legs were toast by noon. I was planning to stay and ride tomorrow, but then remembered that Spirit doesn't open till noon on Monday and Tuesday. I have Monday off so maybe I'll go to Buck for some soft 1st day groom.

I agree he was faster to the finish line, if his hand was lower, he would have won. Everyone "cheats" the technology by punching their hand down, it's the accepted norm. People with long arms (and a board with a short nose?) have an advantage that has nothing to do with how fast they are. The rules of a body part crossing first date back to when you started by tripping a wand with a body part (legs). Now the nose of the boards are even with a gate at the start. When you're measuring results in thousandths of a second, maybe they should think about some kind modern technology─sensors on the racers front foot? ....and calculate the setback from the nose? They were using sensors on halfpipers for vert measurement.

Normally, even with single elimination finals, the top 16 racers from each course get a second run in the other course. Top 16 combined times from qualifiers go on to finals. The top 8 get to pick the course they like for their pairing, giving them an earned (by being fast in qualifiers) advantage. But, I didn't see the qualifiers...so don't know for sure how they did it. Trap and AJ likely didn't finish top 16 in their course to earn a second run.

Yippie!!! These storm tracks with lows going just south of us are great for Duluth and the north shore getting E/NE lake effect winds. Might have to come back up to Spirit Sunday if I can dig out. Had to shovel my way in last night when I got home!

So, qualifiers were one run and done? I didn't see qualifiers. I obviously saw the single elimination finals. My question was did the top 16 racers from each course get the normal run in the other course to qualify into the finals. If so, it's fair, just makes finals a little less open to surprises and 2nd chances. Single elimination finals happens quite often in world cup and NorAm races when they are short on time. My previous post: Posted 10 hours ago (edited) What a disappointment, the NBC announcers are terrible! They don't explain much and really don't seem to be very knowledgeable about the PGS format. Looks like they're doing a single run elimination to save time. Top qualifiers get to pick the fast course and looks like red is faster. What's cool is the stands are packed!

I was just going to ask if anyone else saw that. The photo finish looked like the Kosir won and you hear him saying so when he saw the replay. So I just looked at the photo and maybe Kosir's hand is higher than the sensor, but in the photo, he clearly is first.

True, one would expect perfection in course prep at any world class event, in fact there are pretty strict rules regarding such, but then , everyone raced on the same conditions─I'm assuming─Did the top (16?) qualifiers from each course go on to race in the other course and then eliminate based on combined times? Too bad they shortened the whole format. It does make it less fair not having each racer go through each course, especially when one course seems so much faster for whatever reason.

What a disappointment, the NBC announcers are terrible! They don't explain much and really don't seem to be very knowledgeable about the PGS format. Looks like they're doing a single run elimination to save time. Top qualifiers get to pick the fast course and looks like red is faster. What's cool is the stands are packed!

6-9" deep powder. Runs were groomed overnight during storm. They apparently groom the Gandy side first because the snow was deepest there (about boot high). We ( @rwmaron and I) were the second & 3rd set of tracks on Blue Ruin, riding 180cm Inclines with hardboots. Sky Hooker was pretty deep too. We worked our way back over to the 4pipe side and found @khoward over there. Center of 4pipe was groomed early this morning with about 4" fresh left on the sides. This photo taken there after my first run about ½hr before opening. Rode til about 3pm. Things got pretty tracked out by noon and the going was rough on the legs, but bright sun and warmth made us keep going. Had to keep the board way up on edge with quick transitions to slice through the push piles without getting bounced to death. My legs were cramping on the 2hr drive home, had to stop and walk it out.

3rd day groom after a foot of snow rode everywhere today. Gandy Dancer & Blue Ruin2-4" trenches. The first few of many... ...and it's snowing hard now, NE wind producing lake effect in Duluth, 5-9" forecastLooks like it's back to Spirit tomorrow Rode with @khoward for first 2 hours in bright sun and stayed til about 3pm with filtered sun as the next storm approaches.

Yea, I was just saying you could do a day trip to Indianhead from wherever your staying in Duluth, although I see that you're just here for a 3 days...so, just an idea if you decide you want to see some different terrain after a day at Spirit. I think it's worth it.