method9455

My hangup on the instructor is money. By the time you tip the guy you've spent >$125 for a few hours. I've done two private lessons since I got "good" at snowboarding and I'm going to take at least two for skiing this year, but it is a big investment. I learned a great deal in those lessons but two lessons is equal to what I've paid for a season pass each of the last 5 years. If I could pay someone $50-75 directly for instruction and cut out the mountain as the middle man I absolutely would.

Interestingly the temperatures are basically rolling in all at the same time from Vermont to PA. Mount Snow and Hunter are only going to beat PA mountains by a few hours if JFBB/CBK/Blue make snow tonight. The difference is Vermont has 24 hour conditions for the next few days I think so they will be good for this weekend.

Some screenshots, man, how much does this suck? Last year at this time top to bottom runs at multiple mountains, this year stoked just to see people thinking about making snow.

Snowmakers are out and about on Freedom park right now - or at least 3 people with flashlights. No lights on the guns but some lights on in the lodge.

Sounds like they're not tonight. If you look wednesday night is forecast for heavy rains now, that isn't good. I guess hope for Thursday night snow making. Can they make snow Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights and open Sunday? That would be tough. Otherwise looking like the weekend after. Wow. I might have to hit Hunter or Belleayre this weekend if they are open.

Still forecasting the temperatures for tonight that I posted last night, but I'm worried about the weather right now. Even if the air rapid cools the ground is going to be warm and wet. Either the water on the surface freezes over and the warmth in the ground is insulated and all is good, or the ground is too warm and there is no way to make snow tonight. I think it is very much a coin flip for tonight even if the air temperatures are a go. At least the wind is forecast to be <5 mph which is nothing. Thats about the only thing going right at the moment.

It's definitely not, because going off the ramp is not the hard part of learning to jump and thats all the airbag is teaching you. When you start spinning then what you do going off the ramp is important, but when you are starting how to land and how much speed to use are the more important factors. My approach for teaching/learning jumps is to start by going over the deck of a jump and jumping right at the knuckle. So you can work yourself up to the speed you need to actually clear the jump and you are landing on the actual landing and can feel everything, but you won't get hurt because you are only coming down a few feet. If you fall you are basically just falling like you would on a trail at speed and its fine. Then I'd go to small jumps and start landing that (but park jumps, jumps on the side of trails are dangerous). Make sure you are landing on the landing not on the deck. Anything under 10' isn't a "real" jump in my opinion because landing on the deck doesn't hurt so people don't realize you have to make it to the landing, but if you use them right they are a good learning tool. Then go back to a "real" jump. It doesn't have to be big but the small ones at JF in One Park are a good example. Maybe 10-15' and a 4-5' step down. Now you are on a jump that coming up short of the landing will suck, it won't get you hurt most likely but you'll know when you aren't going fast enough. Follow someone else into it a few times to get the speed right (make sure THEY'RE clearing it) but skip the ramp. Then drop on your own for the jump at the right speed and get it. From my experience the most difficult part for beginners is hitting the jump at a high enough speed to get to the landing. Second is landing, and third is coming off the ramp straight. The airbag only takes care of the last. The airbag isn't useless, but I can see a lot of ways getting hurt on it and a lot of ways it can build bad habits.

Great news, I'm out of the market for bindings but if I were I'd be interested. A lot of guys hoarded what was left when they canceled them a few years back. Will Rossi be shipping some under their name as well? Or only Look?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmFtJAHoows Sorry for the horrible quality of that video (and its music), but that's what they're talking about. I pretty much hate the idea personally though I admit I'll probably try it to work on bigger spins. I think it will increase the number of people who are hucking themselves around in the park (dude I "landed" a 360 on the airbag let me try it in the park!). If you haven't learned how to jump how to jump before going on the airbag it won't do much good because you are missing the most important part from the whole thing - landing. It is meant for people who know what they're doing to try something crazier and feel it without consequence (though rumor is no inverts, so kinda negates a lot of things it was good for). edit: damn GSS beat me to it. Damn the jump Windham made in that video is awful. Wow.

So true. I have been keeping this Sunday free because I think if it is going to happen before 12/11 it will be then. I don't care where it is because I don't have a PA season pass this year so whoever opens first is getting my money. I think Camelback does have a handicap if they go with one of the quads - way more ground to cover to get open. I went on black friday last year and they were open top to bottom off one of the quads, but what did they open with day 1?

Chart courtesy of Bear Creek by the way.

For real. Don't spend any money are marketing until the website is fixed. The people on PASR are MORE likely to go than the general public because we have more info. If I hear a radio commercial that says come to Sno and my next action is to check out that website, I'm ending it there. Why would I go? Compare it to any other PA mountain and it is a liability.

