GoofyFoot

Which is why Thursday holds much better promise - if the rain is minimal. I plan to sneak away early and get to CF at dusk to get a few carving turns in before I teach a class at 7 PM. Any one else interested? Yeah, if it starts raining hard, I do not expect anyone to come out, but I am an eternal optimist! -Brian

LC, J'ai constaté que vous avez acheté un pair de CATEK OS2 - short plate. J'ai un pair à vendre aussi; preque neuf - utilisé un fois, oui! un fois, par une amie qui a decidé a rester avec sa planche freeride. Si vous avez des amis qui veulent un pair de CATEK (avec le D3 Upgrade Elastomers), le prix est $225. Ils sont attaché a un Volkl SL 158 Renntiger, aussi utilisé un fois ($300) et un pair des bottes Deeluxe neuf, $350, sz 25 (?), je pense. En plus, je voyage à Tremblant souvent. Je sera la cette Dimanche, par example.

DMC, It will be interesting to hear what Stephane's opinion is later today or tomorrow. He posted the same request for MT advice on the QC ride board (en français, of course!) and had one reply from v3rse (who I am guessing is a racer dude by his avatar) who recommended all the steeper pitches - such as Kandahar and McCullough! I should've asked Stephane what his preferred style of riding is. Me, I am an old guy (north of 50) who is also a CASI II SB instructor. While I still enjoy running down the slopes at speed, I usually give the steeps a pass since it is too much work for my well-abused knees. As you can tell from my picks, I am a big fan of the wide-open cruiser runs.

Yes, conditions were good and Tabby is once again a CF enthusiast! Not to mention putting in a "perfect" valley season

LC, Si vous cherchez seulement l'affair InTec (ou FinTec), allez voir le "For Sale" et aussi le "Wanted" message boards. Moi, je n'ai pas vu beaucoup des announces pour juste les talons. Dans mon opinion, c'est mieux d'acheter les pieces neufs de YYZ Canuck (de Toronto - appelez or email Andrea) par internet, à Boutique Shark à Montréal ou Bomber Online - The Store. Ca vaut la peine simplement parce que les cables brissent (break) pendant les années. Personalment, j'ai toujours au moins un cable extra chez moi et à la fin de chaque saison, j'enléve le bas du talon pour lubrier (lubricate ?) les pieces qui bouge et especialment - les cables! Bonne chance, -Brian

J'ai un 170 Oxygen "Dangerous" a vendre, 75$. Vielle, main en bonne condition. Les cotes (edges) sont très fine parce que c'était mis au point dans un machine Wintersteiger recentment. Aussi, un pair de botte Deeluxe neuf. Quelle grandeur cherchez-vous? -Brian (Ottawa)

I will be at CF at opening! Look for me at the bottom of the Clifford chair... The rain will be done by Friday and more snow is in the forecast! Also, I will be at CF tonight (Tue).

T & L has organized a bus trip to Jay with some great deals (free lift ticket Fri PM, meet & greet Fri evening, etc). The real bonus is that Jay just received FOUR FEET of snow in the past week (yeah, go check their website!) so I jumped on this deal on Fri. Email Chris Verrilli (cv@tandl.com) for details. I just looked at the T&L website and could not see the poster and it was too large to post here.

FYI, Tremblant was good yesterday (but not great). Conditions were spotty. Given the fresh snowfall, I expected the corduroy to be deeper, but MT is known for its high winds and the top of a lot of runs were bare. OTOH, some runs were in good shape even late in the day. It was literally "hit or miss." A bonus from riding MT yesterday is that I finally had a chance to run down Algonquin, a looong greeen run on Versant Soleil that was just opened last season. If you get past the "green" designation, it is a monstrously wide run with a nice consistent pitch until almost the very end of the run. I can't wait to go back and catch this run first thing in the morning on my longest GS board to do fast, flat out loopy turns all the way down. As Phil says, you can get a race board up to some serious speed in a short time - even on a "green" run. Note to other MT enthusiasts: keep your speed on all the way to the bottom of this exceptionally long run because it takes a big right-hand turn near the bottom to go back to the chair. At this point, which you will quickly recognize by the large wood rails set up on the outside of the run, the train both narrows and flattens out for ~200 metres. You have been warned! Otherwise, an exceptional recreational carving run. -Brian

Phil, Well, not this week, but here are the highlights planned for the rest of my season: Jay Peak 18-20 Mar MSA/LM 24-28 Mar Mt Tremblant 1-3 Apr If anybody is interested in joining us for any of those dates, I can tell you where to stay at great rates and how to come by discount lift tix. Cheers, Brian

