Looking Ahead

Now that the season has officially started and I have a couple days under my belt, I’ve been able to look ahead and plan details for some trips I have on the docket for the season.  For those wondering if all my blog posts will just be boring day trips to local mountains, the simple answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT!  About half of my riding will be local mountains, while the other half will be weekend (or longer) trips to various mountains and resorts across the region, along with a few backcountry hiking trips, and one cat ski trip.

Whistler/Blackcomb is always a multiple weekend destination for me every season.  Last year I made it up there four separate weekends and spent a total of 8 days on the mountain.  The greatest thing about Whistler/Blackcomb is there is such an incredible amount of terrain I still haven’t completely explored both mountains in the two years (and roughly 15 days) I’ve spent there.  This almost guarantees there will be some good stories to tell after each day I ride there.

I made my first trip out to Colorado last year and spent time at Breckenridge and Copper Mountain around New Years.  Being my first time in the Colorado Rockies, I was blown away by the amount of ski resorts within driving distance and how soft champagne powder really was.  It was an easy decision to make a plan to head out to Colorado again.  DBro and I currently have a week and a half long trip planned in late January/early February that would put us in Aspen for the Winter X Games followed by a week in Summit County riding as many mountains as we can.  The stoke level is quite high for this trip.

The trip I’m probably most excited about is my first cat expedition with Big Red Cats out of Red Mountain in British Columbia (http://www.bigredcatskiing.com/).  DBro and I met the owner at the Ski and Snowboard Convention in Seattle back in October and booked a buy one get one free trip for late February.  NP and SN also got in on the trip, along with two other friends.  I’ve always wanted to get in on a cat ski trip and have priced them out multiple times in the past, but none came out to as good of a deal as this was.  It was waaaaaay too good to pass up!  Now if only I could find a good deal on a heli-ski trip……

Along with the cat ski trip, I’m hoping to get more into back-country boarding this year.  I’ve already looked into the required avy gear (beacon, probe, & shovel) along with a certified Level 1 avalanche course, but haven’t pulled the trigger on either yet.  I don’t plan on going big my first year out obviously, but I really want to get my feet wet and tag along with a few other riders who are accomplished back-country enthusiasts.  The cat ski trip will help a get me into it a little bit, but I really want to do a bit of hiking at Baker for some turns.  I blame TGR’s "Deeper" for pushing me to go, well, deeper, if you will.

There are also a few other weekend trips planned throughout the winter.  Schweitzer in Idaho for New Years, Bachelor in Oregon the following weekend, and perhaps even a late season trip to Tahoe.  Schweitzer will be a more prominent destination this year, as my parents recently bought a condo within driving distance that I’ll have to take advantage of.  I hope to add at least 3 or 4 new mountains to my resume along the way.  Whatever way you look at it, this season is shaping up to be a really good one.

First Look: Never Summer SL 158 & Rome Targa Bindings

Preface

At the end of last season, I set out to find a replacement for my trusty old Burton Custom 158 all-mountain board that I had completely thrashed over the past few season.  I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy process since so much in board technology has changed in the past few years.  These days there are so many different camber & alternative camber base profiles that it can sometimes be difficult to determine which is the best for you without demo’ing each and every one of them.

At the end of last season I bought my first alternative camber board as my big mountain powder board, the Ride Slackcountry.  The base profile on the Slackcountry is completely flat through the bindings, with rockered tips on both ends.  The rockered tips give a lot more float in powder than a traditional camber board, as well as give the board a more playful, or looser, demeanor when turning.  After riding the Slackcountry for a day, I knew that I had to try an alternative camber board for my all-mountain board in the future.  The playful turning nature of an alternative camber board perfectly fit my riding style.

