Quote :

"I have over-the-glasses goggles, and I put Cat Crap on my glasses, and it keeps them from fogging up, usually."

I still use Cat Crap on my glasses and goggle lens. Even with the new goggles I still have fog up occasionally, but it is tolerable now. The fogging was intolerable with my Oakley A-Frames to the point that I just didn't wear my glasses on days that I had to wear goggles. It's so much easier to read the little ruts and hard spots when your vision is crisp.

2/27/2012 8:46:32 AM

^^I really liked Alpine Relay, the only downsides were the jumps (doesn't register jumps off rollers where you're using momentum instead of jumping off of kickers) which really is minor, and occasionally the interface is sluggish when reviewing stats on mobile (desktop interface is fine)... logging wise it was brilliant, tracked all my tree runs, but it was a sunny day.

[Edited on February 27, 2012 at 11:00 AM. Reason : ,]

2/27/2012 11:00:13 AM

here's a few of my runs at squaw:

2/27/2012 11:22:06 AM

Quote :

"Wow that Alpine Replay app looks sweet. Just downloaded it to my phone and will try it out on my next trip. Coincidentally, there appears to be an Alpine Replay app specifically made for Big Sky (my next destination). I wonder what is different about it compared to the regular app."

I thought it was pretty good. There is a ton more data available than just what you're seeing on the dashboards. It logs data for each run and even overlays your runs and lift rides on top of Google satellite maps for you so you can see everywhere you went.



I did not log my first run (or two?) by mistake. This was my first trip in two years due to a car accident last year. The first two runs were warmup runs on the medium slopes. After that we went to Upper Shays and Cup Runn. Conditions went downhill fast as the fresh snow blew off or was packed down. After lunch I missed logging a run or two, but the conditions started to get better as the fresh snow started coming down.

Tech tip...If there is no data/wifi on the mountain when you close it will say "Your data has been saved and will be uploaded when you have wifi." For me this didn't work. Apparently it's a pretty common issue. Just turn it back on and start logging again when you get access to wifi. You'll need to let it log until it gets the GPS fix at least. Then stop and have it send the data. It will push the backlog data to their server when it sends the new data.

[Edited on February 27, 2012 at 12:40 PM. Reason : l]

2/27/2012 12:17:15 PM

^nice, thanks for the info. BTW, no Lower Shays for you on that trip?

7 days till Big Sky! And the 10 day forecast has snow 9 days, including 3-5" today

3/1/2012 9:06:48 AM

Lowe Shays has been closed for a while.

I was there Sunday-Tues.

3/1/2012 1:54:12 PM

Yeah, no Lower Shays right now. It's been a pretty bad year for snow.

3/1/2012 2:33:21 PM

damn that sucks.

3/1/2012 4:05:55 PM

Well shit, the forecast out in Montana doesn't look all that great for my trip. low to mid 40s every day

3/5/2012 11:19:52 AM

Posting from Jackson Hole, WY... unfortunately they're pretty much done with getting dumped on as tomorrow is the only real potential powder day. The out of bounds bowls are absolutely fucking filthy ...some of my best riding ever.

3/5/2012 7:36:40 PM

Got to ski Bolton Valley in VT following a major upslope snow event on Feb 26th when I visited Burlington. It was awesome and the first time I ever attempted skiing deep powder. 2-3ft of snow fell. The following are a few shots I took of the snow falling and from the mountain. Snowfall rates were 2-3" per hour during the storm.








[Edited on March 6, 2012 at 2:59 PM. Reason : .]

3/6/2012 2:58:18 PM

Conditions have been alright, but with a good deal of hiking I managed to have possibly the best run of my life yesterday. My buddy got jacked up, so I missed out on the only powder day since I was in the hospital with him all day.

...yesterday I hiked an hour and 15 across 2 bowls & 3 ridge lines for 2 minutes of riding, but it was absolutely gnarly.

3/8/2012 10:53:01 AM

^^awesome photos!

^sweet to hear (about your run). Sorry about your buddy though, what happened to him?

3/8/2012 11:17:20 AM

Fractured his T6 & T8 vertebrae and ruptured the surrounding ligaments, collapsed lung, bruised other lung, and broke is sternum. He had his T6-T10 vertebrae fused last night and managed to stand today. He's doing pretty well, all things considered.

3/9/2012 12:17:36 AM

jeebus, that was inbounds? what happened?

[Edited on March 9, 2012 at 6:28 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/9/2012 6:27:57 PM

God, I wish I had friends that would be down to go to Snowshoe or elsewhere. I haven't been in two seasons and it's killing me.

3/10/2012 1:09:44 AM

Wow, that's nuts, eli. Scary. How's he doing now?

We just got back from skiing in Aspen. Only did Snowmass due to the combo of nice, intermediate runs and fun apres-ski scene. Really fun city in general.