Surfer Dude, Great Mt Tremblant runs are: Beau Chemin (North side). Wonderfully wide at the top and you can catch a little air half way down the top pitch if you stay far over on rider's right. Make sure you finish at the Lowell Thomas chair since the bottom part of the run is boringly flat. Beauvallon (South side). Ditto above. Best choice is to go back up on the TGV. However, the green runs to the bottom are slightly more entertaining. Biere en Bas is a nice run once your legs start to burn. Nansen Haut (South side) is another great carving run. Again, take the short cut back to the TGV. DO NOT get caught on the long, long flat at the bottom of Nansen. P'tit Bonheur (North side). If you are ever at MT and the snow is marginal, find this run on the north side. Becasue it is a green run, the traffic on it is lighter. It always has the best snow on the mountain and is one of my favs late afternoon for a "last run." Tobagan. Found on Versant Soleil, this run is fun when taken early in the day. This side of the mountain was the most recently developed (~10 yrs ago) and was cut by hand so that all the natural contours were left in place. There are some great rollers at the top of the run, however, several runs meet at the bottom of the mountain in front of the chair and the last steep pitch gets scraped off early. Do not procrastinate if you want to get on this run! Algonquin. This mild green run which runs off of Tobagan was opened last season. I finally had a chance to go down this run yesterday for the first time. Unlike all the other Versant Soleil runs, this is monstrously wide and the pitch is pleasantly consistent. Again, do this one early in the day while the corduroy is still there. Find your biggest GS board and point it straight down the fall line to do huge sweeping turns. Carry all your speed to the bottom to the big right hand turn at the bottom where the run goes very flat and narrow to the chair. Let us know what your fav is after you ride MT! Cheers, -Brian (Ottawa)

Phil, I am heading off to Mt Tremblant on Monday with my girlfriend. Would you like to join us there? -Brian

Well, my idea of scoping out the local resorts is to ride 'em all once every decade - just to remind myself how small Pakenham and Vorlage are! ;) As for ride reviews; here is my quick take on the local offerings: Camp Fortune (my "local" hill) - closest to Ottawa thus gets the most traffic. On the plus side, it has the best snowmaking and snow school of all the locals. Arrive early (to get parking!) and ride hard from 8:30 until group lessons start at 10:30. Good carving is to be had on Marshall (green), Clifford (blue) and Slalom (black) in the "valley" and Sparks (blue) on Skyline. All the other runs are rather narrow for an alpine board although Paradis (under the Meech chair) can be fun if you catch it as soon as the run opens (usually between 9:30 and 10:00). Cascade - Similar to CF in that it has several areas. Again, good to arrive early in the AM to avoid the rush and allow some room to turn. The black runs are too steep and narrow to effectively carve IMHO. Edelwess - Biggest bonus is its high speed quad up the front of the mountian. Downside is that all the fun runs have an uphill kicker in the middle of the run that you have to cary speed across (read: stop making turns) to get to the "other side." Vorlage - Small and usually quiet(er). But when are they ever gonna upgrade from two ancient double chairs to something of this century? This resort generates a "love it or hate it" response from most skiers/rides. Those that love it extoll its quaint, family-oriented culture. Those that avoid it are looking for a little more elevation and bigger, faster lifts. Pakenham - The Ontario Vorlage with a few more lifts. Calabogie - similar to Camp Fortune with a little more terrain and less traffic. MSM - by far the most vertical of all the slopes listed above. The down side is that is the furtherest drive of the lot through some rather desolate farm land north of Ottawa. Moreover, they only have a limited number of runs for a mountain with decent vertical. While there is some challenging terrrain, the skinny runs make it more of a skier's mountain than a carver's paradise. Then, there is my idea of a "perfect season" which includes as many trips to Mt Tremblant as possible in a season to take advantage of ~2000' of vertical and a few mega-wide runs where one can really open up on an alpine carving board. For example, Nansen Haut, while nominally a green run, has some nice pitches which can get a carving board going seriously fast in a few turns with huge amounts of space to turn in. Living in Orleans, iffn I am contemplating the 1.5 hr drive to MSM, then consider the 2 hr drive to MT, the latter wins out every time! Lastly, my perfect season consists of at least one "away trip." This season, I frequented Mt Ste Anne and Le Massif (which I have documented elsewhere on this message board) again because of the great vert, wide cruising runs (Gros Valon at MSA is a must see!) and varied terrain. Having said that, I have yet to get out to an "expression session." That is on my bucket list and something I hope to recify in the near future. Yes CaR, I am having a slow day, too

I second that motion! I only felt bad that the snow conditions were less than great; my crystal ball was not working so well a month ago when I suggested MSM I would be up for doing another get-together carvefest at a more "carve-friendly" location like Tremblant in a week or three. Anybody else have any thoughts on this topic? -Brian

I am bemoaning the fact that I must work for a living knowing how great the cord would have been this morn'! One small compensating factor is that next Monday is a T-66 dat at Tremblant and I am going to be there. Anyone up for taking a mental health day Mon 7 Mar 2011?

