Jarcode
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Posts posted by Jarcode
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I think they should be okay for now. I will be checking the plate periodically for "shifting" from now on.
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Day 52, Manning
Today was the best blue bird pow day I have enjoyed for a long time.
Last night, the grooming staff were working hard to pack down all the snow that came down lately. They were already skipping orange streak and featherstone, and got tower six groomed early in the night.
Then, completely by surprise, about 15-20cm of snow just dumped during the night all of a sudden. Not forecasted at all. This added to the crazy amount of powder already on Blue Chair, leaving it to about 45-50cm of heavy powder.
The groomers had to then re-do all of their work, and abandoned repeating tower six. This ruined the little chance we had at setting up a slalom course, but the runs that were groomed twice over were actually quite nice.
This morning, most of the staff went straight to Blue chair, including myself, riding the bastard on hardboots. The pow was unbelivably fun, and we got a bunch of footage of it. Ray and his girlfriend joined in early in the morning to enjoy it with us, riding bordercross setups! Runs that used to be moguls were just flat with powder, clifs were completely coated, and landing anything was so easy because of the layering in the snow... it seemed to just absorb all the impact for you.
There wasn't too many people on the chair that morning, so it was about 2 hours of straight powder riding before it was all tracked out. Ray seemed quite blown away by how few people were there, knowing how crazy Whistler has been over much less snow.
In the afternoon we all switched to our carving setups, and enjoyed the groomers. Ray commented "too soft, needs more ice" and got a look of horror from one of our ski instructors. I obviously agreed, but after baking in the sun a little, the snow should be perfect come tomorrow morning.
I cut my day short by 30 minutes, noticing a bit of fatigue and conserving energy for tomorrow. I then noticed my plate had come completely loose! Upon disassembly, only one of the four rear bolts had any threads in the inserts. Probably a dangerous situation.
We got a lot of footage today, going until the camera battery died. Clips to come, and I think I'm going to be editing for a couple hours now... -
Day 51, Manning
School group lesson in the morning, a bit of freeriding, and then another group lesson from the school in the afternoon. Beginner lessons, had a couple students give up today. I was stretched thin on the bunny hill since we were short instructors.
At the very end of the day, I taught a staff carving lesson to a newly certified snowboard instructor (who is one of our best ski instructors). Pretty fun!
I got recruited to help patrol sweep the mountain once again.
We got a lot of surprise snow today, a bit warm and very empty, so the riding was pretty slow with all the new stuff coming down. We're still dealing with "medium" pack for carving.
Blue chair has about 35cm of untouched powder built up, it's opening tomorrow. I originally had organized a course on that chair for tomorrow, but we had to call it off since it's unlikely it can be groomed enough by then. -
@BlueB I thought about it! I just found the bastard to be perfect in the trees, and wanted to work on getting used to the VIST plate in the afternoon. I also found the extra weight of the plate to be useful for cutting through chopped up snow.
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Day 50, Manning
Powder everywhere. About a foot of it at the top.
After enjoying a quick morning lap, I taught an advanced lesson with the students I taught on my first day this season. They had become really skilled riders, so I skipped greens entirely today and warmed up on a blue. I then introduced a short lesson on riding powder, told students to experiment with exploring the sides of Shadow and dropping back into the chute, and before I knew it my students were having a blast and laughing every time they fell in the incredibly soft snow.
I then took them into a much more difficult line, all fresh powder, and connected back into the very end of shadow. It went well, so I decided to take them down Gulley for the last run. I refrained from telling them it was a black diamond run, but they all did fine and enjoyed the rolling terrain with all the fresh snow. Once I broke the news at the bottom of the lift that they all just did their first black run, they were shocked.
I was free to ride the rest of the day. I enjoyed the powder a bit more on the bastard, and then I went to carving the "medium" pack with the WCRM + Vist plate. Kind of slow to carve in, needs grooming. -
Day 49, Cypress
Carving training was cancelled for strategic reasons. Turned out to be a good idea since the slop that fell from the sky today was borderline uncarvable... even after it packed out in the evening, I could only make two turns before losing all my speed (and leaving a massive, unsafe trench behind me).