Does anyone here go to Heavenly or Whistler? We're trying to determine where to go next year.

3/10/2012 9:28:21 AM

well, out here in CO it's starting to feel like spring, and I'm a little worried about my trip to Moonlight Basin (Big Sky) later this week. I'm skiing Fri/Sat, hoping to catch a big powder dump. But it is kind weird when you're packing up skis and it's 60 degrees outside.

I just took a job in Raleigh so I guess I better get used to it...

^I'm thinking Whistler next year as well, it's just a safe bet for great snow, and relatively low altitude if you're worried about that sort of thing. Although I'd love to ski Aspen next season too. Have you been there before this season?

[Edited on March 12, 2012 at 10:27 PM. Reason : ^]

3/12/2012 10:26:16 PM

He hit a medium size kicker to get speed for the large kicker and overshot the landing; he landed on his heel edge and his back whiplashed back on the ground. He was unconscious for 10 min. when ski patrol was with him.



There's only one park at Targhee and it's pretty small, but he fell almost directly under the beginning of the Dream Catcher lift. I had just finished a tree run south of the Medicine Bowl/Northern Lights when a friend told me he was jacked up, so the quickest way over to base was up the Sacajawea lift. I thought about it and I needed to get there ASAP, so the quickest way over to base was through some gnarly cliffs (Reliable & Toilet Bowl). I wish I had a GoPro with me because it was absolutely filthy.

3/13/2012 4:18:12 AM

I really enjoyed Grand Targhee when I went a couple years ago. Don't you have to hike up to Reliable & Toilet Bowl from the lift though? Not sure how that could be faster than just taking the traverse.

3/13/2012 10:24:45 AM

You can hit Toilet Bowl without hiking by just hanging left when you get off the lift.

3/13/2012 3:32:07 PM

I didn't realize that. I spent most of my time on the runs off Dreamcatcher. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was my favorite section just because the snow was pretty nice in there. Not a lot of people realized how far that traverse will take them.

3/13/2012 4:38:59 PM

I guess my buddy's lucky Mary's Nipple was closed, 'cause I would've been hiking backcountry and a ways away from anyone & no cell reception.

3/13/2012 11:03:29 PM

Quote :

"I'm thinking Whistler next year as well, it's just a safe bet for great snow, and relatively low altitude if you're worried about that sort of thing. Although I'd love to ski Aspen next season too. Have you been there before this season? "

I didn't even think of altitude, but that's a good consideration. I didn't have an issue with altitude at Snowmass (12k & 13k at most), but the bf did. Closer to sea level may be better for him. We'd probably go in Feb or March again next year, so Whistler probably would have a more reliable ski season. And we could spend a couple of days in Vancouver and explore the city.

This was my first ski trip out West (and I have only skied one day in my life before this trip), so Aspen was nice in that it had a lot of easy trails. We just stuck to the blues the entire time ... and Snowmass had a ton of blues. The Apres-ski scene was really fun there. Would prefer something similar next year. Looking for lots of intermediate trails and a decent apres scene.

Yeah, lame. But neither of us can afford to get injured since our jobs require us to be active. So I appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

3/14/2012 10:44:29 AM

Damn eli, that's nuts! I'm glad he will be okay. I actually have a buddy who did the exact same thing at Park City a few years ago. Overshot the landing zone, and then broke his back, leg and several fingers. On a related note (location wise), when I was at Bridger Bowl this past Saturday a local recommended that I head over to Grand Targhee, as it said it was much colder there. I skied at Bridger Friday and Saturday (both half days) and it was 60° and sunny both days, dammit Skiing without gloves in a T-shirt FTL.

My trip to Montana was great, but unfortunately I missed out big time on any good action at Big Sky. Our first day there was Sunday, and windy conditions kept all of the higher elevation lifts (and the tram to Lone Peak) closed. I was pretty pissed about that.

Monday we went to Moonlight Basin and I had a blast. Loved the hell out of that place, but I'm sure the conditions had something to do with it as a few fresh inches had fallen overnight. It was windy as shit that day too, but my brother and I managed to take the Headwaters lift up before it closed and hiked along the ridge over to Fire Hole. It was so windy that at times we thought we would get knocked over and it took forever to hike over. Probably took 20 minutes to get to that chute and man was it worth the effort. 6-12" of untouched powder and quite an adrenaline rush to know that if you made one mistake you were probably going to the hospital.

Tuesday we went back to Big Sky despite the high winds (several people in the group had purchased 2 day passes instead of single (stupid b/c there's no cost savings) so regardless of most of the lifts being closed I still bought a lift ticket. But by 10am almost every single lift was closed due to 70-80 mph winds at the taller peaks. We contacted Moonlight Basin and they had every lift open but Headwaters. So we all paid the $31 to upgrade to ski over there. We get over there, and everything is shut down by Derringer...and that closed by noon. A quick call to Big Sky let us know that every lift there was now closed. So $116 down the drain. We gave up and returned to the condo and started drinking heavily. It was a pleasant surprise to find out (early on) that Montana has some really great breweries.

