ak_rider

I have a pair of Raichle 324 size 24.5. asking $50 plus shipping. if interested email ak_snowkat@yahoo.com

I have an older pair of Raichle 324 boots size 24.5. They are still in good functioning condition, just a little old. Everything works on them. Asking $40 plus shipping. If interested, or for pics e-mail ak_snowkat@yahoo dot com

I have a Burton ALp 51 for sale. Not sure what year, but it's the one with the purple topsheet. The base is in excellent condition, no scratches, etc. Little bit of rust on the edges from sitting around for several years. The pic is poor quality, but the board is in excellent, like new condition. I just need it gone. Asking $50 plus shipping. If interested e-mail ak_snowkat@yahoo dot com

i have an alp 151, if you're interested

i have a pair of raichle with a 24.5 shell. let me know if that would work.

I have a Burton Alp 51 for sale. It's in excellent condition. Would be perfect for a lighter rider. Asking $100. For pics email ak_snowkat at yahoo dot com

breathable layers are your friend. we just got finished with a cold snap with high temps in the negative numbers. I never once put on my down coat while riding or biking. just layer with wicking materials, so you stay dry. toe warmers are also good in the boots to keep the toes warm. i wore a heavy weight base layer, 300 weight polartec fleece jacket and a shell on top and I actually was sweating in sub zero temps, but stayed nice and warm and dry. although you're talking about windchill, so that could be different. just my 2 cents worth. hope it helps.

i have a pair of burton ice size 23 in excellent condition. asking $75 for them. email me if interested, ak_snowkat at yahoo dot com

if you're still looking for boots, I have a pair of Burton 3 buckle size 23.5. can't remember which model, i think burton ice. great condition. if you're interested email me ak_snowkat at yahoo.

what's your mondo point size? i may be able to help. if you don't know your mondo point, are you looking for 7.5US womens or mens?

Anyone who thinks prince william sound is completely recovered is dillussional! you can go to cordova right now and dig down in the rocks on the coastline and still find oil. apparently pressure washing oil off of rocks doesn't really clean the coast, it just cleans the surface of the rocks. On the bright side of that spill, we now take more precautions to prevent another such disaster. There have been oil spills in that area since 1989, but it gets contained now, and it doesn't reach the shore. Too bad this does nothing for the situation in the gulf, since it wasn't a tanker that caused the oil spill. Maybe this will lead to stricter regulations, but that in turn would need to lead to people actually enforcing the regulations. Fat chance given our current leaders in Washington DC. And I'm not just refering to the president and congress. Everyone is in big oil's pocket. Someone mentioned the billions in dollars that exxon had to pay. Slight correction, Exxon was initially fined about $5billion-approx. their revenues for 1 year. Exxon spent many years and several millions of dollars appealing this. basically it went from $5bill appealed down to $4BILL, then appealed again, went back up to $4.5bill. Then Exxon pulled out all the stops, and went straight to the US Supreme court. Those geniuouses decided that $4.5bill exceeded maritime law limits, and dropped it down to about $507 mill.(and this was done just a few years ago. These people are still sitting on the bench). So far Exxon has paid about 75% of that and are claiming that they don't owe interest on the money. Apparently the people in Washington think a year's revenues is too much to ask of a company whose gross negligence caused the accident and who didn't pay to clean up the oil. The initial clean-up was done by an independent co. Big Oil has this country right where they want it, and there's nothing we can do about it. we need oil for everything. Even if we all drove electric cars, you need lubrication to move the parts. Look at how many people in this country make a living from big oil. Their wages, in turn, get dispersed to just about every other sector in the country. There's no way we can completely get away from it. I think we should focus on how to make it safer and prevent further natural disasters like prince william sound and the gulf from happening again. This seems like a more productive use of energy rather than trying to think of ways to become completely independent of oil. Although I wouldn't be upset if the number of snowmachiners/atv-ers were to dwindle

yup, was a race participant. super-fun. @AK rover-yes, bird creek north of portage, but i don't know why you're surprised that it rains here. Alyeska is in a rain forrest, and as the crow flies, I only live a few miles away. It rains all the time in this area, plus it's an el nino year, which means more rain than usual. I've ridden the places you mention. Too many people and too many snowmachines. I prefer my secluded spots.

