Timeless

Already banked enough, this wasn't relo but some of an unexpected bonus. As you are a local, can I ask a couple of questions (slightly off topic): 1) Why did you choose Kirkwood as your "home mountain" 2) Is the snow in Tahoe reliable enough to book a week there just before christmas? looking at arriving on the 18th, am I going to be faced with a few man made groomers or will they be in full swing by then?

Undecided as yet, I am going along for the ride with a friend who's brother lives in Tokyo. Definitely the north island but resort not specified yet. have you been before?

It's not a problem I have too often, and I'm sure my kids would have ideas if I let them.

I like the sound of that, and to Glenn's point I think he is right. Experiences are what matter but in many cases they come from having either the means to travel of the equipment to take part. Given that I am 30 minutes from Laguna Seca, I could see myself on many track days if I bought a bike. Some of my best days outside of snowboarding have been on such days. That would be some trip, I can probably get $50 airfare from here, what would I spend the rest on....

$13k? Leftovers on heli/cat skiing trip to BC?

should be going to Japan in january, not sure how I feel about AK and not sure who I could get to come with me. Also have limited vacation with a new job. can't you swim?

Have done the "bank for a rainy day" bit, this is what's left over for "do whatever you want with it...."

What do you all think is the most fun thing you can do with $20k Just imagine it's unexpected and expendable income that you have complete freedom to do what you want with. Think bike, car, boat, riding in exotic places, it's not a fortune but it is free money. Suggestions please.....

I thought Ready was disappointing after Optimistic the previous year, content wise (and music) I think this is my favorite vid. The problem I have with all these now is that I love watching these on my new projector set-up but after watching That's It... the quality of the other vid's really looks bad at that size. The definition, audio and quality of filming in the Trice movie is just so good that everything else seems second rate (not for content but for delivery). I still think Absinthe are my favorite bunch, but just wish they had the budget and equipment to do what Brain Farm did. Are there any other HD ski / snowboard movies?

I have an MTX 161 dark series (magne traction but no banana) and I have to say that the only tine I really noticed it last year was on really crusty days at camelback when they had not been able to groom stuff out and left a chunky frozen surface, it seemed to get through that better than my other board (164 ride timeless), maybe the characteristics of the board were just better, who knows. It seems everyone has come up with their own version of it though, marketing can be a wonderfult thing.

I'd be interested to hear what you think of the BTX given that you seem to be not park oriented and something of a traditionalist (maybe a bit overstated, but I meant to say that you don't seem to be driven by having to have the latest "thing").

Me, not so much.... funny how everyone over here is clinging to the promise of an el-nino and everyone in the east thinks otherwise.

Well mine's about 24cm wide between my feet...... to add to the original post, Sierra snowboards have some great deals on last years custom and custom x, not to mention a whole load of other brands.

Interesting to get a real opinion on the stability at speed. Unfortunately the chances of me getting to Blue this year have reduced considerably since I moved to California. Appreciate the offer though. Now that everyone has rockers I'm going to look for an end of season bargain, last year no one had any BTX boards, I think this year there will be plenty of leftovers.

All the different rocker variations are really confusing, it seems you can get everything from flat, to full rocker to rocker plus camber, to flat between the feet and some kick-up at each end, the combinations seem endless and there seems to be little objective information on line or in the mag's that helps. I thought it was interesting that the "inventers" of banana tech went to "c2" this year and put the camber back at the end of the boards, seems like maybe just responding to criticism that the boards were too "squirelly" at speed, this is the same that NS use on their "RC" technology. I was all up for adding a rocker to my collection this year but now I can't decide what the hell I want.

In order of ascending age & descending usage Lib-Tech Dark 161 (MTX) with Salomon Relay-pro bindings Ride Timeless 164 with Technine (Dominator?) bindings M3 158.5 Discord with Ride EX bindings Salomon F22 boots I'm thinking it's time for something new, either something softer and lighter or a rocker / banana type thing. Has anyone tried any of the new banana / camber combo boards? I'm interested in how the camber / rocker combination on the NS evo and Lib-Tech "power banana" work, from a theoretical perspective and from anyone's experience.

TAHOE and Utah

Lucky SOB indeed, just got back to the hotel after a great day at "PowMow", beautiful blue skies, deep soft (if heavy) snow, very few people there, overall possibly the best days riding for me ever. There was so much untracked snow on some huge open faces with enough steep to use it properly, it just never got old. Now I have aching legs, sunburn on my neck (missed this with the sun block) and a F'in huge grin on my face that I suspect will not go away for a while. No pictures as I left my camera back in PA, though one of the guys I was riding with today took some shots, I'll see if I can hijack them. Snowbird tomorrow, hot sun, soft snow, gad valley and mineral basin, what better way is there to spend a Sunday.

OK, someone help me out with the picture thing, if I open someone else's post I get an attachment option but not on this post. Help!

