NMSKI

If I were taking my family I'd probably stay in PC for the whole experience, but it'll probably be just me and a buddy so we'll go with cheap hotel in SLC. Seems like a car is the way to go, the pow day consideration makes total sense.

Any of you guys ever use the ski shuttle bus in SLC? Thinking about doing Utah on airline and hotel points for a 4 day trip in early March. Should i just suck it up and rent a car?

Love me some Taos and Durango!

There is a mexican drink called a michelada where you mix a beer with tomato juice. Nasty.

My saw horses, plywood and vises are put to shame.

Awesome, where did you get said machine from?

Got my Blue season pass and will be doing most Saturdays and some weeknights there. If I can convince one of my buddies I want to make my first trip to Jackson. If not I'll do Taos again this year.

A good start is a mountain that is more about skiing that real estate development.

My mom, who lives in Albuquerque, NM was telling me that they got a great view of the eclipse from there. A bunch of people in her neighborhood made boxes with cutouts that you stand with your back to the sun and look at the eclipse through. She had bought some $1 eclipse glasses which were much better than looking though a box with a cutout. To me it kind of seems like people are overly cautious with all the glasses and boxes and stuff. Just get a quick look and then look away. I'm not an astronomer or an eye doctor, but if you need special glasses to look at an eclipse, shouldn't you do the same when you look at a sunset? Nobody does that though.

If you look real close you can see Aunt Becky walking in the lower right hand part of the picture. Awwww yeahh.

Thank you, it is a berber.

Oh no, I guess I should have taken them to a shop to be mounted and not just eyeballed it and then drilled.

Got Dynastar 6th Sense Slicers with Look Pivot 14s. Thanks Shadows for throwing that picture up there, still figuring out how to post shit with my phone.

Thats right, they are rockered.

It all arrived, I guess I have plenty of time to get the bindings mounted. Deal of the century so we'll see how it goes. Should probably spend my money on summer stuff now. <a href="http://s1079.photobucket.com/albums/w520/tcatan01/?action=view&current=08f78628.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1079.photobucket.com/albums/w520/tcatan01/08f78628.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>

Seems like you could ship one of these also if the need ever arose. I get nervous checking anything. I picture the baggage handlers and TSA treating my luggage like Ace Ventura UPS guy.

Thanks for the info guys. Thats a nice looking bag. Really surprising to me that there are not any other bags that hold longer skis. My longest are 187, but if I get a pair of pow skis I will for sure need the extra length.

Since there's some good deals to be had out there this time of year, I'm looking to get a new travel bag. What do you all use, or what would anybody recommend? Want to get one that can carry and protect 2 pairs.

This guy is too worried about what other people are doing. Who cares what you look like or how good you are as long as its fun? Only thing I hate is when someone runs over my skis in line.

Prominence is basically how tall the mountain is compared to the surrounding area. If the surrounding area is high elevation already, a really high peak doesn't appear as prominenent. For example, in Colorado there are 14k foot peaks, but the surrounding area is 5-10k feet elevation so the mountains dont look as big.

SurprIsed me that the Tetons weren't on here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peaks_by_prominence

I expected the rocky mountains to be a little rockier than this. I was thinking the same thing, that John Denver is full of shit man. - harry dunn & lloyd christmas

So I didn't demo a damn thing other than the Atomic Coax which I liked, but I found a pair of the slicers online for ridiculously cheap and since i just got my bonus at work I'm thinking about getting them without having demoed since I only hear great things about them. Seems low risk enough. Was wondering about bindings. I have a set of Salomon STH 14's I could swap onto them, or I also read that the Look PX 12 is recommended for the ski. Should I swap the STH 14's, or get new PX 12's? Other good options?

Warming hut on the way to Kachina Not almost there Still not almost there My goofy ass on top of Kachina Looking back up Kachina

Spent a couple of days in Albuquerque getting acclimated to the altitude, catching up with some friends and letting my mom spend some time with my kids. Did some nice hikes in the nearby Sandia mountains, and saw my NM Lobos beat Boise State for a share of the Mountain West regular season title. Took a couple pics of the hike. When we rolled into the town of Taos it was warm enough that there were people jogging shirtless, so I was fully expecting spring conditions at Taos Ski Valley. It hadn’t snowed in about 10 days or so when we arrived. My general plan was to ski the backside and lower front side in the morning and kind of work my way around the mountain as the day went on to sort of “follow the aspect” so that I could be skiing somewhat soft snow all day. I demoed some skis at Alpine Extreme lift-side and they set me up with the Atomic Coax 191cm. I fully expected to swap in and out of a bunch of different skis, but these actually really did the trick for me and I stayed on them the whole trip. Took me 2 or three runs to get used to them on groomers, but they were awesome on the ungroomed steeps. As far as the skiing goes, North American and Longhorn were 2 of the trails on the front side that were really good in the morning. The first 10 or so turns on Longhorn were some of the steepest stuff I’ve ever skied although not bumped up I’m guessing due to the steepness. The rest of it was big, soft bumps. If bumps are your thing, the front side is where it’s at. In addition to the famous Al’s run there are a bunch of others beside it that are just about as steep and equally bumpy. I steered clear of this area, as I’ve already checked Al’s off my bucket list a while back, and didn’t want to waste all my energy over there. On the backside of the mountain, my favorite by far has to be Hunziker Bowl. I spent the majority of one full day lapping this area as the snow was so good and there are literally acres and acres to explore. Hunziker is accessed by an uphill herringbone track through a gate, so most people are too lazy to go in there but it’s their loss. Once you make it up there you can traverse clear around a bowl with options ranging from wide open bowl skiing to somewhat tighter chutes. Also, the way the wind blows right up the bowl, combined with its difficulty to get to means the snow is fresh windblown all day long. Even when it hasn’t snowed in 10 days. There are some nice long groomed runs on the backside that I really enjoyed getting some speed on. I only skied 1 or 2 of the ungroomed runs on the upper front-side. These would be more fun on a powder day. Castor and Pollux are right under lift 2 and are very steep and have trees interspersed throughout – not somewhere you’d want to fall and lose control. Took me long enough, and was enough work to make it down that I only did it once. Also on the upper front side accessed from lift 2 is the West Basin Ridge, where they had the Salomon Freeride Championships the weekend before I got there. I hiked up to there to check it out, but it was looking pretty beat up so I opted to go left to Highline Ridge. On Highline Ridge, I skied Juarez a couple of times and really liked that. It’s very steep but also very wide open. It’s also visible to other parts of the mountain, so I felt all right skiing it without a partner (my buddy only skied with me one day). Another time up Highline Ridge, I met a guy from Chicago and a girl from Chile and we made a go at Kachina Peak. Took us about an hour and 15 but it was totally worth it. At one point I was so out of breath, I would take 30 steps, rest, take 30 steps, rest, etc. I will invest in a ski pack before doing this again, as it was a monumental pain in the ass to carry my skis all the way up there on my shoulder. I did that hike on Wednesday and my shoulder is still sore as I write this. The descent from Kachina was amazing. The snow was chalky windblown and nice, and it was just endless steep turns. Overall, Kachina was the highlight of the trip. Wish I had gotten more pictures in general, but it’s such a pain in the ass to stop every 50 feet and pull out a camera. Also, most of what I didn’t capture on camera are either groomers or steep mogul runs, which I’m sure you can picture in your imagination pretty accurately. Here’s some pics: Upper backside Hunziker Bowl Looking good to go Looking across Highline to Juarez