After a little research, I narrowed my choices down to the Ride Machete and the Never Summer SL, both with different alternative camber profiles.  The Machete incorporats Ride’s Lowrise Rocker (similar to the Slackcountry’s Highrise Rocker, but with less rocker on the tips) which is flat through the bindings, with slightly rockered tips.  The SL has Never Summer’s recently patented Rocker/Camber profile, which has reverse camber between the bindings, and a slight camber profile under each foot to the tips of the board.  Aside from the different base profiles, the two boards are relatively similar in flex, dampness, and pop.

My decision between the boards came down to drawbacks of most alternative camber boards: lack of stability on landings due to the rockered tail and risk of tail washout on packed and icy snow.  For these reasons I ended up choosing the Never Summer SL, which could reduce the risk of these downfalls due to the small amount of camber that was put in underfoot.

Overview

Never Summer has always had a very good reputation in the industry when it comes to taking care of their customers.  Their 3 year warranty is one of the very best available, and they are one of the very few manufacturers who still make their boards in the United States.  When first handling their boards, you can feel the quality of the workmanship.  Everything about the board feels solid.  The only drawback is the increased weight of the board, although when strapped in on my feet, I couldn’t really tell the difference.

Control

My first few runs with the new board were taken pretty cautiously.  The rocker/camber profile made for a very different ride than the traditional camber boards I’ve ridden, and even the rockered Slackcountry.  It was definitely a looser ride that would rather be on the edge than pointed going straight.  After a few runs I was able to figure out the tendencies of the board and really put it through some solid turns.  It really excelled in tighter, more technical runs where quick turns are needed.  The looser tail made it really easy to kick the board back and forth through some tighter tree runs, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to buy an alternative camber board for my main stick.  On some steeper pow drops I hit, the nose of the board was very easy to keep up out of the powder thanks to the rocker, despite being a slightly smaller board for powder.  I noticed that my back leg was definitely less sore than usual as I didn’t have to work as hard to keep the nose up in the pow.  My old traditional camber Burton Custom was a pretty tough ride in powder.

Flex/Dampness/Pop

On paper the flex of the SL is on par with my Custom, which I liked.  On the mountain it felt a little more flexible than the Custom, mostly due to the rockered design of the base making it easier to press and butter.  Although I’m not really into jibbing or ground tricks, it’s still fun to play with the flex.  It does take away a little fun when really railing a hard turn, as the tail of the board flexes a bit more and takes a bit of leverage away.

I was really impressed with how damp the board was though for the flex rating.  It powered through a ton of late day chop with little or no board chatter at all.  Not quite on the level of Ride’s Slimewalls from my experiences, but a nice surprise nonetheless.

One drawback for most alternative camber boards is the lack of pop due to the decreased leverage on the back foot, but I was really surprised with the amount of pop the SL had.  I didn’t hit a ton of jumps or kickers on my first day due to the fact I was still learning the tendencies of the board, but when I did the thing took off like it was rocketing to the moon!  It has waaaaaay more pop than my Custom, and very impressive for an alternative camber board.  I almost got myself into some serious trouble on one kicker where I kicked off my back foot with as much force as I usually do with my older board.  The extra pop in the SL actually booted me off the kicked with so much more force that I started to rotate over and nose down into the landing.  Thankfully I was able to lean back enough on the landing that I didn’t nose right into the snow and really mess myself up.  Lesson learned, beware of the extra pop!

Bindings

My binding selection happened to be even more difficult than picking the snowboard they were going to go on.  I knew I wanted something that was stiff enough to handle some hard charging lines, yet flexible enough to have fun with.  I also wanted canted (angled) footbeds to help alleviate pressure on my already bad knees.  The latter requirement really narrowed my brand choices down to a few companies (Ride, Rome, K2, and Burton).  From there, I narrowed it down to a few selections: Rome Targa, Ride Alpha MVMNT, and Ride Delta MVMNT.  After a long deliberation I chose the Targas because of their superior adjustability (3 different cant angles and 3 different stiffness settings for the ankle strap).

After the first few runs, I fell in love with these bindings.  The highback stiffness was perfect for what I wanted.  I could really put good power into a heelside turn by putting my weight against the highbacks.  On the medium stiffness ankle strap I able to have enough mobility to move around, yet still gave me the response I wanted.  Strap comfort was great, a little better than my worn out Burton Cartels.

