El numero cuatro

Snowbird today with Liz Sherry- Not a lot of snow, but tons of fun.  Soft in spots, chalky in some, ice in spots, peppered with rocks here and there, but not damage!  Skied the Bluehouse Precinct 181cm today, I love these things!  Solid and stable at high speed, yet easy to maneuver at slow speeds and tight spots.  Perfect.

Yesss, #3 in the bag

Not so much of a big deal, but I got another day in!  Went up to The Canyons and met up skiing legend, Sam Webb.  Not much of the mountain was open, but the snow was pretty good, better than Deer Valley at least.  I'll be skiing there a lot maybe, because of the Level 9 hookup.  That is, until I somehow get a pass to Snowbird or Alta.  Can't wait for that day ;)
Sorry, no pics today.  But I will mention the orange bubble chairlift that warms your butt while you ride up.  It seems a little over the top, but my toasty buns really appreciated it.
Highlight of the day was finding out that the Bluehouse Precinct 181cm is a perfect match for me.  The sidecut works, the weight, width, everything just fell into place with this ski.  I imagine it will be used everyday.  Now we just need more snow.  There's still lots of dirt and weeds showing.

100 what?

So I had this ridiculous idea, that somehow got out before I was really committed, that I would ski 100 days this season.  I say ridiculous because I've never skied 100 days before in a season, and right now the snowfall totals are quite marginal.  This time last year was incredible, great snow, early start to the season, and motivation levels were at an all time high.  This season, being the antithesis of last, has proved difficult in accomplishing the 100 day goal, or at least getting off to a good start.  So far I've logged 2 days.  Two days of groomed runs, firm snow, and trying to get accustomed to my new skis.  In other words, this is quickly becoming next to impossible.  I'm still going to try though.
With the mindset of, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?", I am forcing myself to log these 100 days.  There are too many trolls and haters that would call me out too. Especially the guys that are saying they ski 200 days a year, have full time jobs, 5 kids, 3 wives, 2 dogs, and 1 leg.
So, here it is:
Day 1
12/8/2011 Deer Valley Resort

Bluehouse Radius, no snow

Day 2

12/9/2011 Alta Ski Resort

 With Jason & Manny

Smog Lake City off in the distance

Oh, I guess I need to make an entry of my trip to Chile in August, so maybe that will happen someday.  Hey, wait a minute... Does skiing in August count toward my 100 day thingy?  I'll have to get a poll going on that one.

More Spring Powder

This season has turned out to be more than incredible.  Snowbird's season to date snowfall (let's just call it their STD) is at 756".  The average is normally around 500", so the snow conditions look pretty good up there, especially for June.  One of the best things about skiing in the Wasatch is the surprise powder day in the late spring.  I guess knowing that it happens every year shouldn't make it a surprise, but I'm always amazed at how good the snow can be this late in the season.
This season, a nice little storm with cold temps and some moisture made its way to the mountains here on Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.  About 15" fell between the two days, so monday was set up to be perfect.  What better way to celebrate Memorial Day than to ski powder?  Well, visiting my grandparents' graves would have been better, but I'm sure they were happy in heaven to see me ski.  The only problem with days like this is the crowd of season passholders that always shows up too.  There are 100 or so chargers that show, and 900 gapers that seem to make life on those days more challenging.  All of the passholders plus a late opening (10am) and no tram equaled a massive line on Peruvian, all the way up to the cat from the bypass road. It was definitely worth it though.  I got in about 6 runs before 1pm when I had to make my way back to work (yes, I had to work Memorial Day).  This day got my spirits up, and motivated me to ski as much as I could before the end of the season, which will be July 4th weekend.  Sweet.

Welcome to GaperStock 2011!  Bring your Rossignol S7's and Colombia jacket, and let's par-tay!

 Sorry Sam, your head is in gapershot #2

 "Alright, who's throwing snowballs?  That's not funny.  I say we find that guy and shove his face in the snow.  He'll probably think its funny, so we should do it."

