Timeless

skate bananas or TRS's ?

It seems to me that the "best" boots at the moment seem to be either 32's or Salomons depending on your foot shape. Does anyone recommend anywhere other than Nestors for the salomons, and can anyone from a local(ish) shop tell me what type and sizes they have in stock. I'm looking for a high end boot, either the F series, Malumutes or similar. Also, anyone any experience with their "relay" binding? it looks like an interesting idea. Thanks

The guy responding titles himself as their "webmonkey" so maybe that explains the two word answers. I just got another response from him from my asking when they might be producing some more and got another short response "next season" . I guess you could be right that they are swamped with people asking the same question. Seems I'm SOL on the board front, demand for these must have been huge although there seem to be plenty of skate banana's around in the smaller sizes.

had this great response from Lib Tech's customer service: "sold out" not even a "due to really high demand blah blah ... we'll have some more by ... blah blah" Looks like I'll have to take my cash elsewhere, shame really I really wanted to try the whole banana thing this season.

Are there any dealers posting or lurking on here or anyone with contacts that can get me a new (legit and legal) 159cm Lib Tech TRS with MTX and BT. Also if anyone has stock of salomon malumutes (sp?) in sizes around a 10 who is willing to fit them properly for me, post up and I'll be down as sson as I can. Thanks

Wish you a speedy recovery. I wonder if the rangers were asking people how the conditions on the rail were?

At the weekend there were two real features, a strange "spine" like thing running down the trail, maybe 30-40 feet long and a small jump where it meets the bottom of Rhodo/raceway and gets steeper, just a small wedge/landing, there may have been something else further up. They had the rails out in Rhodo, I think this will be open once this warm spell passes.

If you look at the info for the new hotel/condos at CB, they are apparently going to offer mountain biking and a mountain boarding area attached to the hotel.

Was up at CB this morning, conditions on most trails were OK, but the newly blown and opened trails for this weekend were amazing. Pick of these was definitely Asp where they seemed not to have groomed out the mountains of snow they blew this week, it was freakin' great. Hump was also pretty damn good. Not many liftlines this morning, even for the quads and they had all the secondary lifts running too. All was good. Cover is getting a little thin on some trails (like Nile), not sure how they'll cope with the next 3-4 days before it gets cold again.

I wish you hadn't said that, I've only ever been to Utah and will be going again this year. I'd really like to go somewhere different but it seems I go with different people each year and I cant find a reason not to go back. I need to hear someone say "xxxxxx is much better than Utah". BTW, for anyone who hasn't been, Utah f'in rocks, but then my frame of reference is PA/NY/VT and UT.

conditions at the tubing park looked excellent as I drove by last night, they have good coverage on all lanes and were blowing a lot more new snow, the new "magic carpet" looks really nice... .....no I cant do this, tubing is lame, drive another 1/2 a mile and put your skis on.

can you post bigger pic's, might be interested but can't see anything in those tiny pic's

Did a late night session at CB last evening, not crowded and both quads running. It was very cold (8-9F at the base) which is good news for the weekend because they have managed to blow an absolutely huge amount of snow on the closed trails and the guns were still pumping it out all evening and presumably through the night. I'm pretty sure they wil be 100% for this weekend, they were even blowing on Hump which is always last and all the connecting trails. The surface was pretty crappy to be honest, but maybe only as you would expect for late night at this time of year. Under a thin variable layer of either dust or sticky "overblow" from the adjacent trails it was pure boilerplate "hardpack". It was at least smooth and as such was fast and smooth but you relly needed those edges. It seemed pretty consistent on all the trails from flat greens to marjies and rocket. So a short session for me (12 runs) with no repeats, nothing seemed good enough to do twice. very few rangers about last night (to cold?) and considering how few people there was still plenty of kids sat in the middle of trails chatting (why do they do that at night?). Prospects for the weekend look good with new snow on Asp. Hump etc, they really just need to touch up the trailsl they've already opened and it would be all good.

update for 12/28, now it's looking more like an east coast resort. Very crowded today, lots of muppets. Surface condition was a little frozen up first thing and a bit chunky in places but mostly just "noisy cord", then as the traffic and temps rose it was pretty much smooth boilerplate "hardpack" with a few inches of loose powder/fine granular over the top, not bad as it was all pretty consistent. Left at 12 due to long liftlines and general body count.

considering the less than stellar weather, CB has been great so far, a good selection of trails with decent conditions.

well I was there.... Didn't seem too bad that early, lots of "crazy asians" on 12/26 and 12/24, not so many Thursday. I think the rain keep the gaper community in the lodge or at home, we'll see what it's like today (Friday).