Man-sled race!!! http://snausages.newslinevine.com What do you do when it's dumping 3 inches an hour with 85mph winds and the mtn is closed? Look for video of yourself doing something rediculous on the internet.

from the looks of the magazines they were loading i would guess 22LR, which agreed is a weak round, but the point of biathalon is accuracy, not to kill something.

wow dude, sorry to hear about your injury, or should I say, welcome to the club. I did my tibial plateau plus an acl tear march 29, 2009. luckily didn't need screws for the tibia, the weight bearing part healed level. seeing your pics i feel kinda lucky that i did my acl too-no cast, just crazy robo-knee for 12 weeks, so atleast i could take it off to shower. the balancing on one leg was a different story :) all i can say is speedy recovery to you, and netflix is awesome

it's not carving specific, but i've been riding pow for the last 6 days, so it's kind of hard to think about groomers right now. The snow is fallin, and the mountain is callin, so I'm bout to be ballin. First tram up, best seat in the house to witness the dump. All strapped in, let the shredding begin. Effortless and silent is how I float through the pow. it's second nature to me now, but beginners watch in amazement and wonder how. Front flip, back flip, you can do no wrong. The snow is so soft, just follow along. Heel side, toe side, making an S. I paint the canvas with style and finness. Faceshots and whiterooms, i don't want it to end. So please Ullr, keep it coming, so I can do it all again!!!

i have to agree, this is absolutely NOT a deal. all you're basically getting is 3 nights lodging, which can be found for a lot less in valdez. if you do happen to reach your 25,000 vertical, which isn't toally out of the question if it's clear, you'll then be stuck in valdez. if you want to keep riding you're gonna have to pay. Valdez is basically the most well-known heli spot in AK for people from outside, kinda like how everyone knows the name Vail or Aspen even if they've never been to CO. Valdez heli-camps attracts a lot of "i have more money than skill" type people. I had a friend go down and fill a seat with them a few years ago, he got hooked up from a client. He ended up basically skiing the equivalent of blue runs all day because the other people in the heli couldn't handle anything steeper. That's another thing to consider when looking at filling a seat. the guides have to cater to the lowest ability level in the group, so you could end up paying to ride 25 degree slopes all day. if you want to go heli-boarding in AK go to Haines. there's a place called alaska heli skiing, it's owned by a guy named sean dog. they're more difficult to get to and more isolated but the terrain and snow quality are way better.

I guess I'm kinda glad I don't have to choose. I mainly go moose and bear hunting, and those seasons are in the fall, well before any decent riding is available. although, since my wedding made me miss last fall's hunt, i could sure go for a nice big buck right about now. I love the anti-gun liberals. Especially when they come up here on vacation in the summers. The looks on their faces when they encounter me on a trail is very entertaining. apparently they're just not used to seeing someone with a 44mag strapped to their chest. i suspect they're just nervous that the gun might spontaneously jump out of the holster and kill them :)

IMO you should keep the softies. there's a certain learning curve involved with skiing, unless you want to do the power wedge all over the mountain. since you already know how to ride, i would suggest trying a reverse camber board. I know some people on here think they're crap, and whatever, but i started riding one, and it's so loose and playful, if you're just messin around, it's way more fun than traditional camber. If you're lookin to ride park, can i just say that the learning curve for skiing rails is way more painful than riding them. there's no easy 50/50 equivalent on skis. although it is easier to spin on skis.

having traveled by plane with firearms in the past, i can say it not as easy as this person tries to describe. a firearm must be in a secure case. unless you have hard-sided luggage, they probably won't let you throw a firearm in your suitcase. next, after you declare the gun, you have to go to the special TSA agent, and open the case and show them the gun, sometimes they will also make you show that it is not loaded, then the gun gets put back in the case and locked and sent on its way with the rest of the checked baggage. this might work, but why would you want to go through all of the extra hassle?