I split my group into half, handing off some unusually proficient students to another instructor, and waiting for the other two to arrive. Turned out those students were a no show, so I ended up as a floating instructor today. Joined up with Edu's group and we co-taught a lesson, since we seem to work together well
I brought the WCRM w/ VIST plate for a single lap. Not exactly suited for the conditions.
On the drive back to Manning, I seemed to have run back into the storm that hit Cypress this morning. Heavy snow, and the good kind.
Seems like Ray will be joining me at Manning this week, too. -
Day 48, Manning (yesterday)
Was a fairly mellow day, had a two hour lesson booked but the student didn't show up. Freeriding all day for me, which was mostly trying to conquer the GS board. I'm moving the plate over to my WCRM now so I can get the benefits of it on a much more forgiving board, the 19m sidecut on the RG189 is insane and I need to slowly work my way towards it. It's incredibly difficult to ride with people around, and requires me to ride aggressively, so I found myself getting exhausted at the end of the day.
It's pretty astonishing when you compare it to my '98 Coiler Pure Race, things have changed a lot since then in slalom.
I really love the VIST plate though. I also realized that its heavy weight is part of how it helps the board cut through chop better. I'm looking forward to using this at Cypress. -
Some rear leg burn is fairly “normal” for me if I’m riding hard all day, especially If I’m really trying to flex my board. Binding setback is the only thing that seems to help distribute the force.
Less forward lean also works, but inhibits aggressive riding, and can cause some pretty uncomfortable flexion at the turn’s apex if you are “extending” your legs out.
I really don’t mind either. My leg muscles might end up being a bit asymmetrical, though
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Day 47, Manning
Started the day with some warmup laps, got once more in with the GS board... my toeside sucks on this thing. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but it feels like I'm just falling over, I assume I really need to "push" through the turn to make it bend. The muted feeling from the snow is is unbelievable though, I guess that's what the Vist plate and rubber + titanal board is going to net me.
The rest of the day was packed with lessons.
First was two intermediate students, very different skill levels, but we accomplished a lot in an hour. Taught one student carved J turns and switch, and got him doing static 180s. The other needed a lot of work on toe side, but I spotted her at the end of the day with major improvements and she called out to me to show it off!
Next lesson was the staff lesson from yesterday that was cancelled. A lot of work rebuilding confidence after the fall from yesterday, but we worked on a lot and made good progress. Pulled out my phone to record for feedback on this lesson.
Next lesson was bunny hill, with two kids. Unfortunately one of the kids was given a comically oversized rental board and it turned into a nightmare to teach. I had to personally raise the issue to figure out what happened, because it wasn't even close to her size.
The final lesson was a last-minute adult private lesson, someone wanted to work on their turns... turned out this older guy was a huge fan of Ross Rebagliati, so he was pretty receptive when I showed up on hardboots. He improved a ton, needed a lot of work to develop more dynamic turns and edge control, but he was doing perfect uphill carves by the end of the day. First time I was able to "nerd out" on technique discussion because this guy had an engineering background and wanted every bit of information possible to explain carving on a snowboard
More tomorrow! -
Day 45, Manning
Another fun day, but they didn't groom Orange or Featherstone today which was a shame. Still carvable, the snow just got a lot firmer. Lots of debris from the wind yesterday was kicked around onto the runs. Shadow was still really fun.
Started the day with training, I was the one giving the feedback for the other single snowboarder available today, and the skiers did their thing alongside us. Gary used me as training material and encouraged the skiers to follow my tracks.
My first staff lesson was cancelled because said staff got injured on her warmup laps before the time slot
My second lesson was productive, but it started on the chair when it really should have been on the T bar. I don't mind since it was a 1 hour private, so I let it slide and took our time getting down. She was happy to conquer the chairlift early.
