Jarcode
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Posts posted by Jarcode
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Day 34, Manning
Another easy day, went a bit longer this time, and managed to carve a lot more. Still taking it very easy, but my flexibility has already improved a lot over yesterday. Working on really leaning into my heel side and staying straighter, since my usual posture is not exactly comfortable right now.
Had a 2.5 hour private lesson today, all bunny hill shenanigans. Tested my patience a bit, but we persevered.
Still cutting the day short to stop myself from doing something stupid freeriding. -
Day 33, Manning
First day back after my spinal injury. Restricted myself to a half day and only took a single bunny hill lesson, but everything worked out well. Still difficult to get my bindings on, and I can't carve much.
However, some mellow green runs and very light carving seems to be helping the pain. Keeping off the pain meds for now.
Students were really fun today, absolute beginners that were close to turning in just over an hour. I get to teach them again tomorrow! Snow is not the perfection I was carving on two weeks ago, some freeze/thaw is in effect now, but the grooming is still great. Orange streak looked incredible today.
At this rate, I think I'm 4-5 days away from being fully recovered.
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This board may be turned into a wall piece this season, pick it up before I drill into it!
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48 minutes ago, charliechocolate said:
This ~!@#$%^&ing weather. Too wet for bikes, too warm for boards.
Cypress has had it pretty rough this year. I met so many Vancouverites fleeing the rain all the way out at Manning.
I blame our amazing carving conditions for my injury... was enjoying myself too much to let some pain take me off the slopes. Its really hard to take some downtime when you're living minutes away from excellent snow & grooming!
My GS board has finally cleared customs, so I'll have a nice present to myself by the time I'm recovered. -
Update: I am now able to sit & stand! Now which comes first... walking or snowboarding?
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Sorry that I couldn't join your session.
My back pain progressed to extreme levels over the past few days. I can't walk without significant medication now, there is a very high likelihood I damaged another lumbar disc, causing it to bulge into my spinal cord. Nerve pain through my hips and down one of my legs... very similar to the last time I seriously injured my back at work.
If things don't start improving soon, I'm off to the hospital for imaging. I can't even sit down to type.
Moral of the story: don't ignore back pain and continue to snowboard on it.-
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@BlueB au contraire, we have excellent grooming and excellent snow here!
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Day 32, Manning
Brief meeting again with coaches, and then I was off freeriding with my sister trying out some new softboots. Great grooming again, and we got a respectable amount of snowfall today.
Today was the day my body gave out from the 13 day riding streak I had going. My lower back is completely locked up and very sore... not from any injury, it just progressively got worse over the last couple days. Interestingly, my lack of flexibility helped me correct some heel side posture issues since bending over too much was painful!
Tomorrow is a much needed day off the snow. I am going to make sure my riding is 6 days a week from now on, rather than the 7 I was attempting.
Clips to come! -
Day 31, Manning
Amazing grooming again, I am getting quite vocal with my compliments at this point. I don't know what changed but this has been a substantial improvement over last season. We got some snowfall in the morning, and then the sun came out again for us!
Coach meeting involved the usual stuff, I ditched the training since upper body seperation exercises with bands was not easily transferable to alpine snowboarding (or maybe it is?). Due to delayed meetings, confusion, and lacking my program description on our website... I am left without any signups at the moment. We do have snowboard gates coming though, along with all the coach vests, and we're officially registered with BC Snowboard now.
I took up a 2.5 hour private lesson at the end of the day with one student, lots of fun! Went from the rope tow, to the T-bar, to the chairlift in an hour -- linking turns and everything. It ended with a sprained wrist though, so I had to do some paperwork at the end of the day for that. Nothing too concerning, but I'd rather have patrol look at it than shrug off the injury.
@BlueB I'll join you in the rain for training this tuesday!
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Day 30, Manning
Somewhat frustrating day. Great first laps, phenomenal grooming, nice clear sunny day... but the school group lessons exhausted my patience. We had a student who wilfully misidentified their skill level and ended up on Bear chair with only the ability to sideslip on mellow terrain (no pendulum), despite preliminary questioning before heading up. Ended up wasting a ton of my time, when I could have been making progress with other students.
