2013 Captain's Log (AKA Rider's Log)

Originally posted by spenser here's the video. https://vimeo.com/59493605

Day 4: holy crap! what a day! praise the weather gods! So it was our winter carnival at school today and they cancel classes on wednesday (today) so we can all go ride/ski. Best part of it lift tickets are free! So a buddy and i got to the mountain around 9:30. It was packed powder and a grey bird day with a steady flurry all day long. Took a couple hard tumbles and actually got tomahawked a few times, it was great! managed to find some untouched pow too! great day overall

Days 22 and 23 with my wife and her partner at Kirkwood (thanks for showing us around Dr. Sargent!).  On saturday we took our splitboards and touring gear and rode slackcountry off Chair 4 by emigrant lake.  Great stuff over there.  Here's a gps trail:

Day 5!:

Went out on Saturday with my friend and his son
Good old Shawnee Mountain.

day 56, rode with max and his friends.  lapped the east side for the standard speed run/hit line.  groomers were great today so I just carved and popped around, which is easily one of my favorite things in snowboarding.

i had been holding for a long time, but spenser, have you try your friend's union cobra dog at all? or how your friend like it? i have been eyeing it for a long time but haven't see any review about it yet. oh, how about the slash paxson (are those like fk from capita?) compare to the atv beside the camber difference.

after re-read my post and reading capita site, i lol at myself that i'm still under the impression when capita first introduce the fk when it basically just flat camber (if i remembered correctly). without realized they changed the fk profile through out the years.

too bad the cobradogs just a regular contacts base unlike the sierra sl which i like it a lot. just to throw into the mixed, how much stiffer compare the union charger base and the union force base (if you have any idea of the charger)?

sounds like paxson will be on my list after the capita scott steven model. bring on the sales now (the way that slash website rated their boards made me think the paxson is on the soft side, weird gauge).

always thought the sierra sl had carbon-injected base as well, man, bad memory.

sounds like i can't go wrong with slash snowboard on any models. now i have to break my piggy bank to see which one i can afford. lol

Originally posted by spenser it would be more than $200 if they carbon injected the base.  regular contact is $180.  the reason the sierra contact is a little more is because of the highback and probably just sierra's slightly inflated price that they do with all their products VS the price of the actual product from the brand that makes it

day 57 with jeremy.  pow day!  started out on the parka and quickly realized I was gonna be struggling a bit if I stayed on it.. luckily jeremy was at my house on his way up and grabbed charlie for me.  made the day that much better... so fun.  we went downhill, did some turns, flew through the air, drank a few beers... good times.  good to be back on charlie.. I always forget how much I like him.

Anyone else out there ever get the feel, that they live in the total wrong region of the world? I've gotten less days with the past two seasons combined, than I ever have with one.

Days 4-8 Killinton Vt. Week of FEB 11-15
Day 4: Woke up early to a solid first day of vacation hangover. Determined to get first lift as I had heard talks about rain moving in later in the day. Watched snow flakes fall at a decent rate while doing morning stretches and drinking copious amounts of coffee. About 3 inches of new snow over night. Windy as BALLS. going to guess 20-40 mph gusts till about 2 p.m. Lapped the "canyon" area, Runs: East fall and Cascade were just fantastic for the first 4 hours of the day, with fresh snow falling, and thick drifts on the edges of those runs. A few face shots were had, smiles were made, and a great way to start off the week.

Rode the Skunk Ape. Fun.
Like I said, it was a windy cock*sucker of a Monday morning...


Snow that was falling all morning/afternoon turned over to rain, then freezing rain by 2:30. Decided to get off the hill just after three. Was no impressed sitting around on lifts getting coated in ice. That and I'm an Ohio fat kid, my knees were reaching their limit. Called it a day. Hot tub/pool soak time with many beers. All in all a great day out.

Day 5: Rain never really turned back to snow, but it got pretty cold over night. Rain stopped, it got cold, things got groomed early, most things were a sheet. Needless to say it was a traditional camber day. Rode the T.Rice. Got to a purposeful late start, with the idea that the more people that rode during the morning, the more the "groomers" would loosen up. Kinda worked on some stuff, but not much. Wash out of a day. Gray as could be, temps in the 20's, wind, and large patches of sheet ice on every run.

