CarvCanada

It snowed 45cm in Montreal. It was cold, dense powder from a windy storm, and just at the end of the storm, the wind died and dropped a few cm of fluff. People were swimming to get into their Smart cars, which were simply gigantic mounds of snow. I went to Mount Royal and terrain that I thought would be okay, turned out to be amazing, there was 4ft in some places! This was the first tour ever that I considered biking the approach hahaha, I would have done it, but my board felt unbalanced on my pack. It would have made some great pictures, face shots and big pow slashes with the lights of downtown Montreal right in the background. The most beautiful rail in the city (above the highest McGill rez's, about 200ft towards Peel street below the water fountain with the fish pond that looks like a horse feeder on the big path) finally was very doable, with the normally 10 ft fall onto grass on either side, turning into a 4 ft fall into deep powder which you could ride away towards the city on. The lighting is so perfect, professionals could definately get a cover shot right in that spot I had a dream that was like that scene from the Matrix with a white background, thousands of rows of guns flying into the foreground, except they were full of snowboards :)

Yesterday after riding, I saw something I'd never noticed before on my boots: When latching in the boots to the bindings, as the toe clip comes down, the black toe blocks separate a tiny bit from the red shell. There's about 1-2mm of space all around right at the point when the toe clip is in between locked and unlocked (when it is putting the most force down and inwards). When the toe clip comes down, there's not much space, and when I simulate a heelside on the carpet, I don't notice any more play. Both boots have the exact same behavior, but I haven't noticed this before. There are 4 bolts holding it to the shell on the bottom of the boot, but if the glue between toe blocks has vibrated away or whatever, do I run the risk of ripping a crack in the toe block in a big heelside? On a side note, I love the boots, they have great progressional flex, and feel stiff but I can still tweak carves, like mutes and indys on heelside and methods on toeside. When it's between -10 and 0 degrees they have perfect flex. When it's -20 degrees they get stiffer it seems. Also noteworthy is that they are completely silent because of the spring, I remember the Deeluxe stuff had noisy flex. The liners are indeed not great, and the future models I think should have a much softer tongue, and it would be perfect.

come to think of it, just check out Eutow and Music Is Math for sure, those will add emotion to riding!

i don't listen to music while riding, i love to hear the snow, but here are some songs that i believe to go perfectly with the flow of snowboarding, be it freestyle or freeride, or of course carving Eutow, by Autechre this is a bit of a hard listen i guess, but it's got such a good flow (check out 1 minute in), and this song is unbelievably from 1995, they were SO ahead of their time Chromakey Dreamcoat, Music is Math, or 1969, by Boards Of Canada (i don't think they named themselves that because of snowboarding, they're from Scotland anyway!) maybe Narayan or Climbatize by Prodigy of course this is all electronic music, which is good for the pure sensations of riding. I bet even non-electronic music fans would like this pumping in the background of a good snowboard movie. Rock works great to drive to, but I can't see riding to it, it's too distracting, it takes away from the spotlight that riding should take up, whereas electronic music I'd imagine would just add a nice flow to complement the riding. Check those songs out at least :)

hehe with the snow coming in, there might actually be decent riding to be had on tremblant by hiking the backside repeatedly this weekend. head for la soleil and edge if it's a windy storm

anchorage, ak and i'll be there next year :) if this list included canada i'd bet Vernon , Golden and some of the smaller places in the Monashees would be up there

on more looks i really can't tell if a big slab is starting to trigger, it could all just be his slough, and the slope looks so wind degraded but who knows, i thought i saw some fracture lines with spray comin out that wasn't his slough Can anyone answer this question about avalanches, it would seem pretty important, in areas like Chugach (probably only chugach, maybe japan as well, but they're so maritime maybe not) are EARTHQUAKES a risk? I mean Chugach gets like hundreds of earthquakes that could be big enough to rip a windslab? Is it possible? Is it a concern!?

you could see a thick hard slab just trying to release on the main face too, maybe that's why he got scared from all the releasing noises and just gunned it (and was probably on his toes from what looks like tons of small slabs all day long), it looks like if the big slab had come loose, it would have stopped right in the gully "terrain trap" and he would have been sooo buried

the BX board with carbon butterfly looks every so sweet

jay was real good, not too much open, but mid-winter conditions like a february morning. by 12:00 it got chopped since only 2 main runs were open. it's lookin great thouhg, it was so good to ride!

yah like I said, it's an odd mix of "hardcore" and for the masses, weird... definately won't see them hiking much/splitboarding, and definately won't see much of belaying and digging pits. I'l still see it I think. The avalanche ride-out is just.... odd... but sweet, in a really weird way I got a question about AK for you AK_Rider (I will be moving there, it is my mission!). I've been reading tons about avalanches/weather, and mountain touring, but I don't get one thing about Chugach riding: Alaska gets a TONS of 4 and up earthquakes, can a decent earthquake not trigger releases in the coastal mountains at ANY unexpected time even when pretty stable?