Second group was much more fun, and the students seemed to appreciate my faster pace of teaching (they complained that a lesson at Grouse was twice as long and covered far less material!). Although I didn't clear them to use the chairlift, I did see them successfully make it down with some of their more advanced friends later on.
Had a really close call with one of my students who almost got her neck sliced by an out-of-control skier on the bunny hill, who was freeriding after his own lessons... making it the second lecture I had to give today.
Had some fun laps with the students I taught on my first day of work, since this was a returning school. Some have improved a lot!
More tomorrow.-
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Day 29, Manning
School groups today! Bus showed up late, so I got a lot of early tracks on the absolutely phenomenal grooming job, riding with one of the staff responsible for the coduroy today! We've had so many good carving days here and I still can't get enough of it.
Lessons were fun; we ended up getting a big group of kids all at a similar skill level and co-taught.
Joined our short-handed patrol for the sweep today, and then headed over to the pub to watch hockey with a bunch of staff.
Rode orange streak for the first time today since the grooming on it finally widened it enough for carving. Very difficult, steeper than the first pitch of JJ at Cypress... but so much fun.
More tomorrow! -
Day 28, Manning
Excellent morning groom & hardpack, with a fairly empty mountain (<50 tickets sold). I taught a high level staff carving lesson to another snowboard instructor, using some of the criteria I learned from Cypress yesterday.
My next lesson was a youth carving lesson! Lots of habits to break, but so much fun to teach. It's unusual to see kids ask for carving instead of park...I love this job! More tomorrow.
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Day 27, Cypress
Training in the morning with Emma working on off-piste riding. Was extremely painful on my injury given the icy state of the moguls here.
Carving training in the afternoon with Charlie. I got some nice tips out of it for teaching others how to carve... but still a lot of sloppy riding on my behalf due to injury and being a little thrown off by the conditions and visibility. Looking forward to having @BlueB back for hardboot instruction.
ALTS session in the evening, got some good progress out of my group. I really like this program!
Drove all the way back to Manning after, ended up reaching here at about 1:30AM. Not sure that was a good idea, my sleep suffered... -
Day 26, Manning
This is technically my day off, but I prescribed myself some mellow carving as physiotherapy for yesterday's injury. Only did 6 laps... was really sore this morning though. Whiplash, lower back is stiff, but my foot is a lot better than it was yesterday.
Good conditions, little firmer than yesterday. Groomers were ruined really fast this morning by heel edge warriors scraping all the snow downhill.
Back to Cypress tomorrow.
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14 minutes ago, barryj said:
Well......all this discussion on heel hold makes me wonder what's too much??
Considering I'm a size 11.5 in most street shoes/boots and I sized over a full size down to a US 10/mondo 28 in my 425's I never felt I had much heel movement, maybe a half inch both heels, but what is too much?
To me, any movement is too much. When my boots are completely buckled down on my MS boots, my heels are almost completely locked in place. I'm using Zipfit liners, the stiffest Race Department shells, very thin foam heel lifts inside of the boot to reduce volume, and some extra foam pads just under the shell tongues to make the instep really snug.
In my T700s, I had a small amount of heel lift after adding lifts inside of the boot to reduce volume, and padding the hell out of my intuition liners. I always maxed out the instep buckle.
Switching to MS was eye opening, so much more responsive and I feel like my heel-to-toe transition improved because I don't have to adjust to my foot shifting slightly in my boot.
On both shells I unbuckled after every run. I also found that the cuff on my T700s was just not tight enough in general. I will however point out that the MS Race Department shells are excessively stiff for most people and hindered my off-piste riding. Go for the ST or WC flex instead. -
Toe lift is mandatory on the front foot for UPZs. The ramp on those is insane, but you can also get away with slightly lower binding angles than Deeluxe shells due to the smaller sole length. UPZs also seem to be even more difficult to walk in.
I agree with @Jack M that bail bindings aren't really enough of a chore to warrant step-ins. The clear upgrade here would otherwise be the .951 shells. G-style's speed plates could also be an option for MS boots, but I've seen little information on them outside of Japan and would rather trust bails.
