SIA Day 2

Woke up at 4:13 am, made a quick breakfast, and got in the car.
Drove about 8 minutes the back way to I-80 before realizing I had forgotten to get gas last night, and the car was on empty.
So we had to drive 10 minutes out of the way for gas, which I couldn't afford.
So we get gas and charge down to the airport, where we need to be by 5:25 in order to check my baggage on time for my flight.
I walk through the doors to the US Airways tickting counter at 5:23, walk through the line and stand there waiting.
They call me over and tell me that it's too late to check my bag, and I have to wait for the 9:30 flight.
Stoked.

So I'm at the airport watching all these flights on other airlines leave for Denver, while I wait for a later flight to Phoenix and then to Denver.
On the good side, I'm only arriving 30 to 45 minutes later than my 6:10 flight would have gotten me there. So there's that.

And of course I have to add insult to injury by reading blogs about SIA Day 1 while I wait. I don't know why I'm so excited to get there. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't been in years, feel totally disconnected from the industry, am going to reconnect with the company whose US operations I used to run, am super excited to start contributing again, yadda yadda yadda...

Anyway, I just saw a cool floor drain cover in the Men's Room I want to take a picture of...

SIA Yay!

Going to SIA! So Excited!
Who wants to go to the rail jam at the Hard Rock?.... What?.... No Hard Rock in Denver?.... Oh.
Well, who wants to go to the MGM Grand and gamble?.... Huh?... No gambling in Colorado?.... Oh.
Well, who wants to go to the afterparty on Sunday and get hammered?.... What?.... You can only get 3.2 beer on Sundays in Colorado?.... Oh.
Who wants to go see Wayne Newton?... Oh yeah, Colorado.
Who wants to hit the all-you-can-eat buffet?.... Oh yeah, Colorado.
Who wants to go see Cirque Du Soleil Zumanity?.... Colorado.
Ride the rollercoaster at New York New York?.... Colorado.

Damn, I guess we'll just have to look at snowboard stuff, talk about snowboard stuff, do snowboard stuff, and maybe catch an Avalanche, Nuggets or Rockies game.
Maybe the waterpark will be open, and the skateparks, and the whitewater park, and the REI climbing wall....

Soggy Sake

Went to work at the Burton Academy this morning, but they only sold one lesson. It was very wet and noone was on the hill.
So instead of teaching, a group of us took Yuji and Kae, two awesome Japanese shredders involved with the new Burton Academy in Japan, and showed them around the mountain.
It was super fun until noonish, when it got super wet.
I got to take a few runs on a Capita Green Machine, and it was super fun!
The Burton ICS Custom 158 I was riding, however, sucked.
I always thought the Custom was a mid-flex board.
This one was super soft torsionally, and it rode like a 153.

I have also not been too impressed with the Burton Cartels this year.
They seem really soft and the new high back design is crap.
This also goes for the P1's.

Don't even get me started on how the Burton boots fit my feet...

Another Snow Day

Pretty much just kids getting upside down in powder. Can't really think of much else to say. My daughter is the cutest baby in the universe, and you know it.

Find more pictures here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=150244&id=581026782&l=26fe0b178b
(copy and paste, duh)

Sawtooth Ridge

The day was incredible! Sun, partly cloudy skies, cold, little wind, amazing snow, and a bunch of awesome kids to hang out and snowboard with. Not real sure what else I can say, except that it was rad!

Some of what went down:
Quickly built a decent jump in the best spot on the hill
Had lunch and a Monster KHAOS in view of Squaw and an incredible panorama of snow, rocks, trees, ridges, etc.
Ski Patrol showed up to join our party, and they were awesome guys. (terrible riders)
Griff guinea pigged the jump and ate crap, coming up short and hitting trees.
Clayton landed a FS 720 and pretty much landed a FS 810
Elisa BS 360'd
John BS 360 to face
David BS 180
Nicola, Vanessa and Jade boosting
Randy flying 50 feet to his back
C Walk the patroller BS 100 to powder explosion
Chris straight airing to landing
Griffin back flip 360
Jack Corked FS 360
Quinn FS 540
Dean going huge, grabbing Nothod
Camera battery died
Sweet powder turns back to the chair

It was pretty much an awesome day. Next time, you should come.
Find more pics here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=150244&id=581026782&l=26fe0b178b

White Rabbit

James, the head coach of our snowboard team, decided that he needed an admin day to get some emails and office work done, so he asked me to coach today.

