Mike T

Groom was unusually smooth this morning - good from 8:00 right up until 10:45. I usually punt on Pond Skim day, but might just have to go up again in the AM... ... glad I rode my rock board, as there was quite a bit of debris around the lift bottoms and tops (save for top of Skyliner)

New lift coming next season: http://www.mtbachelor.com/cloudchaser/ I have mixed feelings. This is a plus on storm days, but on Summit days, there go some of my favorite stashes.

Check the heel area especially. I bought new Track 700s at SES '15 b/c my previous pair had developed a nasty crack after <200 riding days.

I sincerely hope this has a happy resolution... but either way, I've ordered two copies of my Nirvana Energy 174 (bargain even at the increased price!), which will hopefully be a lifetime supply. And I've started to avoid riding my current one on soft snow. If we can't get Titanal, I'll be grateful that Sean @ Donek has continued to develop glass boards. Out of curiosity. what does Kessler use? .3? .4? Something else?

Is there a COW 2016 in the works? Looking for an excuse to carve somewhere other than Mt Bachelor this year, and since the speed limits have increased in OR and ID, it brings Targhee to within a long day's drive from Bend...

Sold and shipped.

New season bump - Jim and Angie, I hope this post is still OK. I did in fact buy a pair of 26's from Bomber, while it was still under Fin's ownership. SOLD!

Thanks Sean! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the MK.

@Sean, is The new Legacy the "Madd Killer"?

I suspect you could talk Bruce into making an AM-T or Nirvana in any width you want. The Monster 2 is another AM-friendly flex. That's the blue Carbonium top I was riding last spring... probably my most versatile board overall. Your yellow Monster would probably be great in windpack, and if it was built for your weight or less, powder.

Even during a crappy season, Bachelor tends to be quite carvable. It is common in El Nino years like this one, for Bachelor to have a very good December and then taper off, and that can often build enough of a base to keep the groomers in reasonable shape through the season. Hoodoo has been closed more than it's been open for several years. Willamette Pass, which I've never been to, is only open 4 days a week in the best of seasons IIRC. I recommend getting a Bachelor pass if you can tolerate the drive, ~3 hrs during winter. Get good snow tires even if you have AWD, they don't plow the roads quite as aggressively in OR as they do back east.

I start centered on the inserts and move them if it doesn't feel optimal. Out of my Coiler quiver, I ride my NSR+ 180 forward of centered and my VSR 170 back of centered. The NSR+ was a one-off so Bruce had not fine-tuned the stance placement (if takes more than one board of a particular design even for him...) and the VSR 170 was a very early instance of the model, so not surprising. I know he moved the inserts forward on the NSR GS line several years back - my newer 183, I ride centered.

279mm sole length Deeluxe Track 700 MP 25, works with Sidewinder Standards no problem. I have my most of my quiver outfitted with Sidewinders. The more recently made ones seem to work better with smaller boots... the toe bail shape appears to have been tweaked each season, and the base plate holes were wider spaced the first year. You can always get new base plates or bails... those parts are relatively inexpensive.

Just find the "right" longer board. Maybe something titanal, intended for free carving, which will be more forgiving and compliant yet respond really well under an expert rider's feet? Example- Coiler Monster II 184. It would be night and day different from your Madd but still very much an alpine board, and yet not at all a race board. I'm sure someone will be foolish enough to sell one used at some point... not me :D

Last day is May 10: http://www.mtbachelor.com/site/winter/ski/update

LOL, I thought you said you were done :) The lifties were trading "mud skimming" instead of pond skimming today.

Bryan, if you're gonna come, come NOW. And call them to make sure they plan to remain open during the week. It's mighty thin at the bottoms of the lifts. Coverage is good until about 3/4 of the way down the lower lifts, and doesn't get horrible until you're right near the bottom. Summit is still good but it softens so quickly that if you're not there right and 9:00 you'll miss it. That said, I managed to carve until 11:30 today and have fun. The last hour was all Leeway, gets a little more shade than the other groomers and stayed firmer longer. Both boards I rode today need to be cleaned, badly. Lots of dirty snow.

I got my usual 60+ days, with an unusually high percentage of it being carving. It sucked being "planned in between jobs" in such a low snow year in some ways, but there was some REAAALLLY good carving to be had this year at Bachelor, not to mention SES, even with the low snow. I might get another day or three but it'll probably be mostly soft-booting... its just been so warm at Bachelor, and I'd rather trash my rock board than my carving boards.

Bomber and SES won't be the same without you, Michelle! Best of luck in your new venture!

As far as boards go, I'll agree that titanal is good for beginners and that the flex should be appropriate to your weight. As far as width goes, I think there are more newbies starting out with angles that are too high than too low... so con't go *too* narrow. In terms of sidecut... I think the upper limit on a newbie board should be around 13m, maybe 11.5 or 12m for lighter riders - even if one is riding big wide gentle slopes. 14+m boards tend to pick up speed too fast for beginners IMHO. Likewise I think SL boards should be avoided for beginners... go with a sidecut that's just big enough so that as you start to hook up strong turns they are not over so quickly that you can't make another strong turn in time! After ~13 years of hard booting I find SL boards to be the trickiest to ride in general... and SL boards are the trickiest to find a good fit flex-wise... a given SL board will generally have a narrower sweet spot weight-wise than a given GS board.

LOL, I must have voted 5 years ago and I can't recall how I voted :) As someone who rides both hard and soft boots - and carves on soft boots - and buys softie boards from the likes of Coiler, Donek and Prior, the same companies I buy alpine boards from - I'm not sure I care how the forum is organized. By preference would be "whatever makes it easiest for Fin and the Mods", to be honest. There will always be threads that have both hard and soft boot content so the line is always blurred. There may be plenty of soft boot specific places to go on the Interweb but are any of them better than Bomberonline for discussing Carving In Softies? I'll keep coming by either way. I'll keep riding softies on days when I feel like riding softies either way too :)

Seriously sticky today! Hoping for some actual corn tomorrow but not holding my breath.

+1 on structure. I have a fairly aggressive cross-hatch structure ground into my alpine boards regardless of what the weather is like when I have the grind done... I find that for carving boards, a spring structure on cold dry snow works pretty well, but anything but a spring structure on wet snow works like s&it.

I showed up Tuesday morning for two runs... First one was great, second one was so-so and my goggles were encrusted, decided to go home and get some errands done. Saw the fog on the webcam this morning and decided naaaaahhhh... but yeah, I'm hoping we'll see corduroy tomorrow. The 14" new over the past several days ought to make a HUGE difference. See you in the AM!

Should be at Sunrise before lifts open tomorrow.