My one gripe about the bindigs is the highback lean adjustment.  The lock was way too easy to pop open without just reaching down and manually doing it.  At some point during the day, one of the locks opened up while I was riding and got some ice packed into the adjustment grooves.  It wasn’t easy to clean it all up and get it ready to ride again.  It is a minor detail though, and I could probably devise some sort of safety for the lock so it doesn’t happen again.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the Never Summer SL and Rome Targa combination is a win.  It did everything I wanted it to do, and did it all well.  It carved well, was very maneuverable for technical runs, dropped steeps, ran powder, and popped like crazy.  I’ve got a nice Whistler trip planned in a few weeks that I’ll really be able to put it through a lot more.  I’ll give it a couple more days and report back with an updated review.

New Never Summer SL 158 w/ Rome Targa bindings.

Note the shape of the rocker/camber base.

Closer picture of the base profile.

Bright green "sno-glow" base.

Day #2 - Mount Baker

I was pretty hesitant to get back up to Baker after seeing how tracked out it was at the end of opening day; riding without some significant snowfall to fill in the bare spots was very unappealing. Thankfully Thanksgiving week brought freezing temperatures and precipitation to the Pacific Northwest, even to the lowlands down into the city.

Before I go into my trip report, I’d like to briefly review the snow we got down in the city. For those readers who aren’t from the Seattle area, you might assume that most Seattleites are pretty competent when it comes to driving in the snow since we’re so close to the mountains. That is so far from true it’s comical. The average driver, and unfortunately those responsible for keeping the roads drivable when winter weather hits, reacts to snow like they're from Southern California and have never seen a snowflake in their lives. Drivers abandon their cars on the side of the freeway, cars start sliding all over the place and the highways becomes a parking lot. I was tasked with picking up my little sister at the airport the Monday night before Thanksgiving -- the night the “big” storm hit. Flakes started falling lightly earlier in the morning, but it didn’t get really bad until the afternoon when everyone got off work. This made for a usually bad commute in Seattle epically unbearable. My sister’s flight was delayed from nine to midnight, and even at that hour, both northbound and southbound lanes of I-5 were completely shut down from road conditions. People were walking away from their abandoned cars, it was an unbelievable sight to see. To make a long story short, it took me over two hours to get from the U-District to the airport (roughly 15 miles) and we didn’t arrive back at my house in Everett until 3AM, four hours round trip.

Enough about traffic, back to the trip report. Baker got the significant amount of snow I desired so I decided to make my second trip up on Saturday. The day didn’t start out ideal, foggy conditions and an extremely icy HWY-9 made for a very treacherous trip up to the mountain. Soon enough, the fog and clouds broke to a clear blue sky as we arrived at the lower lodge at Mount Baker. Shuksan was again out for all to see against the clear dark blue morning sky, just as it was the Saturday before.

Snow conditions were optimal for so early in the season. I brought up my new all-mountain setup (Never Summer SL w/ Rome Targa bindings), hoping that the snow wouldn’t be too low and I’d have to worry about taking a rock to the base of my new board. Seven inches of fresh snow overnight helped fill a lot of tracked out runs, but there were still some areas that didn’t have complete coverage. As a result, I tamed down my riding a bit in order to preserve the fresh base of my new board.

JK, SN (shameless plug for her blog: laratk.blogspot.com), and I spent the first half of the day lapping Chair 8. Conditions were good off the groomers, but started to get pretty tracked by lunchtime. After lunch JK decided we needed to “turn up the volume” as we made our way over to the west side of the mountain to do a few laps on Chair 6 off Pan Dome.

We ended the day out on Chair 8 again as the clouds started rolling in. By this time SN was completely spent, almost unable to stay upright. She was quite the trooper though, keeping up with JK and I all day as we “turned up the volume.” I know for a fact she is cursing us right now, unable to hardly walk.

