nigelc

The walk up to mueller hut from mt cook village looks short & easy on the map, but climbs from 750 m to 1800m. On the way you pass the sealy tarns. I would check in with the visitors centre in mt cook village where they will tell you if the walk is advisable or not. I have spent hours up there staring across the valley at the mt sefton face watching avalanches pouring down every 15-20 minutes. There is a story about a kea there that managed to lock a climber either in the hut or the toilet for a few days.....

The hooker valley trail in mt cook is not high alpine and relatively easy. Doable even through winter. The trip up to mueller hut is fantastic but not advisable if the snow is in unless you are fully equipped & experienced. There are some fabulous walks around the port hills & Akaroa is always worth a visit, as is Hanmer Springs.

All above the tree line. June is about a 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 shot I would guess. Mt Hutt near christchurch is often the first to open. Coronet peak in queenstown has the best snowmaking, if its cold enough.

I don't know if the old Bomber article about separating the knees is still available? Worth a read definitely

Can you explain why you think this is undesirable?

I have never had a board with a flat base. And most of them don't have enough ptex to be ground flat. Maybe I see a Donek in my future.....

Can you tell us more?

I will second the Beckmann recomendation. As Beckmann has said carpet carving is one step, but if you are straight lining on a very gentle slope, or typically a cat track in a relaxed state and the board is running straight, then you have attained nirvana. If you have to have muscle tension in order to run straight then you have to consider hard where the pressure is on your boot cuffs, ankles and feet, and what changes you might have to make to reach "neutrality"

G-flex is great. Many keels glued on with it. At one stage of curing it is very weak and brittle like glass, only gaining flexibility and strength at full cure.

The BTS are ideal for powder. I always back the springs right off to soften the flex and increase the range of motion and do my boots up the same as always. I keep a count on my phone of how many turns each nut is adjusted so I can return them to the original position when required

Obviously part of the pureboarding thing is that everyone is fitted with identical legs

The TD3's are definitely higher, but only a few mm

Switched from x-bones SI to td3 sidewinder SI a couple of seasons ago. Td3 is much stiffer. I don't notice any difference on the binding angle

My Brother!

Intuition have several different thicknesses. Also liners with no foam on the sole to cater for footbeds

In my particular case I was greatly helped by Beckmann's treatise on how to set up your bindings. I have ended up moving my front binding back about 50mm, increasing my front lift and moving my front cant outboard, i.e. little toe lower than big. This helped me put more weight on the front leg for a more even distribution. Also it turned out my back leg was fighting the alignment. The best place to understand this was cat tracks and almost flat beginner slopes. I was finding that I had to tense my rear leg in order to go straight, otherwise the rear of the board would try to overtake the front. Some of this was bindings, some of it was hip alignment/stance.

I upgraded from SB413's to white and black 700's with blue spring BTS. I weigh 100kg, about 220lbs. With the SB's the sidewall of the boot would collapse. With the 700's I have control of the flex via BTS. I can go soft for powdery days , stiffen up for hardpack etc. The 700 is also more foot shaped, at least my foot, with a roomier toebox and lower volume ankle & heel. The extra control yielded much better feel not less. Stiffer boots, big improvement.

With the bts you get almost complete control over forward lean and fore/aft flex, which is reason enough ti go with a stiff boot. This just leaves sideways flex, which is controllable by boot initial flex/modifications, or with the sidewinder or other bindings

Ice is a head thing. Some days I am amazed at the thin lines I leave. Others I am a sideways mess mired in frustration. In general I stick to slopes one notch down from normal i.e. less steep. Carving boards are better than softies. Reason being in my view - longer contact edge, nothing else. I have sometimes thought of designing an ice board. It would be longish, have a large sidecut radius and be very easy to bend.

From a comfort point of view I mould the liners so initially they are just slightly too tight around the heel & instep. They seem to loosen up after a couple of days and if I dont do this then they are too big.

The intuition liners are considerably stiffer than either the thermoflex or non-mouldable stock liners. With a well made footbed on the stroble bottom of a well moulded intuition liner in a correctly sized boot I believe you should be 95% there. Plus you can do some of it yourself, which means you can adjust as necessary and therefore learn what is good. Also here in NZ doing it yourself is pretty much the only option. Sheep aside.

http://intuitionliners.com/thestore/pro-wrap/

The intuition liners are considerably stiffer/harder than the thermoflex liners that come with the deeluxe boots. I believe that these are made by Palau. My understanding is that Erik doesn't like the thermo liners because of the foam underfoot which can compromise stability. Intuition now have a liner with no foam under the sole so your footbed effectively sits directly on the boots zepper.

and the south island ski fields.....this year the season was.....August.

I have just about got it all sorted now, two weeks later. Nobody got hurt. I will heal the wounds by living a life of charm and ease. And heavy drinking.