I got Malamutes on some Freerides and they are really good. It's a really different feel, but the same in some ways.. just need a much different stance. 54/51 doesn't feel great, it forces you to use your hips and the softboots don't like that. Things feel great for me at 36/15 (much larger separation), used to ride 45/30ish but I try to go as low as possible until slight overhang.

Dubai is an odd place, never been there and never will hopefully!

What's your "regular board"? If you're on a freestyle board now, It might be a better idea to get a longer, stiffer freeride board and move to a forward facing stance (like 40/30 degrees). You will get the feel for forward stanced carving, it will be much more forgiving, and you will be able to grow into the board. I would think that at your weight, the short carving boards will be unforgiving and frustrating. I would get something like a 155-160 Donek Incline since it's thin at the waist, and you could ask to get it a bit softer.

What IS that!!!?

I really like Shred's brown BX board with the middle finger it's awesome. What are those perfectly patterned scratches though!?

this is a very weird concept for me, even Harvard and Ivy Leagues is an extremely weird concept for montrealers it seems. I've read about the weird history and all that, and it's just so odd. Freemasons? wha the hell!

It's a really pretty 30-40 minute drive east if my memory is right. Where you're staying is nice, Massif is really close, but you still have to drive up 2600ft to the upper parking lot, and then take this awesome winding road down to the base of the mountain if you want to park there. All there is in front of Massif is a tiny town of old farmhouses, tons of snow, and a lift right near the river, it has awesome views. If there's a temperature inversion, you could be fooled into thinking your out west since the clouds hang around at 200ft on the river and you're up above them at 2550, it seems you are in the rockies. Best cross country skiing/snowshoeing is right around le massif, I think it was about 2 minutes west of the upper Massif parking lot. If it's possible, there's also the best backcountry in the east in Chics Chocs parc in Gaspesie. that's (the other) Mount Logan in the chics chocs

Tremblant most of the time is terrible. If hit at the right time though (usually weekdays in mid-February, early March) it can be quite awesome. Best bet for a trip is either straight up Ste Anne, or.. a slightly more interesting trip to Le Massif region. Massif is okay for carving, has some very high quality wide (beautiful!) runs but layout is not too great for carving. Go there for the pow/trees if it happens, and if it's clear out and -25 degrees, head to Mont Grands Fonds, it is completely empty, beautiful, and seems to be designed for an alpine board! Some sweet wide blue runs, as well as cruising wide green runs with intermittent trees that usually have little packed powder jumps formed around them. They have a steeeep race course if that's your thing

Haha cool idea... there could be some pretty sweet 1 minute clips that are all dramatic like to promote alpine

I learned on a long racing board and picked it up pretty quickly, I think mainly from carving for 3 or 4 seasons with already a very forward stance. The racing board needs wide slopes with nobody around, and as long as you have that it's very rewarding and quick to learn. Longer boards usually have bigger sweet spots, so it will force you to commit to turns which is good, but you don't have to have the perfect pressuring along the edge which is good to learn. You'll feel when you have it not so good, but the board won't punish you. If I hadn't carved on softies before that with a forward stance, it would have been difficult I think. I remember it only took me about 10 turns to get comfortable with the stance, and stop really counter rotating to slide the board around, then the next few runs were a complete blast as there is sooo much edge grip and control, as long as you keep your speed up. Looking back I probably should have learned on something like a Prior ATV

Sweet! Did the Barbados one ever fire satellites into orbit?

Bling aside, these look frsojdking awesome! Nice improvements now they're perfect aside from an industry standard boot/bail fit.

Haha you worked on that? My parents used to have a house out near Owl's Head and they told me that guy who was secretly selling all this stuff to Iraq lived around there, and the Israeli secret police made him "dissapear" real good.

Hahaha the trailer had me kind of in a weird awe... and laughing! Should be interesting to watch of course. The 180 tail butter while flying down 30 degree bowl full of bottomless was ridiculous... but Shawn White? Hanah Teter? Don't they spend all of their time way way way away from Alaska... in pipes? Not that they're not amazing riders, just... this movie is looks like kind of an odd mix of hardcore/media for the masses. The avalanche was just plain stupid!