All in all, it was a great day. My new snowboard setup performed admirably (stay tuned for a first-look review in a day or so), JK enjoyed his new skis and I know SN, although pretty beat up by the end of the day, thoroughly enjoyed her day with the boys.

Pics!

Me enjoying my time on the mountain.

Heading up Chair 8 for our first run of the day.

Shuksan, again.

SN giving me the "are you kidding me" look.

SN had a lot of snow on her pants so JK decided her help her out.

JK and SN on the last run of the day.

Me loving Baker.

Usually snow is supposed to stay outside of your snow pants.

Mount Baker Opening Day 2010

After months of suffering through warm weather, I finally got what I wanted. Opening Day 2010 at my favorite local mountain, Mount Baker, officially came.  In order to ensure we got the freshest of the fresh, our day started crazy early (4:45AM to be exact).  By 5:15AM, SM and NP had arrived and the Subaru was loaded and ready for her first trip to the mountains this year. (Note: “her” is Sweet Dee, my faithful, snow loving Subaru WRX Wagon).

This was probably the earliest I’ve ever departed for a local mountain in as long as I can remember, but the adrenaline coursing through my veins in preparation for Opening Day kept me awake for the 2+ hour drive North.  We arrived at the empty White Salmon Day Lodge parking lot promptly at 7:30AM, a full hour and a half before first chair.  The scene that greeted us set the tone for the entire day: fog and clouds parting to reveal the gorgeous Mount Shuksan, with a deep blue early morning sky as a backdrop.  In my mind, this is some of the best at local ski area scenery.

After gearing up and grabbing our tickets, we settled into the lift line at Chair 7.  Despite being tempted to bring up the powder boards to slay the freshies, we reluctantly all selected our “shit sticks” as our weapons of choice for the miniscule base, which would prove to be a solid decision.  Unfortunately, first chair of the season wasn’t in the cards; we settled on third chair and officially began snowboarding season 2010/2011.

I’m sure everyone’s just begging to know what it was like.  Well, to say the least, it was amazing for a low base opening day.  We spent the first part of our day lapping Chair 8, finding a lot of fun stashes of knee deep powder off the groomed runs, along with a few steeps to drop.  The low coverage actually provided a fun, technical element to a lot of runs in the form of uncovered treetops to zig-zag around while bombing some good pow.  After tracking out a lot of the surface powder around Chair 8, we migrated to the west side of the ski resort off Chair 1 and chalked up a few good runs down Pan Face, Austin and then hopping between the groomers on Blueberry.

Despite some amazing powder runs through the first part of the morning, the last few runs of the day after lunch would take the cake for the day’s highlights.  Due to the low snow conditions, the ski patrol had closed the terrain directly under Chair 5.  This hadn’t stopped a few rope-duckers during the day, but the area remained relatively untracked.  SM and I took a few runs along the ridge, ducking back and forth between the “closed” portion of the ridge and the inbounds portion, but never dropped down.

On the way up Chair 5, we scoped out a nice steep drop off the ridge into Gabl’s that hadn’t been hit at all and decided it was time to go for it.  After scoping our lines from the drop-in point, SM and I dropped in one after another and received a few cheers from the lift that was directly above the portion we dropped into.  The drop in slightly leveled out to portion of untouched powder with a few trees to zig-zag between.  At this point, SM dropped down to the left as I stayed higher to the right and slashed my way though a few trees before we hit the run-out.  Despite lacking in terms of length, the run made for it with a great collection of steeps, pow and trees -- which happen to be my favorite ingredients for a good run.

Looking back at it now I wish I would have manned-up and pushed myself to take one more similar line off the ridge, but at that point my rubbery right leg was making the decisions for me. I think it’s safe to say my so-called off season training didn’t do a lot for me.  After our epic run, we hit Chair 5 back up and made our way back down to the White Salmon lodge. 