Just a quick 2 hours trip to the hill this morning, surface conditions were awesome, soft but fast and well groomed. The Stevenson quad was a little slow getting started which sucked a bit because I had chosen to start on that side, but a few runs off of the raceway triple and then I moved over to the main base area. Rocket, Bic Poc', Nile and Pharoah were all great, margies was a little lumpy so I only did that once. It was "raining" (more of a soft heavy drizzle) most of the time I was there so the crowds were zero, I didn't wait for a single lift. I left early as this is the first day since Blues opening day that I've ridden without my kids and my legs were burning after 2 hours of continous "fast" riding, (it's all relative), and the rain was making it difficult to keep any kind of clear vision. Funny thning happened on Pharoah just before I left, 3 guys on skis (late teens at a guess) were milling around at the top so I let them get a way ahead before I started my run, when I turned the first corner, all three of them were in the fence, poles and ski's all over the place . To all those of you that don't like the fences at CB, this is why they are there, these three would have ended up dropping maybe 50ft down onto Little Ceaser. A quick check to make sure no one was hurt and I went on my way. Weather aside, a great time. Very impressed at how the base is holding up under difficult conditions.

Who are you and what have you done with the real papasteeze? I have to agree on the consitions though, I was upon christmas eve and it was pretty good, if a little chunky in places and then again yesterday (12/26) which was even better. I'll be up again this morning and I'm expecting good things. I'm not sure how much longer they will be able to continue tp provide decent conditions without making more snow though, and there are still a lot of trails to open. If the traffic gets heavier over the coming days then I think it will deteriorate quite badly.

Craig as in SkiCB? Pic's are excellent.

Best wishes and speedy recovery to you Atomic.

Why are you all so excited about the long bunny hill opening? Is switchback open yet?

didn't recognise him with a smile.

Took the kids for a few runs this morning as their school was one on only a couple closed becaus the weather was bad yesterday . Surface conditions were really good, nice and loose, varying between fine "sugar" and blowover from the trails they are snowmaking on. Grooming was first class with no sign of ice from the weekends storm. The only "fly in the ointment" was the limited lifts, no quad (not sure if because of wind or because they were iced up) and not even running the marc anthony double so accessing that half of the open trails was difficult. The wind at the peak when we arrived was OK but within a few runs it was howling across and blowing the kids off course so we called it around 10.30. A nice short morning despite the weather, won't make it up there today but shold be night skiing with work friends tomorrow, I'm really hoping the quad will be running by today.

I REALLY didn't want this to be another CB bashing thread, and I'd like to make it very clear that most of the the CB employees (lifties, first aiders,cafeteria staff etc, hell even the rangers) are very polite and friendly, I'm sure even mr "Joe" has good days. I've come accept that the quads are not going to run in high winds or any chance of ice although I personally think it has more to do with economics than safety, it is what it is and I'll live with it. On top of that CB's snowmakers/groomers are incredible, the day after a major sleet / ice storm and the conditions first thing this morning were really excellent.

Brief trip to CB yesterday morning (12/16), My 7 year old and I pulled into the main lot to find very few cars and the top of the hil shrouded with cloud/fog. Walked up to the main base area to find the quad still stacked up and no sign of being run, and there didn't seem to be many of the other lifts running either. Coming across the snow towards us was a CB employee, who from his name tag turned out to be Joe (Amato?), "director of operations" or similar from his badge, just the right person to ask what they were planning with the lifts today. So I politely asked "what's the plan for the lifts today?" to which he very bluntly replied "there's one over there" pointing to the bailey double and walked away. Nice customer service......it's easy to see why he got to be "important". Anyway, we get on the slow double to the top and take our first run down King Tut's which was nice surface conditions but the freezing fog at the peak and to about halfway down made your goggles (and everything else) ice up really quickly. Stopping halfway down to de-ice was the only solution. With the lifts that were running it really meant you had to choose either the marc-anthony side or the bailey side as there was hiking invloved between the two otherwise so we took a few more runs down Tut's while the weather deteriorated into freezing rain at the base and then decided to head home, glad to have season passes and hence not having to waste the cost of a day ticket. Whilst I cant blame them for only running the fixed lifts, with the ice / freezing rain that seems to be a problem for them, a little common courtesy wouldn't go amiss from the staff. Oh yeah, and the two employees screaming at each other outside the rental shop where one (a ranger on a tractor who didn't have the headroom to drive under there without tearing chunks out of the wood panelling) and the other ("ambassador"?) were discussing the relative merits of the rangers education, that was a really nice piece of public image building. Anyway, trying again this morning but I see from the trail report it looks like even fewer lifts so not expecting too much. At least the sun is out today. Will report again later.