On Sunday, Chris, Billy, myself and honorable mention, Amber (teleskier) made our way to MB and the Sharks demo tent. Michel and his small team of elves had a full range of F2 and Prior boards to demo. Personally, I tried three different boards; one F2 and two Priors. Maybe its 'cause I never liked F2 aethestics, but I did not enjoy riding the board either. OTOH, I really enjoyed both Priors I rode - even as the snow conditioned continued to deteriorate over the day. However, I was inspired after watching a couple of the Shark guys come down a difficult pitch late in the day laying down clean arcs ('trenches' would be far too great an exageration given the continuous boilerplate lurking under the half inch of "hard groomed granular!") on some very hard "snow." The silver lining in the cloud is that local icy conditions will be an interesting challenge after the inspiring riding I saw at Mt Blanc. I sent a Thank You email to Michel yesterday on behalf of the the Ottawa crowd for bringing out his gear and for being so patient with all the Qs he fielded during the day. Hope to see a bunch of you at MSM on Friday. -Brian

Nice stuff, Ian! It looks like you guys had a great WE of riding - with good snow conditions to boot! (pun intended) I was really impressed how clear your video was compared to some of the other bump and jerk stuff that people post on You Tube. See you at MSM next Fri. I already have my lift tix in hand . Brian

Just a reminder to the list; this coming Sunday is La Boutique Shark's last demo day for alpine SB gear for the season. They will be at Mt Blanc this coming Sunday with a booth/tent set up outside the main lodge. Mt Blanc opens their lifts at 8:30 and I plan to be there at opening to ride some new gear if anyone is looking for a ride. That is, if the weather does not completely suck! I am NOT looking forward to teaching this coming Sat if the current forecast holds true; rain on Fri follwed by below zero temps and snow flurries on Sat which I translate to ice patches forming overnight, then covered over with a dusting of new snow to terrorize the novices...but the groomers will have that all sorted out by Sun AM -Brian

Hi folks, I just returned from a week of riding (and skiing) at Mt Ste Anne and Le Massif. When we first arrived, the snow depth was comparable to local conditions, however, it snowed three days straight, so by week's end conditions had improved noticablely ;). On the downside, there was a serious bout of stomach flu going around the local area so I missed a whole day of riding due to (Yep, always wanted to use that icon...) It was the first time in a decade of going to Ste Anne de Beaupré that I did not get out every day. Even on the next day of riding, I was planning my runs to ensure I was never too far away from one of the chalets.... The big news I have for any prospective winter vacationers is that Le Massif just keeps getting better!!!! M. Laliberte (of Cirque de Soleil fame and fortune) has bought the resort and has a plan to pump in $230M worth of developments. The first, and most visible $50M, is already there. As of Jan 2011, Le Massif opened up a new 8 pax gondola. The cabins are taller and wider that those found at MT & MSA. Moreover, all the sides are made of plexiglass from floor to ceiling so the view is wonderful! The final bonus is that they opened up a few more feet of vertical at the bottom of the mtn when they built this puppy. LM's vertical (tallest in QC) is now 2526', ~300' better than MT or MSA. Whoo haaa! :lol: It was so impressive that The Vivacious Redhead told me that we were returning to MSA & LM ASAP. Having checked the school break calendar, I was informed that we would be making a long WE (3-4 days) out of the last WE in March so if anyone else in interested, lemme know and I can give you some details on the best places to stay and the best ticket prices available. -Brian

I look forward to seeing you there, Chris! Could you bring the extra CATEK screws along that day? It would save me a trip to the west end of town. Thx, -Brian

T, Sure, I just called MSM to confirm what time they open the lifts: 9-4 Daily. Thus, I plan to be pulling out of my Orleans driveway at 7:30 and should be in yours at 7:45. I have room for a fourth if anyone else needs a ride. Let's hope the weather goes cold again so that nature's snowmaking can get back in gear. Coming back to Ottawa for a rainy Feb day has not been the highlight of my week. :( -Brian

Salut Mat, Merci for le tip! On arrivera a Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre cette apres-midi. Peut-etre on va rider ce soir ... et boire une 50 -Brian

Slabber, Tonight is definately a freeride night! Leave the carving board in your basement -Brian

...And then there were five!

Jimmy, Did you have any success in locating a race coach?