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.