Mr. Shift4200 was supposed to get at me if the stars aligned and he was actually able to come down with a hypothetical co-worker, but he never did. Instead he rode the ice in solace and decided to NOT meet up with a fellow board member to share a beer on a VERY beer worthy day. I kid, I kid. He really didn't text me though, and I am slightly bitter about the damn hummer driving bastard ditching me. Hahha.

Anyways, headed to bear mtn, for a run or two, confidence level floored as I couldn't find an edge, early lunch, many beers. Did a handfull of runs then shot over to the woods on Ramshead to smoke. Coverage was shit, bottomed out on a few rocks and stumps and ended up blasting a tree. To top it off dropped my lighter somewhere in the mix. Wife and I took a few runs down rams head (pretty much a long ass beginner groomer for those not familiar) and called it a day. Early hot tub time. 

It was beautiful, but nasty ass conditions in here...
 

Day 6:Tuesday night our group went pretty damn hard at dinner then the bar afterwords. Late start again. Once again I was hoping that since the temps stayed pretty stable overnight, groomed runs late morning would be worked up enough to not be icy, and hold a solid edge. Turned out to be true, and it was damn near a perfect fast groomer, camber day. T.Rice again. Drank a few beers on the way up to the lifts/on the lifts with the wife. Did laps of skylark/superstar/eastfall/cascade all morning. Snow held an edge real well, and didn't ever get that sketchy. Most everyone in our group was feeling good. Took a short lunch to get some sandwiches, and chug a beer. Ended up getting last chairs. Felt really good about day six. Snow kept getting better as the day went on. Just enough people to loosen up the snow, but not enough to track things out and make lift lines long.

Still super flat light. That (the light situation) was starting to get old. 

Going out in the morning from the hotel....


Guess what. Five hours later it looked about the same...haha


Day 7: Woke up to the sun trying to poke up. Stoked on that. Legs felt like shit, and so did the back. Mixture of being out of shape, and not riding a lot this year. Oh the burn!
Tried to get out early with the rest of my group, but ended up having to do some "hot yoga" in the sauna before heading out an hour later.

Service sucks on the hill. Couldn't reach anyone on the horn, so I just rode by myself for an hour or so before meeting up for a little lunch. The small* beginner/learning hill had a little boarder cross course on one side of it, and actually spent a bit of time lapping that.

*I say small, and it's funny. The vertical rise of that hill is around 550 ft. My local hill is 300. It's funny to realize that the learning hill of this place in vt is close to twice the length and height of my local joint. Perspective is everything, right?

By one the sun started to come out and rejuvenated me in a way. Warmed up a tad and the snow was riding great..well you know, for groomers held an edge no matter what the angle. Started the day with the T.Rice, and switched to the Sierra RC paired up with Union Flights, later in the day.  It was nice to finally have some damn light. The grey theme for the week was getting old. I personally get sketched out riding in flat light regardless of lens.

The sun started trying to poke out..


Then things really stared to clear out..


So nice to have some sun..(obligatory horizon shot)


Day 8: Last day on the snow. Pack up the room in a hurry, try to cram everything you brought with you back in the car. Everything fits, but not like should. Dread the 700 plus miles that wait for you. At least you made checkout of 10:30 and still got some bacon.

Head out, light is on again, off again shit, snow is great. Rode the RC with the Flights. We had a girl join us that just started skiing, so took the day to play around on any side hit I could find, and press the shit out of this board. I have to say, I got the RC in a 160, and it feels like a got-dayum noodle. Granted I can do the cleanest, most tweaked out nose and tail presses I have ever done...but it's such a washy board. I know a good amount of that is the binders (those flights are FLEXY ) but don't see myself running to the hills to use the RC. (Anyone that want's to buy it PM me!)

Fun day none the less. Drank a beer here....



And lapped this long ass groomer here...



For most of the day. There was a good amount of Rime ice up top which was pretty cool. I dunno why, but I love that stuff. I could literally spend an hour just hanging out with some tree branches covered in the stuff, and not get bored..




All in all a pretty fine trip. As usual, a week before, and a week after (and this weekend as well) there are pow days, but we always miss them. As I said in my opening sentence, ever feel like you are in the wrong place sometimes?
Sorry if this dragged on for ya'll, but I'm type-y tonight.

