I feel like there hasn’t been many pictures of riding in the blog posts. So for this thursday update we are letting anything in starting with a shot of the beacon check. As of this Thursday, everyone has a beacon, probe and shovel and all hoping we never have to use them.

Eric‘s new beacon

view from the top

ollie north’s free of  charge

you must hike up if you want to go down again

there are always diviersion on the hike up

See that rock up in the left hand corner of this shot of Eric? there’s a picture of that later

there’s that old hiking again

and another reason to take a break from hiking

these were all makes. Both Eric and Cole felt like the snow was perfect for landing hits. Especially the kind of hits that pop you up.

The boot gets steep in a couple of areas, which means it gets steep on the way down too.

Since the snow was so perfect for landings, Eric felt like today was a good day to send this rock. This wasn’t a make, but its a nice picture.

Here’s a shot of a new sub I’m working on. Its 145 cm and as you can see by the sidecut this should be a good match.  The tails a bit wacky too if you haven’t already noticed but so far the test runs have been engaging. I know the camber looks crazy, I’m sure your wondering where I came up with that and all I can say is “who knows??”

Anyways check it out, let me know what you think in the comments section.

Got a pretty good hike in this morning and here’s the footage to prove it. Short and sweet at 1 min 29 sec. Click here > Jan powder day

Jesus, its getting harder to come up with catchy titles to these posts especially after I promised tons of pictures in my last entry.  I didn’t come home with any riding shots even though I rode some deep pow. This first picture is from Xmas day when me and my boys hiked off the backside of the resort.

This second shot is of the backyard. I came out of the shop to find that the boys had made a pretty sweet jump. All these years I’ve been the major builder in the family but now they are taking over the reins.

Remember back before YouTube when you had to download videos? well just consider this a nostalgic trip back in time. Its only 64 mb and well its nothing special, just riding in the backyard. The soundtrack is copyrighted so this is pretty much the only way to show it now a days, plus only those that read the blog and really like snowskating would wait the 5 min for a download. Anyways, just check it out > winter

Thierry is the artist behind my graphics, the web blog banner, my stickers and this great little holiday snowskate card. He also set up Ralston with a cool logo. He’s definitely helping us look professional. Thanks so much man!!

We had a great backcountry day but of course I forgot the camera. Really haven’t filmed anything yet this season, just kinda taking a break from constantly documenting our every move. I did snap some more backyard shots. The yard has been kinda sketchy after the rain then freezing temperatures. Kinda the way it is with low elevation snow. But with the recent couple of inches we are back in business.

Just got my season truck hardware in and things look great. I’m back to the 3 hole aluminum bases for the lib and fps inserts and will use the 2 hole uhmw plastic pucks for my 2″ inserts. Next week we are down south in McCall, hopefully some good pics will come of it but no post next week. Expect a longer one the first week of January which reminds me, Mission Ridge out of Wenatchee will have a night snowskate event from 6-10 on January 8.

Vacuum press at work on another 51 big.

51 standard and 51 big side by side. You can see the obvious dimension and side cut differences.  The waist and tail of the big is about 1″ wider then the standard.

Brain Wilson printed me up some new stickers of just the right colors.  Big rode great today thanks to the conditions being perfect. Even though its wide it carves well, not as easily as the 51 standard but considering its wide waist today was better then I could have hoped for. Since I carry the camera there are no shots of me. Maybe Eric or Cole will slow down a bit next time and snap some pics.

Today was epic, about 6 inches of soft cold snow on top of a crazy crust of small hail balls. It was a perfect day to explore some steep in bounds terrain. We got first tracks all over today, thanks to the main quad being shut down. You had to ride two old style chairs to get the the north bowls plus the fact that it was a Thursday made for an pretty empty mountain. Here’s a shot of Eric on our last run.

This early grab was a make but just barely.

I picked up a base grinder this fall. Went in on it with another local who is pressing skis. We’re storing it at my shop, which is nice, but the things messy. Lots of water with that green fluid in it splattering all over. Oh well, it will make base grinding more convenient.

This last week has brought a ton of snow to our area. The mountain is slowly opening terrain and it is sick. Thursday we hiked, as usual, but the difference was the mountain was closed for the mid week period. Jordan and Katie joined us this time.

I had a great plan in mind, we would hike up and access terrain which was still closed and since the mountain wasn’t running we shouldn’t have any problem with patrol.

We hiked to the base of my intended destination when the bombs started going off. Patrol was working the south bowl ridge and I knew our trip was about to get cut short. Sure enough a cat messed on up and told us to head back down the mountain. Ugh! Oh well we got some nice turns on the way back.

I made this powder single two winters ago and really haven’t had a chance to ride it until last week.

It was really fun to mess around on and floated great for its short length. Pasha my neighbor just happened to be passing by and grabbed a turn on her.

I want to make a bigger one now.

Snow in the backyard, finally!!  My new planet snowtools rake is amazing, thanks Cory!! The dirt mound promises lots of lines. Here’s a shot of Teig.

This shot of Max was taken before the big dump we got this weekend. There is now about a foot of light fluffy snow over a solidly frozen ground, which kinda hurts sometimes.

I’ve been wanting to try a deck mounted directly to the sub. This isn’t a new idea, lots of people have tried this but I wanted to see how different it would feel. There are 1/4 inch pads between the deck and truck. It pops surprisingly well and it actually carves hardpack ok on mellow slope. In powder there wasn’t much difference in the float but the low center of gravity is pretty fun and it is light. The top deck is only three plys thick which helps cut down the weight. I guess I was trying to simulate Wolle‘s set up a bit.

spacer

I’m having a lot of fun with the powdersurfs but I do miss the concave and tail that you have with bi-decks. Wolle‘s surfs have the channels on the sides which serve as concave. You still  don’t get the pop from the tail of the top deck which I kinda like. I’ll be messing around with it some more this season I’m sure.

It snowed pretty hard wednesday night, about 16 inches where we were hiking. Almost too deep for the slope we were one and the steeper terrain didn’t quite have enough coverage. The powdersurf ruled the day although I had taken a new proto up for a test ride. Its intended to be a deep resort board. Fat at the waist and a short length I’m hoping it will be fairly manageable on the groomers but still have a powder skate feel off piste. It did good on the steep stuff but bogged if it was on mellower slope.

The back yard is taking shape and its actually snowing as I type. Still a few storms away from being rideable though.

Our early season dump kinda melted off. More snow in the forcast though. Southern Idaho still has some pretty good coverage. Check out what Jeff and Cory found. Hit the link to view the video > Early season launch!

It won’t be long now and the excitement level seems to be very high for the upcoming season. Just pressed a new, fatter 51″. Only a proto but should be able to accomodate deep conditions. Strapless just released a teaser. Man the Tahoe area has some STRONG riders. Can’t wait for this video to hit the masses.