I showed up at 10 to 9 and met just one of our athletes.
It was a snow day, so the Truckee/Tahoe Unified Schools were out.
The athletes we normally coach on weekdays didn't show, so I got to work with just Griffin. Griffin is a 6'2" 16 year old shredder, and he pretty much kills it.
I could go into what kind of coaching Griff needs, but that would be off-topic.
It's enough to say that Griff rides powder pretty fast and loves to charge everything as fast as possible.

So Griff and I headed out and got on Zephyr, heading straight to Cookie Cliff, which was awesome. We rode down to the bottom of Backside, headed back up, and had to amazing Promised Land runs.
Next we decided to head to LookOut Mountain, and after a short run, a short Poma Lift ride, and a short traverse, we dropped into the Doctors' Office.
It was pretty off the hook. Big rocks completely covered in blower pow turned into great jumps, and we both got way more air than anticipated.

So we arrive at the bottom of Lookout, and the chair is stopped. We jump in line, close to the front, and see a bunch of race coaches, Ryan and his private lesson, and Paige, our program Administrator. I probably should have figured that someone knew something I didn't.
As we're standing in line killing time, I get a phone call from James, the head coach. I answer it, of course, and he tells me he just received an email telling him that White Rabbit is going to open in 15 minutes.

A little inside info: White Rabbit is about 1/3 of Lookout Mountain, the third that faces the backside and has the fewest trees on it. It is also the most consistently steep terrain at Northstar. The downside is that it is 95% rocks, and rarely gets enough snow to cover them. Last season it didn't open, as far as I know, and from what I understand rarely opens more than a few days a season.

So I let Ryan in on the secret once we load the chair, and we all head straight to the gate. Right behind us is Ski Patrol, and after waiting for about 3 minutes, we strap in and follo about 8 others through the gate.
We took the center section for the first run, and after a long traverse out involving some hard skating, we got back on the backside chair, rode to the top, strapped in, and b lined it back to the Lookout Link Poma.
Another short traverse and a top speed, no turns run down Martis deposited us back at the lift, where we rushed on and headed straight back to White Rabbit.
This time we headed far right. We got pretty deep back behind a ridge and almost got sucked into a gully that would have resulted in a long hike out.
We made the traverse and headed back to the same line for the next run.
The windlips and roller on WR were amazing! We found ourselves launching 30 to 40 feet and more without even trying and landing in soft, pillowy pow every time.
It was pretty incredible.

I forgot to mention that it was bluebird for every one of the runs we made, and cold, with almost no wind.
Anyone who says Northstar isn't sick needs to spend more time away from Vista.

Tomorrow we're hiking SawTooth Ridge all morning, maybe building a kicker, and having a picnic.
I love my job!

Blower

Epic Winter Storm hits the Sierras, depositing 4 feet of snow in 5 days.
Many resorts are forced to close at least half of their lifts due to avalanche danger and high winds.
Many services are disrupted by the weather, and remain so for days on end as the snow just keeps coming.

I lost my internet for 4 days thanks to 37" of snow disconnecting a cable on the tower in front of my house, and it didn't bug me too much.
Just kept riding (swimming) all this amazing snow!

I know the title implies epic light dry snow conditions, and that's a bit of a stretch for Tahoe, even in the best of times.
We definitely got some great snow, but we also got a bunch of that awesome, wet, heavy crud we like to call Sierra Cement that solidifies our base and guarantees fewer core shots and fewer injuries on these amazing ungroomed pow days.

We're pretty grateful.
We had some friends in town from Mt Baker over the last 3 days, and they had a great time! The conditions reminded them a lot of home. It's just too bad nothing here is as steep as the blue runs at Baker. Even Squaw couldn't offer a suitable substitute for what passes for teaching terrain in the shadow of Shuksan. But they had a great time, and we were happy to play host!

Also, over the past few days, we received our shipment of Bataleon Demo Boards, and are excited to get the team on them. Hopefully we can convince some kids, parents, and shred heads to drop some dough and start riding the best not-flat boards ever conceived. If you, or anyone you shred with, is interested in trying one out, drop me a line, we'll see what we can do.

Enjoy the snow, don't get stuck, drive carefully, see you tomorrow!