My third lesson, also staff, was carving specific. Intermediate progression: setting the edge early, planning the turn better, bringing the weight back at the crux of the turn, and speed control. I used Shadow as a corridor for forcing him to use all the available space, which worked well!
Patrol was short-handed again, so I helped with sweep. The snow really picked up at the end of the day.
I managed to run one lap on my new GS board... HOLY SHIT! This thing is unbelievably damp, feels like I'm riding a piece of rubber. Setting it on edge feels like I'm riding on a railroad track. I don't feel much from the snow with a plate, but I really like the feeling of it! I want a lighter plate for my WCRM now...
Looking forward to learning how to make the race board bend. I'm going to have to work my way back up to riding orange streak on this thing!
Some staff took my camera for a couple laps of their own. Got some good clips of them enjoying the soft moguls on skis. -
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Day 44, Manning
Today we were operating in the red; no school groups today, and only 17 tickets sold online at the start of the day. The resort was dead, AGS went to skeleton crew mode and I had no lessons booked. The thing is, it was a clear blue bird day with the same excellent grippy snow, all freshly groomed...
Naturally, I rode with a bunch of staff (mostly on skis) and went until my legs and knees started to get sore. We were riding orange streak over and over, and I was leaving my signature trenches. Eventually one of my coworkers started to complain about them, and then patrol complained about my tracks!
We got some clips today, camera's HDR decided to malfunction though so they're all going to come out with an annoying blue tinge. -
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Day 43, Manning
@roch and his brother come out to Manning to get a taste of our perfect carving conditions. Clear visibility with breaks of sun, our usual high-quality grooming, and grippy snow for carving. Featherstone was groomed really nicely today.
One school group lesson, and one no-show. Pretty much a full day of freeriding.
Made an effort to practise what we were training on yesterday, it really helped in the steeps! -
@BlueB Thanks for the training! More stuff to work on...
Lots of snow during the drive back to Manning, but it got progressively lighter the more I drove inland. I'm really sleep deprived, ended up hallucinating a snowboarder on the highway and swerved out of the way. -
7 hours ago, slapos said:
any particular reason for this liner failure?
was that due to inserting the liner into the shell while on feet?
I was thinking of getting boot horn for easy entry with liners on
From what I can tell, the seams along the rear "spine" of the liner just need to be improved. I believe it was caused by just putting my foot in the liner, and the liner flexing in the boot while riding. It's a new model by ZipFit, so I expect that this should be improved in the future. I can take a picture later.-
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I threw in the ZipFit GFT liner in my .951s (also C shell, m28 foot, lots of punches on the forefoot for extra space). I have a little bit of heel lift left, but the nice thing about these liners is that you can inject cork into it to keep things snug, and the cork moves around nicely to alleviate pressure points. Very thin and stretchy toebox, also not the warmest.
I noticed that injecting cork into the liner tongue made a huge difference, and I also insert little foam pads just under the shell tongues to reduce volume even more for my low instep.
And while I have nothing but praise for ZipFit liner comfort, the GFT model quickly tore in the back, just above the heel. I ended up applying a very large amount of superglue to keep it together, and it has been fine since then.
If you have really small heels, maybe look at some of their higher volume liners, which are quite sturdy and come with more cork in the liners. All of the ZipFit liners seem to have a very thin and stretchy neoprene toebox. Warmth is also not as good compared to foam liners, I resolve this with temporary little heating packets on my toes for cold days.-
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I met a snowboarder who saw me carving and concluded that carving must only be possible on hardboots
Also from a ski instructor: "I don't think I can bend my ski to turn that tight". I believe our SCR was about the same between my board and his freeride skis.
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Day 41, Manning
It got a bit cold today, started at about -20C in the morning, but the sun came out and made for a really nice bluebird day. The grooming and hardpack was perfect, extremely grippy snow. I had a lot of free time to carve in the morning, and just kept going over and over. Pure bliss.
Some free ski instructors joined in on the carving fun with me. Had a lot of comments about my equipment today...