From my experience, Deeluxe offers terrible heel hold and needs considerable liner modification to resolve this. UPZ still looks like a better option for those wanting better heel hold, unless fitting a very bulky ankle/heel (disclaimer: I have only tried the Track 325 and 700). -
Day 25, Manning
Started with laps with ski instructors and one of the other part time snowboard instructors. Ended in a nasty crash between the two of us... I loaded my nose and flew off into the trees to prevent slicing the snowboard instructor who speed checked at an unfortunate position. No uphill checks on his behalf, and I incorrectly assumed he'd hold his carve.
My ankle is bruised from the boot plastic digging into it, but not sprained. Would have been broken with a softboot. Manager made me get checked out at patrol, I survived on unhealthy amounts of ibuprofen to keep riding & teaching through the day. It barely hurts now, but we'll see how it feels tomorrow morning...
Co-taught a kid's group lesson in the morning, since I returned to the bunny hill late after getting my return to work approval. Had a staff carving lesson in the afternoon! So much fun, was a complete success.
Amazing grooming in the morning, mostly clear today. Some icy sections but still great snow here. -
Day 24, Manning.
Day started with vehicle problems. Seems like the mass of electrical issues that hit my truck during the cold snap has the transmission stuck in between modes... won't start unless it's in park/neutral, and nothing seems to get it there. I'm stuck here now; had to take the bus up the ski hill.
Decent groom, nice carving in the morning, firm hardpack underneath. Cleared up during the day to reveal our usual view.
Two lessons, both were siblings with a bit of a skill gap, but I still managed to teach a good deal to the stronger riders. So much fun!
Met a hardbooter from Vancouver! Apparently he rides at Cypress, I have referred him to @BlueBfor advanced lessons (out of my territory!). EC style, F2 Silberpfeil, Track 700 w/ intec heels. Looks like there's a couple people escaping the terrible snow from the north shore mountains here. -
@barryj I'm m28 and at the end of the C shell (needed shell work though). D is too large.
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Day 23, Manning
Firm snow, and a LOT of snowfall. Forecast was completely off again, expected 5cm at most, got almost 25cm through the day. Great carving.
Had two lessons, both ended up as private. First group had to be split up due to an age & skill gap.
One of the kids I taught was a prodigy... so much fun to teach. I also was teaching a surfer how to snowboard, so it seems like @BlueB and I are on opposite ends today. -
Day 22, Manning.
Firm snow, some icy patches revealed in some parts of the mountain. Good carving, much faster snow than what we kicked off the season with. Snowfall started at the end of the day, and it's still coming down.Two group lessons today, both were pretty fun.
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Day 21, Cypress
Probably the worst conditions of the season. I think about 70mm of rain dumped on Cypress today, completely betraying forecasts again (it said 5mm this morning!). Waterfalls, sinkholes, and pooling water everywhere. Somehow, easy rider was still crowded. My phone is also probably ruined from the rain, waterproof pockets didn't work so well.
The actual teaching was the only thing that made my day enjoyable. I had students that toughed through the rain pretty well in both the morning and afternoon.
Didn't even bother to go for my own laps because I didn't bring a wakeboard. The base is shrinking fast; if things don't cool down soon we could be seeing runs and lifts closing.
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Day 20, Manning
Wet powder. Better than yesterday, about 25cm of snowfall at the top of Bear, with a lot less new snow at the base as most of that ended up being rain. Snow was so heavy that floating in it was pretty effortless, it just demanded a fresh wax. No ice yet; the mountain has yet to freeze over since the warm weather kicked in.
Rode with employees from my local ski shop enjoying their corporate passes. Less than 15 guests on the ski hill in total.
The highway closed again, was only able to leave after 5PM when they lifted the roadblock. The drive home wasn't too bad.
Lower Mainland Carvers' Diaries, 2022/23
in Canada - British Columbia
Posted
Day 35, Manning
Riding harder today, I can really feel the shocks in my back on heel side carves... really focusing on leaning into the turn and avoiding any flexion of the lower back. Kicked up the forward lean on my front foot a bit, it was clearly too straight before. Feeling better the more I ride, which is a good sign.
Rode the WCRM today instead of the bastard, I feel like I can trust the edge hold on it a lot more. The bastard is also getting even more epoxy repairs now, this plank is unlikely to survive the season.
No lessons today, just got some talks with the club out of the way and put myself on availability for walk-ins.
Excellent carving conditions. Steady light snow through the day, cleared up at the end.