Up until that point, my board was left relatively unscathed despite the low coverage.  Then the inevitable…….SCRAPE!  Yup, definitely a core shot*, I thought to myself.  Boy was I right, that rock left a 2” gash underneath the heel of my back foot, all the way to the core and jacking up the edge in the process.  SM's board didn’t make it out without a battle scar of its own either.  Somewhere along the way he took a hit on his edge that actually pushed the edge in and caused the base to bulge out. Oh well, that’s why you have rock boards, right?

All in all, aside from NP aggravating a previous ankle injury of course, it was a great day to start the season off on.  From third chair up, all the way to ducking the ropes for a shot at Gabl’s, it was the perfect kick off for the 2010/2011 season.  Add a great post-riding meal at the newly opened Chair 9 restaurant in Glacier (www.chair9.com, the Lone Jack Burger is highly recommended) and you’ve got a solid day.

Now who’s ready for day #2?????

*For those non-snowboarders/skiers a core shot is when you get a gouge in the base of your board/ski that goes all the way though the base material to the core of the board.

Pics from Mount Baker Opening Day 2010:

One of the first cars in the parking lot!

Mount Shuksan.

Talk about primo parking right by Chair 7.

SM waiting it out.

Line at Chair 7 about a half hour before the chair fired up.

First lift of the year, heading up Chair 7!

Sun starting to peak out on the ridge to the north.

Looking up Chair 4 from the Chair 6 line.

One of the best pictures I've taken in awhile....heading up Chair 1 @ The Chute.

This guy had an awesome old school Quiksilver one piece....I must have one.

Hanging out underneath Chair 5 waiting to drop down.

Drop in under Chair 5 to Gabl's.

Core shot!

.Free range burger at Chair 9 - delicious!

Opening Day 2010/2011

Ladies and Gentlemen: IT’S HERE, the 2010/2011 snowboard/ski season.

The addictive white, fluffy stuff (snow not cocaine, geez) has been falling all over the place the last few days, covering all the local peaks. I’ll be completely honest; it’s a VERY distracting situation (ye!) at work. Crystal is opening four lifts today and Baker follows suit with all 7 lifts tomorrow. Granted we’ve still got low snow conditions, but some is definitely better than none.

I’m actually slightly happy that the season didn’t start earlier than this weekend. Why, you ask? Well, it would have made my trip to Hawaii last weekend a little less enjoyable knowing that I was missing one of the biggest events I have ever looked forward to. Don’t get me wrong, I still would have had a blast in Hawaii, but I still would have been a little jealous of all my buddies who were back in the PNW slaying pow while I was soaking up 85 degree weather on a beach somewhere drinking a Miller Highlife (or 10).

Anyway, back to the excitement! I’ve already assembled a crew to head up to Mount Baker at the butt crack of dawn with a goal of getting FIRST CHAIR of the 2010/2011 season. We’ll be armed with cameras and a Contour HD helmet cam (which I would LOVE to get for Christmas, hint hint) so stay tuned for a 1^st day report in the next few days.

Preseason Stoke Meter: HIGH

If you live anywhere near the Pacific Northwest you’ve heard the headlines: SNOWMAGEDDON 2010/2011 IS COMING! Every major news source in the area has run multiple stories/articles on the predicted La Nina phenomenon brewing in the oceans, which is poised to bring a colder and wetter than average winter to the area. KIRO TV actually hosted a half hour special on the upcoming La Nina. With memories of past lowland snow events (see: December 2008) still fresh in local minds, the First Snowflake Freak-Out Lady from the infamous Pemco Insurance commercial is already…..well, freaking out. Of course, on the other hand, the rest of us skiers and snowboarders are rejoicing.

If you’re anything like myself, you’ve already got the board(s) waxed, taken the snowboard rack out of storage (along with new stickers applied to the fairing), and gotten the snow tires ready for the Subaru. Sure it’s only the end of October, but the light dusting of snow we received above 4000’ is really giving us powder whores a sno-ner (snow boner for those not in the know). I can’t recall a previous season where I was this excited so early.