Two lessons in the afternoon, one public, one staff. -
Day 40, Manning
Today's weather was the most erratic I've ever seen. From blizzard to sunny within five minutes, clouds clashing overhead leading to a lot of surprise snowfall. Conditions were excellent through the day, good carving, but the grooming took a considerable drop in quality. I was getting airtime carving up featherstone due to the ridges.
My schedule was surprisingly light today, so I ended up booking a ski lesson after morning carving. Got to parrallel turns pretty fast, lifting up the inside ski... not quite sure what to do with the poles. Lots of things to think about at once.
Had an extremely fun private lesson with a new kid today. Got an incredible amount of progress, and had his parents tag along on the final run... they were in shock with how much his riding had changed! Looks like I'll be seeing him again.
Today feels like I'm back to normal flexibility. My carving feels really good now. -
Day 39, Manning
Today, we had a school trip that required "guides" for all of their students, so all of the instructors were taking on a slightly different role today. Mostly assessing skill level, and showing people around terrain. We were getting both skiers and snowboarders in our groups.
There was chaos involved in trying to get people in the appropriate skill levels. Lots of bored advanced snowboarders in my group waiting for others, although I did finally manage to shed some students in the morning to let them have some fun in the powder.
I had to teach some rudimentary skiing (wedge turns, coming across the hill to control speed, weighting the downhill ski). There were some students mistakenly put into my group that shouldn't have been with me, and I had to improvise some instruction to get them down the hill safely. It seemed to work, but helping skiers put on their skis on a steep slope is not pleasant.
In the afternoon, my group grew to 11 people! Thankfully we shed some students later, and were left with some faster riders. One of my snowboarders slowly slid off a cat track into a treewell and got stuck... no injuries, but I guess that's why we're guiding them around.
Snow was excellent today. We got a bunch of snow and there was powder to explore in the morning, hardpack will be great tomorrow after another round of grooming. Most of the students were Cypress regulars, and they were happy to ride on something soft. Some of the snowboarders were afraid to commit to their riding because they're not used to being able to trust the snow!
There was a bit of unrelated drama at the end of the day. Left me in a foul mood.
@BlueB glad to see you're getting a lot of use out of that AMT I traded you! -
Day 38, Manning
Three lessons again, two very fun school group lessons... quite advanced! Got two kids carving, which was good to see. So much improvement out of these returning students. One private staff lesson afterwards, also fairly fast progression for a beginner.
Helped the short-handed ski patrol with sweep. Snow was excellent in the morning, visibility was "variable" (far from Cypress fog). Showboated around the CSIA and CASI L1 courses running today.
More tomorrow!
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Day 37, Manning
Three lessons: one large school group at the start, two staff lessons afterwards. Enjoyed a little bit of freeriding, had a low-speed fall on the flats where I hooked my nose unexpectedly and slightly folded it. Not sure what I did wrong but I'm operating on insufficient sleep and too much caffeine, so I just called it after that.
Back is surprisingly fine, front ankle sore because the cuff plastic dug into it on the fall again. Annoying, since I seem to keep doing this by accident. Going to keep taking it easy just in case.
Otherwise, the carving is incredible. Was greeted with extra snow when I returned, and hero groom conditions in the morning. Way better than the mush at Cypress (although that was carvable mush).
The training from @BlueB yesterday is paying off, my toe side feels completely different now. -
Was a really productive session. My carving felt a lot better than usual, partially thanks to my injury which was punishing my bad habits, and the rest was due to @BlueB's training. This is why I continue to make the trek out to Cypress.
Lessons were really fun. Students that I started the program with seemed happy to see me again, and apparently they were asking for me! Ran into Ray in the middle of my lesson, who seemed surprised I was teaching on hardboots.
If the conditions are nice next Tuesday, I may join for both the morning and afternoon carving sessions.
After the long drive back to Manning and unpacking, I'm still awake at 2AM, so I'm going to sleep now..
Lower Mainland Carvers' Diaries, 2022/23
in Canada - British Columbia
Posted
From today, another instructor featured here.