jason_watkins

Well, that got my attention. I'm about Vin's weight and using malmutes... but lately they've been feeling packed out. Can you detail how the havok and malamute compare a bit more? I don't turn my boot more than 30, and even then, it feels a little soft laterally. Is the havok stiffer sideways? They fit skinny feet as well as salomon?

attachment says it all

Some of my friends get the difference. The ones that do have skiing experience though. Bode charges gates and is a star... snowboard racers charge gates, and are lucky to get much exposure at all. Until the popular attitude around snowboarding changes, I don't expect carving to catch on. If there were (proportionally) more old boarders... perhaps that attitude would change... but it seems like skiiers stay skiing through their adult life, but boarders seem to grow out of it. I also take some objection to the idea that mastering race board should be the ultimate goal of all carvers. In fact, I think carving will get a lot of converts looking for a more mellow way to enjoy the hill after age or injury.

what the heck is that?

that's a real bummer... I was just talking with MikeT on sunday about how it'd be nice to have one of those on weekends like this last one :). eric gave some tips on pulled inserts in the old forum

When you're talking about opening your body to the hill, what's that referring to?

Jim: don't know what camera you have, but some cameras have a super low resolution mode. In any case, I can resize pictures for you and host movies of about any size. Can't make wed, but I'll be up on the weekend for sure. Weather report looks promising.

Hey guys, conditions are better than expected. Coverage is better than last weekend... there's still the odd stump and rock, but most runs are filled in now. The snow is suprisingly good if stay off the grooms. Somehow the groomed snow has refrozen hard, but there's quite a bit of loose dry snow elsewhere. Anything on the shadowed side (skiers left) of the ridges on shooting star was really quite good, enough powder to feel floaty in. Cascade was open. Again, anywhere the groomer went was ice, but once you get off the ridge tops snow was surprisngly good. It's the first time I've ridden up there, very fun to just point down the fall line and reach silly speed on the wide open smooth powder field. Weather forcast says snow tonight, but the ski is still clear as I type, so I think that's unlikely. I don't see any reason why conditions would be worse tomorrow. If there's new snow, I'll definately be up there. If there's no new snow... call me a maybe. Ran into one guy using hardboots on a freeride deck... asked if he was zach but aparently not.

even the expatriat likes meadow's terrain better :D

Timberline should have better snow, but it's small and a bit flat on the lower half of the resort. Meadows, in general, has more variety of the terrain. But since most of it is a bit lower on the mountain, there's bound to be more refrozen snowpack. Last weekend I was at meadows and a lot of the coverage on the good terrain was thin.. I expect it's about the same this weekend. As for good runs, at timberline, the stuff off Palmer, Mile and Norman is the good stuff. Palmer is the best for carving, and Mile is almost as good, just not as steep. If those are closed, which is very likely, there's 3 ok runs off Norman, and there's a surprising amount of interesting stuff in the trees skiiers left of Norman if you get bored of wide open. On the whole timberline is a small, fun place, but if the upper lifts are closed there's not much variety. It doesn't look like they have any park gear out officially, if you're into that stuff. At meadows, I'm learning new territory this season (not done much day ski there before). So far I like the terrain off Shooting Star lift. There's penty of spots steep enough to scare me around there, and mostly just rolling varied terrain, creeks beds, etc. I'm told the real good stuff is in heather canyon, but it's not likely to be open till later in the season. The upper lift at meadows, Cascade, looks great, wide open and comparable to mile at timberline, but it's never been open when I've been there. The main lift, Hood has 2 good fairly open runs for carving, but they can be a little crowded. Directly under the main lift there's some great steep sections (look for "bowls" and "face" on the trail map) but last weekend the coverage there was a bit thin. If you want to nab runs on the main lift with no crowds, check it out mid afternoon after most of the morning crowd is sipping a spanish coffee and the night ski herd hasn't shown yet. I remember there being a few run spots under the Daisy lift, but as it's not an express, I haven't ridden it much. MikeT says the Hood River lift has some great carving runs, but it's also a designated slow speed area so don't try to set any records if patrol is around. Ohh, and if you wanted to do a nice lunch/dinner with the miss or something like that, I'd give you a thumbs down on meadows. The food isn't that good, and the service is consistantly horrible. Expect very long waits eating at meadows. I'm told dining at the hotel/lodge at timberline is great. I'll be at meadows on saterday with a couple friends, most likely doing laps on Shooting Star. Sorry to say, it's probibly not the best conditions to be checking out mt hood... but that's the way it goes :rolleyes: .

My girlfriend was up on wed and said it was hardpack, and freeze levels have been high since then, so expect to run into some pretty hard packed snow. The weather forecast says a couple inches tonight and freeze levels going down, so hopefully the weekend will be better, but you never really know. Which resort(s) are you going to?

check out Actic Man ... 80+mph behind a snowmobile on the uphill leg ;). looks like the snowboard division could use some better representation: <br> Is that softboots on a FP??!