Oh, and the restaurant we stopped at in Saratoga Springs on the way home had this amazing painting hanging in the bar...


Place is called "The Olde Bryan Inn". If anyone here is ever in Saratoga Springs NY, for the love of all that is holy, stop in there for some food and drink. Been stopping there for the past 5 years, and every time it is one of the best meals of my life. Super chill place, 1700's wood work, cold beer, and a bitchin steak.

/rant

Thanks for the update BMW...but sorry to hear I wasn't the only one riding ice this week.

We were supposed to get up to 10" this last storm.  I jammed up the mtn at the crack of dawn and was stoked when I already saw 2" on the ground and the trees frosted with rime at 800 ft (lowest I've ever seen snow here...it was unusually beautiful and I shoulda taken some pics, but I was too excited to stop).  There was a good 6" blanket at about 5000 ft...but, above that, it started looking increasingly worse.

When I got to base lodge (7000 ft), things were looking very dry and nothing on the trees.  Turns out our resort only got 3" and even that was blown away by high winds.  The blown snow actually gave the facade of powder...but my ass landed on solid ice during my first turn.  Didn't take many pics, I was so pissed off.
 
Of course, the pow, ice, pow, ice ride is unpleasant, so, after a few bumpy runs (and almost slamming into a giant redwood), I felt like just going home...but then decided I would make the best of it and get some snowboard specific exercise...plus, it was bluebird.
 
Fortunately, I know of a couple hidden spots (local resort knowledge), right in the middle of the resort, that no one ever rides.  Granted, they're short, like 100 yards (just checked it on google maps), but, sure enough, most of the snow had drifted there and I was getting untracked knee high pow turns all to myself.  It was still sketchy with a few ice peaks randomly poking through, but I kinda got used to it and either went around them or just powered through...even made a few backside 1s over them.  Lapped the shit outa that.

By the end, I felt like a snowboarder, so the trip ended up a success, anyway.

it was a joke in that case, but on that note, depression doesn't care how awesome your life might be (or seem to others)

^^^ nice killington shots BMW, I had a rainy trip there once (but we still had a great time because it's an awesome resort town).  Vermont was pretty much the mecca when we lived back in the midwest

haha yep, I'm a fan of them as well.  not to sound typical, but "I like their older stuff better," haha.  there's something about that washington alternative sound, or whatever you'd call it.

Been hitting up Blue Mtn a lot over the past few weeks after my Jay Peak, VT trip.  Off to Killington, VT tonight with Lux.  It's sad knowing that my season is coming to a close pretty soon.  I feel like I'm just getting started!  I think I'm going to break 20 days this season, was hoping for 30.

Video from my last shred session with Lux @Blue:

Day 8: Wow my day count has never been this high! so we got to the mountain around 10:30 today wound up wandering around for a half hour looking for a lost pair of gloves... had to eat that one in the shorts unfortunately... but anywhom... at the beginning of the day it really sucked... i was pissed off about the gloves, and it was windy as shit, visibility was low... and compared to yesterday the snow was rock hard, icy and the mountain was completely flat all the playful natural features that they had yesterday got knocked out by the groomers...... I kinda wanted to go home... but, i stuck it out because i was with 4 buddies... the day wound up getting a lot better because it started puking around 12:30. so by 1 there was a thin layer of powder there. and by 4 when we left it was awesome. pretty windy though so all the fresh got pushed up on the edges of the trails, so thats where i was most of the day. The ride home was terrible... bumper to bumper traffic for 10 miles on i-93, due to a 5 car pile up and another fender bender ahead of it... people must have thought they were in daytona today... took 2 hours to do a ride that should take 25 mins... at least it happened on the way back... because if it happened on the way up i woulda been PISSED! Overall it was an okay day, on the grade scale.

day 17 or 18 ive lost count. it was windy today so all the good snow was being blown off the trails. the forecast said 43f but with the wind chill it felt like 30F. whatever helps keep the snow from melting. i met up with some friends and had fun trying to work on jumps. on the baby kickers. Lit performed live at the mountain. nothing like shredding and a free concert to end it. it was a pretty awesome day except for the windchill.

haha not really that much air, but it sure is a fun hip.

this is the hit, not sure if it was obvious in the photos now that I think about it