Hi all, firstly, thanks to Moe G for the positive thoughts yesterday, we did indeed get dumped on at snowbird, they are claiming 21" total and I can't confirm or deny that but I can say it was at least knee deep first thing this morning at it continued to snow all day. OK, so here's my full trip report , Ill try and add some pic's when I can work out why I don't get an option to attach them to this post. Friday 3/20 : Brighton Hot and sunny, nice powdery groomers on all sides of the resort, no lack of cover, but an obvious lack of recent snow. The off-trail surface was hard in the morning but softened up nicely in the afternoon, before turning to glue in places. Did some runs in the middle section to warm up, then spent most of the morning on the Millicent side, no lift lines, before moving over to clayton peak for the afternoon. The runs down from clayton were "interesting" with the softening snow and I took a tumble on Desperado where I stood my board on it's tail and tweaked my ankles, turned out later the front one is sprained. Overall a great day, no new things for me and I wasn't adventurous enough to take any of J Law's addvice on going outside the gates, but Brighton is always a "happy place" for me. Saturday 3/21 : Powder Mountain Warm and sunny again with increasing wind and some clouds moving in during the afternoon, worked out great because just as the snow had softened up nicely the temps dropped and sun was out less and so it stayed decent. Spent most of the day dropping off of either the paradise lift or the hidden lake express, found lots of decent trees (nicely spaced so could be taken at speed need in the soft snow). This was my first visit to PowMow but it won't be my last, my only criticism would be the stupid "lift" to get to Cobabe Canyon and the long flat run out from the bottom of that area. The lodge/overall set-up was very "rustic" but everything needed was on hand. I'm definitely looking forward to a future visit with fresh snow. Sunday 3/22 : Canyons Nothing more to say on this one, maybe unfair due to time of year and conditions, but not recommended. Monday 3/23 : Heaven (also known as snowbird) Fresh powder, not too many people, took a few starter runs in untouched powder off of the willbere lift, absolutely f'in awesome. Then headed over to the tram (we didn't go there first for the following reasons), coming off of the tram was like walking into some kind of blast chiller. Both mineral basin and road to provo were closed all day, so not much choice down from the top. Chose to head down into peruvian gulch, bad choice, the wind made visibility virtually zero for a long way down, it was genuinely a terrifying experience, I tried a bit of chips run as a safe option but that just proved to me what a complete waste of time that "trail" is, at the first opportunity I dropped into primrose and things go much better. Cutting across the hill (the top of a wide face I think was called cirque) I ended up on mach schnell which was amazing (steep, deep powder, trees adding shelter and better light, this was worth the tram-top experience. Spent the rest of the day running all over the resort, looking for remaing pockets of powder, there were plenty of places that were a little harder to get to that still had untracked spots, and ended the day back at willbere which amazingly was relatively untouched and had some of the best conditions there. If I can get the pics posted, you will see that the conditions after they closed the lifts were still awesome. This was the best day of my (relatively short) time riding, the combination of snowbird and fresh snow is a tough experience to beat. The last run of the day ended with dropping off the bottom of mach schnell into a 2-3 feet deep pocket of untouched powder leading out to the parking lot at high speed and seeing nothing but powder all around me, awesome moment that will live long in my memory. One thing with snowbird though is that it always finds many ways to remind me what a novice I am. So that was my weekend, coming home tomorrow, going to try the pictures now.

Me and the smallest (and fastest) of my kids were up on Thursday evening and Sunday morning & the coverage is pretty good. On Thursday there was a killer thin/ice patch on Raceway, the headwall on Cliffy was showing lots of ice (not just hardpack but real ice), nile looked a bit messy but was generally well covered. We didn't expect much from Sunday morning but the conditions were decent on Asp, Rocket (very good), Margies (better then most), Big Poc', cleos etc, and over on the east side Cliffy was better and Pharaoh was probably the worst cover, getting thin near the bottom of the drop onto bactrian. All in, considering the time of year, a good effort by CB, I could see them easily dragging out a couple more weeks, if you don't mind PA "spring conditions" then it's all good. My only complaint would be the reluctance to run the park lift, I was sure they would have it open for the afternoon / evening time, but this was a big disappointment for my kids.

Thanks, I've been checking in from time to time but work's been so bad this year it's really interfered with my season. I'll post some pic's from Utah.

Thanks everyone, much appreciated. Especially JL's PM info. Some information I maybe should have included: I ride , not ski, so DV and Alta are out, does this also exclude the possibility of the interconnect tour? As far as PC and the canyons go (and I think snowbasin may also fall into this category, wont their lower base elevations combined with 40-50 degree weather mean I'll be facing pretty unappealing stuff other than where groomed? Last time I went at this time of year PC was frozen first thing and very slushy by afternoon with nothing really much fun to ride off trail. I do like PC, but found the conditions at LCC & BCC much better (altitude and shade?). Thanks again for all the advice, more is welcome.

Question to those of you with plenty of "out west" experience. I'm heading out to SLC the end of next week and it looks like it's going to be pretty warm and sunny both before and during my time there, so assuming I'm not going to get any fresh snow and I dont want to spend all my time on groomers, where should I head and what should I expect. I was think of taking one of the in-bounds or "just outside" guided tours, but wonder what kind of surface I'll be dealing with in these areas. Any thoughts or opinions welcome.

Depends on the conditions, but assuming they all suck equally as badly then I would say mainstreet is a good place to start.