I know who mr. oldy oldman that harassed you is, and that dude is just a crusty old toolbag who hates snowboarders, no matter what. i'm surprised he didn't tell you that you darn skiboarders just go out and ruin the snow, what with those trenches that you leave all over the place. but i say fight this with as much time and energy as you want to put into it. as someone said earlier, it's yopu against 3 mtn employees and the mtn will side with its employees; as a former VR and Keystone employee, I can tell you, that VR will ABSOLUTELY not side with their employees if a paying customer is threatening to take their business away. and since you are said paying customer, just play the i paid money to be on the mountain card. trust me,, they will fold. people have gotten refunds on lift tickets(you know, those things that are supposed non-rfundable, no matter what) because, "the snow is too deep". this is fact, i saw the paperwork filed to process this refund. their is really no reasoning with them as far as you weren't riding too fast, or anything like that, because even though you weren't, they don't care, and that mtn is run by a bunch elitist skiers who think they're awesome and know everything. the only thing VR understands is $$$$, and if you start threatening to take your money elsewhere, i'm pretty sure they will fold. and if not, and they end up taking your pass away, just go and buy day lift tickets, and when you're done for the day go back to a ticket window, and complain until you get a refund. this is best done via cash. i worked on mountainside, but my husband worked in acct. trust me, if the person you are dealing with isn't doing what you want, keep asking to speak to a manager, and take it all the way to broomfield if you have to, although you wont. i'm guessing it won't take you too long to find a disgruntled employee who is fed-up with being treated worse than dirt and will do whatever you want.

i was just saying that watching ak weather in an attempt to predict lower 48 weather is pointless. the high pressure we had earlier this month is what brought us record sub zero temps. that obviously didn't translate to cold weather down there. however, i'm not sure what it did to the weather in the serengeti.

i saw a few mentions of AK. whatever jet stream the PNW is getting, it isn't from AK.you guys in the lower 48 get most of your cold air from canada not AK. it's not cold except in the interior and even up there it has warmed up. we've gotten several feet of wet heavy snow, then rain, then sleet, then ice over the past week. so far we've only had about a week with cold temps. now that we have snow, it's jsut made the hoar frosted mountains extremely dangerous. turkey day had 1 lift running on the lower mtn at alyeska due to avi danger. it's rare for our weather to reach the lower 48, especially snow. our low pressure systems come up from the south and generally move in a north westerly direction, wich is why southeast and southcentral get so much snow and relatively little in the interior. trust me, when it was cold up here a few weeks ago, you wouldn't have wanted any part. there's nothing good about -20F. it's too cold to snow at those temps.

i've gotten 100+ days a year since i was 18, except last season, too many injuries. will most likely get 100+ again this season, as long as el nino and the snowpack cooperate. i work at the resort, so it's easy to run out and ride whenever i want. as far as booked trips, um, i'm going to florida in a few weeks :) i could never live somewhere where i needed to book ski trips and travel to get snow. i'd be waaay pissed if the snow sucked. it's easier to accept crappy snow when my house is only 15 min away and i spent very little to get to the mtn. although a sunny day in Jan would be nice every now and then.

with some tooling around on the heel bail i'm pretty sure you could get the crampons to work, but like others said, why would you want to? i mean, this setup would work if it had to like if you were going to ride a big line that required crampons on a bit, but the main focus of the trip was for snowboarding. but if you're just going out to ice climb, no snowboarding involved, i would recommend getting a cheap pair of plastic boots. the old scarpa invernos are pretty good and i saw them new at REI a few years ago for about $99. with the crampon you posted, you won't really be able to get all of the use out of it using the head stratos. aside from muscle fatigue-like others said being due to sb boots not being as flexible, unless your body is very flexible, i see it being rediculously difficult to do anything with the heel points. You won't be able to feel as much in sb boots, so the monopoints on both feet will probably make you extra tipsy. plus, most climbs i've done, with the exception of the super fun road side climbs in AK, require some bit of hiking. HB's don't really facilitate this too well.