Forecasts for Monday night 11/30 as of Sunday night 11/29 TWC Humidity - 60% (32F needed for snowmaking) Low T - 28F Snowmaking Window 9PM - 9AM Accuweather Humidity - 80% (30F needed for snowmaking) Low T - 27F Snowmaking Window 10PM - 8AM Weather Underground Humidity - 80% (30F needed for snowmaking) Low T - 27F Snowmaking Window 1AM - 7AM I'd be surprised if they don't have people out there to try Monday night. If the forecast holds they could make a decent amount with 6-12 hours of snowmaking in these forecasts. Tuesday night is a toss up on if they can make snow or not, but it doesn't look like much will melt Tuesday. Wednesday looks like some melting and no snowmaking. Thursday and Friday maybe more snowmaking. If this week stays this cold we probably won't have PA skiing next weekend, but a little colder and maybe we will. I think JFBB has to push to open before the rest and the following weekend might not be before everyone else. I also think only JFBB has a chance for this weekend.

Keep telling yourself that. I see that nobody on PASR bought them. I could care less if you sell them to the general public, my goal was to not have PASR readers buy them. (didn't I tell you to try and sell them on eBay? Shit, that makes me right on that too). Every potential buyer here was convinced by the collective opinion of everyone BUT YOU not to purchase them. Did you link to here and the people who bought the boards read everything we wrote and still decided to buy them? Hell no. So you didn't "win" shit. It is not surprising there is a market for the board on eBay. Glad you got some money to support yourself though, must be tough when you need to make money doing arbitrage on snowboards. When I had hookups for gear I used to sell them to my friends for what I paid for them or give them away to try and get more people riding. I never had to try and make a buck peddling stuff online. What'd you make, $200-400 each? Woohoo! Oh yea, and I picked up a $600 board brand new for $200 on friday, not through a connection that was the price in the store for a 2009. Hmmmmmm.

This is awful. Not only is the opening date going to be very late but I'm worried they will have very little open for Christmas week and it will be a total clusterfuck. When it gets cold we need 24 hour windows not just nightly. Snow breads snow and this is honestly the most distressing map I've seen even more so than just temperatures. Until Canada and the midwest have some snow cover storms aren't going to roll in with much power and artic air will warm up a lot before it gets here. http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/loop/usa-1mo-loop.html

Yea, my bad. I'm so mad about this weather right now it is unbelievable. It doesn't help when every single person I run into starts off our conversation with, "wow this is GREAT WEATHER FOR NOVEMBER! I have short sleeves on!"

The last week of every 15 day forecast in November shows snowmaking temperatures. It hasn't worked out yet once. The models just trend to the mean temperatures at the tail end of the forecast. There is a reason most forecasts only go 7-10 day other than accuweather. If the temperatures were 10-20 F then the models are giving you something big coming, but if you are seeing 25-32 F 15 days out, don't bank on it other than at some point the cold weather has to come.

Thats where I stayed when I went up to stowe for a long trip last year.

I would love to see a picture of this supposed monster jump, I've never seen a picture of a jump at Blue that looked 40'. Mountain Creek built a measured 65' jump last year and it was absolutely enormous and they knocked it down after about 2 weeks becuase no one could use it. It was definitely bigger than the last jump at Boulder.

At 16 I would be buying too. I was just guessing by the story he was 13 and still had growing to do. At this age he should be buying if he is serious. Give me some more info and we'll point you in the right direction.

What are their ages? I would recommend renting based on height and weight. That is going to be like $120 I bet from a shop for the season. Buying stuff you out grow next year is just a losing proposition. On the rentals, definitely do not get anything that is click in/step in/clicker/SI junk. Just don't. Also avoid Morrow/Liquid/m3 and some of the other crappy rental brands. Some brands that make rental gear that don't suck : Flow, Burton, Ride, K2, Salomon. Make sure you see the bindings and the board as well as the boots before you sign anything. For boots, brand doesn't matter much but make sure they do something to make sure the heels aren't lifting when he punches his knees forward. If they just sit there and say "how does it feel" without having him do anything to look for heel lift I wouldn't trust the quality of the person fitting him very much. If you are going to buy off ebay, stick to the brand recommendations above for kids gear. It isn't an inclusive list but I'd be warry of some of the crappy brands that sell kids gear.

If your focus is jumps and freeriding while jibs are your secondary purpose I'd go for the Mod.

By the way my idea was in addition to Justo's, heel lifts work very well too and the both the footbeds and the heel lift are combined to get the right effect. There is also a boot stretcher, usually used for liners of ski boots but you can try it on a snowboard boot as well. Last resort move though I never much liked the results.

What kind of footbeds does he have? If they are the stock ones you can try something like the SuperFeet cut-out ones with a plastic arch support. They should be about $30. That will give more arch support, but one of the results of the higher arch is a shorter overall length, about a half size. It will put the top of his foot tighter into the boot though so if he has high arches to begin with that might not work. Worth trying at the shop though, they will have some to try before you buy. I buy footbeds for my boots and you definitely feel the boot has some extra room up front because of the arch. Don't waste your money on anything more expensive than the plastic cut out ones if his feet are growing quickly.

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