Mount Baker Ski Area also posted a quick tidbit that didn’t help my anxiety. They brought up the fact that the last time they had a La Nina season directly follow an El Nino year in ’98-‘99, they set the world record for snowfall at 1,140”! Just FYI, that snowfall total is 80% MORE than Baker’s total snowpack for last season. They actually had to dig out snow underneath some of the lifts in order for them to run! If we get anywhere near that snowpack, I’ll be in heaven.

Despite all the talk about a great season, I’m really trying hard not to get too excited. With the stoke meter so high this early in the season, it’ll be an extreme disappointment if the local ski areas don’t end up with record-setting snowpack. In my mind anything better than last season will suffice, but I can’t help but think of the extreme possibilities of an epic snowpack that is possible with a La Nina year.

So fellow sno-nerd, how high is your preseason stoke meter?

Fresh Tracks

Welcome to the inaugural post of The Chronicles of Gnarnia! I figured I’d spend the first post introducing myself, and this blog’s purpose. First I’d like to get one major thing out of the way: I am in no way, shape, or form a writer. Rather I am engineer, a technical species that is known more for numbers and social ineptitude than someone who can form letters into words, words into sentences, and sentences into complete thoughts. I wanted to broach this subject before I start getting negative feedback about my blog because of my obvious lack of grammatical control. I will have to give some props to my editor; the Social Narcissist (read her blog at laratk.blogspot.com).

Time to fully introduce yours truly: I like to think of myself as your average mid-twenties, college-edumacated, young professional. My favorite food is milksteak, and favorite hobby is magnets. I like ghouls, funny little green ghouls, and dislike people’s knees. I’ve spent the majority of my life in the Pacific Northwest, aside for an unfortunate stint in dirrrrrty south.

Most people think that since I’ve spent so much time near the beautiful PNW Cascades, I have been snowboarding since my youth. This is not the case. My parents are originally from the Land of 10,000 Lakes (Minnesota for those not in the know) and have never known the joys of big mountain winter sports. Instead, their idea of winter entertainment includes snowmobiling and ice fishing. Even after their move out west to start a family they failed to pick up the beautiful art of skiing. Don’t worry mom and dad; I don’t resent you for not exposing me to snowboarding earlier in life.

It wasn’t until age of 16 that I strapped on my first snowboard to attempt my first turns. I was immediately hooked, but only as a casual enthusiast. For the next few years I averaged 5-6 days on the mountain. I never had a consistent string of snow days to elevate my skill to the next level. That is, until I started hitting the slopes with a friend from college, DBro.

DBro opened my eyes to a new level of skiing/boarding. He grew up in Colorado and has been skiing since he was a wee little tyke. Riding with him took me into terrain I would have never considered riding, and helped push me both mentally and physically to the next level of shreddage. Instead of being content with my ability, I now had the drive to push myself further than I ever thought I was capable of.

In the time since DBro and I started shredding together I’ve spent every mountain day I’ve had pushing myself further than the previous day, evolving from a casual hobbyist to full-blown snowboard addict. Last year during my first full season riding with DBro, I chalked up a total of 29 days conquering 10 different mountains in four states and one Canadian province. I’m poised to top that this season with trips planned to Whistler, Mount Bachelor, Schweitzer, Tahoe, Colorado, and an epic cat ski trip in the Canadian backcountry, along with my usual local PNW mountains.

Why start a blog and write about my adventures? I’m no pro (or even close to it) so why would anyone care about where I go and what I do? For the most part, this blog is a memento for myself. I want to be able to go back, 5/10/15 years down the road and recall some of the best times of my life and share it with close friends and family. I also want to write this blog to inspire the average Joe weekend warrior. Snowboarding is all about evolution and progression, whether it’s a pro pushing the physical limits of the human body or someone like me trying to evolve to the next level. I’m hoping to inspire those like me to continue to push their own limits and share their story with others as well.

Hope you enjoy my rambling future posts of epic greatness and The Chronicles of Gnarnia!