Well of course racing is a whole different game. I didn't say "racing" or "carving like a banshee down the steepest longest trail on earth all day"... I said "boarding", just all around freeriding. What I'm saying is true in my experience, and I don't need to wear a heart monitor to know it. When I do a mostly aerobic activity, I can hear and feel my heartbeat quite clearly. When I'm boarding my heartbeat is elevated above what it would be sitting in the bar, for sure, but it's no where near where it is jogging in the city or even just walking uphill at the same altitude on the mountain. Your 3 minutes hard, 3 minutes rest cycle on that machine sounds like lactate threshold training. I'm no trainer or coach, but that's exactly what I'd focus on if I was doing an exercise program to improve my boarding endurance.

will: I read somewhere that skiing and snowboarding are supposedly an even mix of glycosis, anerobic and aerobic respiration. But in my own experience, my heart rate is rarely raised much boarding... so I think it's amost entirely anerobic. I think focusing on burst power and quick recovery might be just the ticket. After all, we've got the lift ride up to replace some ATP.

get plugs Surfer's ear is no joke. I've heard a lot of folks reccomending a hood too if you're in colder water. Getting your bone cut away seems to fix it for almost everyone, but it's not a fun thing to go through. I had an ear piercing for the last couple of years, and just this winter started to realize that my ear canal was growing in. Pretty freaky... but removing the ring seems to have stopped it.

something I recently saw in a skiier mag: Stand on one leg. Now, do a squat, making your chest/shoulder touch your knee. Bend your knee and waist as nessisary to do this, but keep your shin more or less upright and don't bend your ankle. So do a few of those, then switch legs... repeat until you start to feel it. If you want something a little intensive, grab a dumbell and hold it straight up, arms over your head. Now do the same motion, holding that dumbell with your arms straight, so that at the bottom of the squat movement your arms are horizontal holding it straight out in front, your back is parellel to the floor, and your knee is touching your chest/shoulder. I tried this with a 30 pounder the other day and man was that intense. Works all those little bits of muscle to keep your balance instead of just letting you power through each lift.

fleaman: yes, like the ones in the middle. linknturns: gee... unless you got a gold medal hanging around your neck, I'm pretty sure there's women faster than you. Besides, is hassling random chicks your method? How's that work out for ya.... ohh, I guess based on the avatar maybe you go straight for the grope? :p

caveat emptor

blue topsheet with some sort of silver writing. I only got a glance at it.

I saw an interesting board on the hill yeserday (mt hood meadows) and am wondering if anyone knows what it is. It was a wide, short boadercross shape. But, it had a long nose, with the point just rounded off a bit. Somewhat like the fish or the voile boards, but even longer. It also had a rounded tail, but with the last few cm of the tail chopped straight accross. She was riding it with plates.

I totally agree with bob dea. You're at a ski resort, doing a dangerious activity with other people of varried skill and experience. I think you just have to accept that you or your family may be injured, and it may be some idiots fault you get hurt. That's sad, but it's also part of the package. If someone does something that is clearly out of the bounds of common sense, like say, sliding while abusing substance or intentionally crashing someone out of skiier rage or something... then IMHO gripes are legitimate. But other than that, I think you just have to accept that you are chosing to place yourself in a dangerous situation. Just like auto racing, or many other sports.

dang, sounds like I missed a nice big gathering. I work on wed too :( . Ahh well, I'll be up at meadows tomorrow (saterday) with radio on 5/12, possibly up sunday, thanksgiving and the friday, saterday, sunday after. Just shout hey if you're on the hill and looking for company.

Fantastic news... I was worried that they'd only run daisy, etc. I can't make it until saterday. Drop us a note and let us know how conditions are you lucky 2#$^%@# :D

I bought a north face guide jacket of some sort last season. I can't even remember the name of it, but it's a discontinued model. Anyhow, it's worked out fine for the little time I've used it so far. But, I only expect it to last another season or so before something goes wrong. So if you're looking for opinions, mine on north face is that it's perfectly fine considering how cheap you can find some of their products. (my traditional 2 layer goretex jacket was $140 on www.campmor.com, has all the usual features plus cordura re-enforcement on some parts) So if you get a deal, I think you get your money's worth. But if you're paying full retail on their high end products, I think you'd be much better off spending the $ on something that seems better built and better supported like Arc Teryx, Patagonia, etc.

sounds great, I've been wanting to check out crystal. Any local's tips on loding for those of us who might wanna do two days? I was at timberline yesterday. There's a solid layer of concrete with some fresh falling on top, maybe 12 inches on the lower mountain. Looks pretty good for this comming weekend, though the weather forcast looks dangerously warm. I hope meadows can open on the 29th. I'll probibly be up at timberline next weekend. Heck, this weekend two aquantances built a 22 foot long funbox and hauled it up there to timberline yesterday to set it up on the bunny hill :D