"Those are Deer Valley gloves, did you work there or just buy them?"

"Well, I used to work at Deer Valley when I lived in New York.  I would fly out every weekend to work a day, then have a day to ski on my own, then I'd fly back to New York.  It was great."

White Dot Skis

Finally got a chance to get up to Snowbird again, unfortunately it wasn't powder though.  However, it was the next best thing- Spring slush.  The temp was close to 60 up there, turning the snow to corn in some spots, but deep, sticky mush everywhere else.
I had a few pairs of White Dot skis in my office to try out, so I grabbed a pair of Preacher hoping that they'd do the job.  The other options were way to soft, or too wide, or a combination of both.  The 179cm length of the Preacher was bothering me a little, trying to convince myself that I could still get enough stability out of them, but still not believing it.  I went for 'em anyway.  First run down Great Scott/Jaws area was fun, but a little sketchy.  High speed on short, soft skis isn't my cup of tea, but a little slower on more predicable snow (groomers) was actually pretty good.  I don't think a longer length of this ski would have been any better for the steeper, faster stuff though.  The main thing this ski lacked was appropriate stiffness.
I was really excited to try out the White Dot skis, as their image they've built the skis around is big mountain charging.  They seemed like a good match for me, based on their marketing efforts, and with Jeremy Nobis riding for them, I was about ready to commit to pushing their brand.  Good thing I got a chance to ski them first. I had access to the Preacher, Redeemer, and One, all of which were surprisingly soft just flexing them in the office.  They seem to be built well, and the Preacher did survive a 30mph dive off my roof rack, but unless you ski soft, fluffy powder everyday of skiing, these aren't exactly the best skis for the job.  The Ragnarok XII might be the redeemer (hehe, pun intended) of their lineup, as long as Fred Syverson likes stiffer skis.
The best part of my ski day?  The drive up and back down in my 1998 VW Jetta (thanks Jason), which now has 272,000 miles on it:

April into May Skiing

While the entire state of Utah is complaining about this long winter we're having, a handful of real skiers are loving every minute of it. Concerns of flooding in the valley are being pushed back with each winter storm, because the snow just simply is not melting.  Snowbird reached 700" over the weekend, which forced the cancellation of my adult league soccer game (4" of snow on the soccer field), but allowed for a great afternoon of powder skiing.  The base depth is close to 200", which is over 16 feet, btw.  I haven't skied this much in years, maybe ever.  However, I still feel like I missed out on a lot of really good days.  That being said, I had my best day of the season on Tuesday, April 26th:
At 5am, I got a text from the Unified PD, saying that LCC road was going to close at 6:30am for avalanche control.  I looked at the snow totals, and it was something like 6", enough for me to ditch work for at least the morning.  On the road by 5:30, I easily made the cutoff at the mouth of the canyon.  I was a little worried that the  UPD officer was going to ask me where I was headed, but he just waved me on (you're not supposed to just hang out up there without accommodations).  The road was snowy, but a 2000 Dodge Durango, with close to 200k miles with balding tires, but 4 wheel drive engaged made the drive pretty easy.  I camped out for a couple hours, until the interlodge was lifted, and b-lined to the tram plaza.  Caught the first tram, then the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and by then, the road was finally open for the dudes that didn't make the 6:30 road closure.  So I moved to Peruvian, which was pretty empty.  Snow was good everywhere, and my Atomic Atlas' were perfect for the day.  The snow was deeper than reported, about 12" pretty much everywhere, but was pretty dense, smeary, fast, and smooth.  The 6 back to back tram rides I got in before the road opened, just crushed the cat skiing I had a couple weeks earlier.  A couple pro skiers got some too- I saw Dean Cummings, Jonny and Angel Collinson up there.  Its pretty awesome bumping shoulders with skiers like them.
About an hour and a half after the road closed, interlodge went back into effect, due to some avalanche activity along the road.  So, camped out at Cliff Lodge, lounging on a plush leather sofa chair, surrounded by enormous and beautiful Persian rugs.  I felt guilty walking on them with ski boots, but Dick Bass has a few hundred extra, so that thought quickly disappeared.  What seemed like an eternity was finally ended with a hotel representative declaring that the resort was finally open.  It was a mad, crazy dash to whatever cable strung device could get a skier to greater heights.  In my case, I decided to bypass the maze of the tram, for a 45 second wait on Peruvian.  Sure the accessibility is limited on Peruvian, but I'd take 5 runs on it over 1 tram any day.
Anyway, summary is that skiing is rad, even in April, and May of course too.  Looking forward to see how late the season will run.  Probably a good year to play in the mountains, touring some of the high peaks in the Wasatch that I've been dying to reach.
Man I like skiing.  Just need to work my legs more in the gym between sessions so my days can be longer and more fun.  Until next post...