Quote :

"I'm thinking Whistler next year as well, it's just a safe bet for great snow,"

I could be mistaken, but I don't consider the ski resorts in the Sierra-Nevada mountain range to be safe bets, given their close proximity to the ocean. The weather there can fluctuate greatly. Did everyone forget how crappy the ski conditions were for the Winter Olympics this last winter?

I'll try to post up some stats later (from Alpine replay) but on my best day I had:

23 miles of skiing
22,000 vertical feet
top speed 64.6 mph
max sustained speed 55 mph
avg speed 24.2 mph

3/15/2012 10:25:02 AM

^Friggin' skiers and their speed stats. Boarders don't give a fuck.

Also, I'm gonna have to agree about the Sierra Nevada being more inconsistent than the Rockies... one of my friends did competitive skiing when she lived in Seattle (where she's from) and rode Crystal Mountain and Mt. Baker on the reg. It's the same mountain range, just 130 miles south and she strongly advised against going to Whistler/Blackcomb in the spring due to the weather inconsistency. One day it could be raining, the next a powder day.

This winter as a whole sucked a big one (especially in the southern Rockies) so it can't really be judged fairly... many places, such as Alta & Park City got more snow in the valley than on the slopes. I wore a tshirt at Winterplace in early Feb... friends back home in MA were riding in tshirts in Vermont in late Feb/early March, which is absolutely unheard of.

3/16/2012 3:55:08 PM

Quote :

"Friggin' skiers and their speed stats. Boarders don't give a fuck."

That's b/c most of them crash before they can get any sort of serious momentum going

3/16/2012 4:03:07 PM

You've been riding with the wrong people man, and boarders do crash more often, but they sure as hell don't look as ugly as skiers.

3/16/2012 8:24:48 PM

I didn't know wearing baggy gear with weird patterns was the attractive look

3/16/2012 9:51:39 PM

I strapped on a board for the first time when I was 15 and didn't clip into a set of skis for another 15 years after that. I loved skiing, but snowboarding was different. To each their own. I do think skis are better for top speed and quick turns when riding in trees or moguls, but I just enjoy the flow of the snowboard more. I would probably be quite happy with skis if I never tried boarding and I feel like I'd enjoy both if I lived somewhere that I could do it more often.

3/17/2012 10:52:22 PM

^this

3/18/2012 4:29:22 PM

I tried skiing before I learned to ride and it didn't feel right from the start... when I strapped in on my first board (Burton King 151 way back when), I knew which one I was gonna choose ahah.

^^The flow of snowboarding's probably one of my favorite things about it. When you're absolutely flying down a groomer and shifting your weight from heel to toe or when you're carving through some backcountry, leaning so far on your tail that anywhere else you'd flip up and eat shit... that's what I live for in snowboarding.

3/19/2012 11:28:41 PM

I'm only jealous of boarders for being able to plow through cut up snow, ability to hit drops, and looking awesome in terrain parks. But the back/side-country is ever so much more accessible to me on skis and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

3/20/2012 1:31:33 AM

Yeah, you've got us there... traversing on a board sucks. Although I think we're better off hiking just because ski boots friggin' suck.

3/20/2012 4:03:57 AM

Quote :

"But the back/side-country is ever so much more accessible to me on skis and I wouldn't trade that for anything."

Agreed.

And that's the beauty of it. To each his own. I just hate it when inconsiderate boarders decide to plow down narrow runs and scrape off all the fresh snow. On the flip side, novice skiers slowly going back and forth down a steep diamond that they have no business on is also frustrating

[Edited on March 20, 2012 at 4:48 PM. Reason : p]

3/20/2012 4:48:03 PM

it's experience based not equipment based. good snowboarders don't scrape, likewise good skiers don't swerve.

3/20/2012 5:28:48 PM

Quote :

"On the flip side, novice skiers slowly going back and forth down a steep diamond that they have no business on is also frustrating "

Ha ha...While I was at Snowshoe I ended up brainstorming a bunch of t-shirt designs based on the east coast ski/snowboard experience. One of the ones I came up with had text that read "I SKIED ALL THE RUNS ON THE MOUNTAIN, INCLUDING THE BLACK DIAMONDS!" and then it had a picture of a girl snowplowing down a steep grade. I think I should put them on Cafe Press.

3/21/2012 12:06:48 AM

hahahaha, that would be pretty sweet.

3/21/2012 8:48:51 AM

3/21/2012 7:45:35 PM

Fucking pizza wedging groms

3/22/2012 3:24:19 AM