 This persian rug is about 3 stories tall, plus the red one above, another 3 or so stories tall.

 Just the essentials- Mtn dew, kit kat, Burton bibs on a leather couch, and Raptor 120's on a Persian rug.

 Not storming too hard, but a lot of bombs going off outside.

 April 30th, morning surprise

 There used to be cliffs in there, not so much anymore

 Ahhhh. Glad to be skiing on April 30th.

 14" new reported at the time of this pic, May 30th @ Snowbird

 It took the ref an hour to figure out that there wasn't a chance that we could play soccer on this field.  About 4" of fresh snow.

Not quite time to pull the cover off.

Cat skiing

I have a love hate relationship with cat skiing.  I've only done it twice, and I was excited to go both times, but maybe too excited.  Both times ended up being anti-climatic, hoping for the best skiing experience of my life, and being let down both times.  Probably due to the terrain, pitch, or whatever else that I haven't identified yet.  Maybe its due to not paying for it.  Or maybe is that I didn't have any say in the location, or date.  Whatever it is, it must be wrong, especially since I have more fun skiing Snowbird, even on a couple days after a storm.
Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Bootfitting theory

Spent yesterday with the Soze group (Conformable insoles and such) at a bootfitting seminar at PCMR, to learn how terrible my skiing was, and how its the fault of my boots.  So, now I'm just waiting on some tweaks on my boots to make me a pro skier.  Really, they had some cool and interesting ideas, and some really successful skiers are using these techniques to improve their skiing.  I scored some new footbeds with super high arches, but are flexible, so they allow foot and ankle movement, which is key to their theory.  I'll give them a try this week maybe.
While on the hill, I had a chance to take a few runs on the Coreupt Slasher, 112mm underfoot, tip rocker with twin tip at the tail.  It was great for the snow, which was packed powder (Utah style, not east coast style), with a few inches of dust on crust everywhere else.  Because of the standard camber underfoot, or even hyper-camber, the Slasher carved really well, about the same as a 90mm all mountain ski.  Still not an "all mountain" ski, but good enough for Snowbird all mountain during a good year, as this season has proved.  They skied well enough to want a pair, so I'll see what kind of deal I can strike up with Coreupt.  Oh, just one issue, that may or may not be an issue (if that makes sense): Off trail, I hit an ice chunk which stopped my left ski instantly.  Fortunately I was going slower, maybe 25-35mph, so my tumble back onto the groomed run wasn't too painful or scary.  Now, I don't know if a ski with more rise to the tip would have prevented this, but I gotta put it out there to be fair- for a rocker tip ski, its a little on the shallow side.  Other than that, I had a great time on the Coreupt Slasher, and didn't mind or care that it was made in China.

Parles vouz frances? Mmmm... No.

Yesterday I met the guys from Coreupt Skis again- Pierre, Grulain, a team manager, and Steve.  I had met Pierre and Grulain before, but this time it was after I realized what or who Grulain Chicerit was.  I met him in Munich at the ISPO show, and talked with him for 10 seconds.  Since then, he placed 3rd at Kirkwood FWT, after taking 4 years off skiing to drive rally cars.  So, he's pretty much a rad guy and I just thought he was some frenchie with enough cash to start his own ski company.  Well, its quite different than that.
Anyway, I got to see a couple new models, the Slasher and the Banger.  The Slasher could fill a spot in my quiver for next season, so maybe I'll get a pair if it skis well.  Monday or tuesday I'll get that chance.  It is basically the Born to Drop, but narrower.  It could be an everyday ski for snowbird on years like this one, where there is soft snow everyday.
I'll put up some info when I get a chance to make some turns with them.
Chao

Relatively Injury Free

Only a couple injuries this season, one of which is shown here, the other wasn't really visible.  Early season I went full speed with air into a scree field, with 1cm of snow on top of it.  Skis stopped instantly, and the ragdolling began.  I did about 3 or so, and ended up with either some intercostal bruising, or a cracked rib maybe.  The bloody finger was from trying to wiggle through a narrow chute with some saplings at the mouth that ended up being narrower than I was.  I sort of punched one with my hand, broke it in half, but got this weird blood blister.  I think I popped a bursa maybe.  My glove was full of blood, so I decided to end the ski day early.  What a wuss, eh?  Fortunately, the swelling is down by about 50% so that's good... three months later.
Looking forward to finishing out the season without any real injuries, since the two above don't really count.

Greg Stump

Growing up there was one ski movie that I watched over and over again, and left an impression on me, both in skiing style and lifestyle.  Didn't matter if it was the middle of a hot California summer, the VHS was slipped out of the cover autographed by Glen Plake, and fast forwarded to the real start of the movie (there was a 10 minute intro with some snowboarders getting gnarly over a mound of snow).  For the next 45 minutes or so, I'd be glued to each scene, trying to figure out how I could turn that way, catch air that way, and wear neon that way.  At the end of the flick, I would be anxious to ski, and usually with no snow for thousands of miles, my brain would just boil.  When ski season rolled around, it was finally time to apply the knowledge I learned from watching Licence to Thrill, by Greg Stump.

A couple years passed, and while attending the SIA (snowsports industries of america) show, I saw and ad for a new movie, Legend of Ahhs, and Greg Stump was going to be there.  I had to go, and I convinced my two reluctant travel companions that they had to go with me.  Soon after arriving, I saw the man that made these amazing movies, so I had to meet him.  He was an interesting guy, down to earth, and more of a LA/surfer type.  Then had a chance to see Legend of Ahhs, which was a behind the scenes look at Blizzard of Ahhs, and that era of skiing.  Pretty legendary night, and he was nice enough to pose for a little shot with me here:

FWT L9 Posse

Representing.

Klint Review

Day 2 on the Klint Krypto was pretty incredible.  Snowbird was covered in white frosting, that was smeary and delicious.  It was actually snow, but was a treat nonetheless.  Windblown, dense powder was everywhere, and the Kryptos gobbled it up.  Smearing was the name of the game today, and throwing the skis sideways for 20 feet was not only possible, but extremely fun.  So, yeah, the skis did pretty well in this snow too.  On the firmer snow it did a little better than what I had heard, so I could see myself on a pair in the future.  Not as cool as Chuck's Folsom Customs, but as close as I can get right now to being the only guy on the mountain with that ski brand clamped to their boots.
Now, is the Krypto worthy of a potential trip to South America, where a quiver of 2 is the maximum allowed?  Not sure about that yet, but its looking better than a few other contenders, mostly because of the twin and skis 'lighter.'

Klint skis

Got a chance to ski some Klint Krypto skis last week.  They are a small company just starting out with a lineup for 2011/12 season.  The highlight of their lineup is the Krypto, which is about 189cm in length, and about 120mm underfoot, with a good amount of tip and tail rocker.  The graphic below is a demo graphic, the production will be a lot brighter.

Anyway, conditions were probably about perfect for this ski- 12" on top of sun crust, and even deeper in some spots that get wind deposited snow.  Only a few areas could you feel the crust underneath.  The Kryptos floated with ease, and extremely maneuverable, despite the length and me being only 5'7" and 150lbs.  I hiked Baldy a couple times, North first, then West, and the skis were solid in both areas.  North Baldy was a little shallower and more windblown and punchy.  West Baldy was deep, but sluffed off to expose some of that sun crust.  Tight spots were even easier because they pivot without much effort, so when I needed to dump speed, or weasel through some trees, I felt like I was in full control. When it got a little choppy and even on the semi-groomed the tails washed out a bit more than I am used to.  That might be the skis, might be me being used to non-rockered tails.  At higher speeds I could feel a little instability generating, and couldn't push the envelope to the max.  I'll be using these tomorrow, which will be a lot firmer snow, more groomed and Utah hardpack (packed powder), and some windblown dense powder.  At least, that's what I'm hoping for.  I'll report back tomorrow.

Qualifier Pic

Pic from Snowbird Qualifier:

Wasatch Powderbirds

So, a week and a half ago, with a lot of luck, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of heli skiing. My brother Dave, accompanied by sister Meredith and youngest brother, James, and I (Eric in China on business) drove down from Park City to the bypass road to a place I never figured I'd enter... Wasatch Powderbird Guides.  It was a miracle we even had a chance, as the weather called for snow and wind, both things that helicopters don't seem to agree with.  The storm just never showed up, but the storm the day before left 6-12 inches of new snow, just for us to enjoy.
After a quick orientation, we got our gear, and took off... literally.  Half of the experience was the thrill of riding in a helicopter, but the other half was pretty incredible too.  The guides have everyone take a pretty tame slope for starters, to judge the ability of the group.  Good thing we were all pretty solid skiers, otherwise it was going to be powder skiing on intermediate runs all day.  As it turns out, we were a pretty strong group, and they put us in terrain that most groups don't get to ski.  The guides were super cool, in a different world than the cat skiing guides I met in Brundage.  What a life those guys have- skiing several times a week via helicopter, powder everyday.  Anyway, not gonna happen for myself, but doesn't hurt to dream of that life.
After taking our runs, we made it back to base camp, where a late lunch was awaiting us: Applewood smoked salmon, smoked steak, and side dishes to make a complete, quality meal.  I had a big chunk of salmon and two steaks- had to take advantage of the good food, of course.  I'll get some videos and more pics posted, but here's a start:

Solo roadtrip from SLC to Taos, NM. Drove from about 6pm to 4am, then found a secluded dirt road for a nap. Rolled into Taos resort at 8am to find 100" of snow since the start of the season (that's bad).

First night car camping, which was almost as comfortable and convenient as staying at a hostel just outside Taos:Qualifier venue xerox. There was a lot more black than white in real life.

FWT

Having skied most of my life, and having adopted skiing into my life as more than just a hobby, I figured I ought to try some sort of competition to gauge my skillset that I've been developing over the past 25+ years. The Freeskiing World Tour Snowbird stop seemed like a perfect opportunity, so when registration came around, I went for it. Registration started at 10am, and within 3 minutes or less, the event was filled. Fully prepared with my credit card info already pasted to my clipboard, and somewhat acceptable web navigation skills, I was one of the lucky ones to claim a spot. That was the easy part. Now I had to start skiing to get ready for this trial. Just one problem... With a work week of 50-60 hours, finding time to ski was going to be tough.

So, 'training' began early fall, wrapping up soccer season, cutting out sugary soda, skiing West Baldy at every opportunity, and thinking a lot about skiing. Also had a good warm up at the Salomon Extreme Skiing Comp at Taos, NM, where I qualified in 10th, Semi'd in 20th, and ended up in 14th in the Finals.

To get to the point, I had a good qualifier run, putting me in 5th for my heat. A couple days later, I had a good run on Silver Fox, but had a bobble that cost me a spot in the finals. Also, my line score was a little low, so gotta work on that for next time. Not bad though for having never hit any of those drops, and feeling like I was out of my element. Ended up in 40th, and the top 35 went onto the finals. Here's my run, thanks to Nick for recording it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-slhYWG-9k

More to come, including the 'training' that went down to get to this spot.