I put together the video I took of Brad at Snowshoe Monday.  If you enjoy things like awful wipe-outs then you will like this video.  Brad performs one of the most beautiful landings off of a snowboard jump that I have ever witnessed.  Check it out here on Google.

Brad, Mr Pete and I drove out to Snowshoe on Sunday night, and had an incredible day snowboarding on Monday. I think when we went to Beech Mountain a couple weeks ago i said that was the best conditions I had been in. That was far superseded by Monday. It snowed for a week and a half leading up to Monday, and there was over a foot of natural snow covering the county, and over three feet on the slopes. I have never been on powder before, but Monday we had an abundance. Down the center of the trails the snow was hard packed, but along the sides you would sink into the powder so it came almost to your knees. There were trails in the woods that you could skate through, and tons of neat features along the slopes. not only that but the place was empty, so at some lifts there were no lines at all, and on others the lines were less then 10 minutes.

This was the countryside on the way out there.

I had never been to snowshoe before, and I loved that place. We were on the slopes all day, never stopping to eat lunch or anything, and we didn’t even do half of the trails there. Everything we did do was a lot of fun, and the size and difficulty of every trail kept things interesting. I discovered that moguls are actually very enjoyable when they are not made up of mounds of ice that jolt you every time you hit them. All of their black diamonds had moguls and a lot of their intermediate slopes had moguls, and they were a lot of fun to tackle.

The powder is deep on and off the slopes

Another incredible thing about snowshoe was their terrain park. It was enormous, and each feature was enormous. I figured that I would give some of the things a shot, and tried some of them out, but most of the stuff there scared the crap out of me… which is good, because it gives me something really high to aim for. Maybe someday I’ll be hitting stuff like that. I did carve my first black diamond and built up the confidence to tackle any slope, so I should be able to keep up with any of my skier friends on future trips.

The potential energy depicted here is amazing. In another second both the snow butt boy and the camera man would be zooming down this slope almost to the lake far below.

The long and the short of it is that it was an incredible day snowboarding (as every day snowboarding this year has been incredible) and it was beyond incredible due to how incredibly incredible the conditions were. That was the long… the short is that it was incredible. The end.

Two things this weekend.  First of all it seems that things have come together for snowboarding on Monday.  We’re planning on going up to snowshoe, and i am really excited about that.  Of all the places in the southeast it is the biggest, with 57 trails.  It is very spread out so that none of the lifts should get too crowded, and it has been snowing all week and is supposed to snow all weekend, with Monday being sunny.  Looks to be some great snowboarding.

The other thing I am excited about is fantasy baseball.   With the season just around the corner I am full steam ahead studying for the draft.  Last night I did a mock draft that was helpful because it lets you get an idea for where people are being drafted.  I thought I did pretty well in the mock draft, and looking forward to the real thing.  There are so many great players that emerged last year, it will be very interesting to see how things play out.

I compiled all the video from Thursdays snowboarding trip, added a tune, and put it on Google video, where you can see it here. Enjoy!

So the first of the planned trips I mentioned was yesterday, and what a great trip it was. In all my east coast skiing/snowboarding, yesterday had the best conditions I have experienced so far. It snowed 3 or four days leading up to our trip, and they were making snow all week, so it was perfect on Thursday, and the day was cold all day so there was zero meltage. Although it was the coldest I have ever been on the slopes in, I was warm all day long thanks to being completely covered, including my face with a wool cover and goggles. All the trails at Beech were open and it was not too busy, so I dont think i ever stood in line for longer then ten minutes for a lift, and for most of the day I was on a slope that had no line at all.

Those who came out were Brad Kinnison and Mike, Duncan, and Jordon Clark and I. Brad wanted to learn how to snowboard so I showed him, and after four times down the beginner slope he was ready to take on the mountain. I taught him the same way I did Jillian, teaching him the toe side and heel side falling leaf, and J turns, and by the end of the day he was carving on the intermediate slopes. Mike, Duncan and Jordan were all skiing and pretty much tearing up the whole mountain, doing all the black diamonds and intermediate stuff.

Yesterday was the first day I felt totally confident snowboarding. My goal was to be able to get comfortable with the board flat, so I could set up for jumps and stuff. If you try to jump while you are on one of your edges then the board will go out from underneath you as soon as you leave the ground. So by the end of the day I was doing jumps, and even landing a few, and I tried doing their flat box, but only ever made it about halfway before sliding off one side. I am thinking of going out to Appalachian next time where they have two extensive terrain parks and I can get a handle on doing the boxes.

As usual I took lots of video of everyone and I’ll be putting them together into a movie like the one I made for Sugar in January, and when its done I’ll post the link here so you can check it out. Meanwhile enjoy the pics!

This is on the trip out to Beech, and you can see the mountains are snowcapped.

The beautiful conditions at Beech

BK heelside

Duncan

Jordan cruising along

Brad Kinnison again, switching from heelside to toeside

A couple of goofy looking guys

I am planning a few trips for the near and distant future and thought I’d throw them out there in case anyone local is interested in joining. Closest at hand is a boarding trip out to beech mountain tomorrow that I am “totally stoked” about. Its an all guy trip since their have free lift tickets for guys on Thursdays, and we have 7 so far. Should be great conditions as they have had tons of cold weather and snow lately, and it shouldn’t be too crowded since its a week day.

I also have Presidents day (February 19th) off work, and I am planning on going snowboarding then too, though I haven’t decided where yet. Maybe up to WV for some “big time stuff.” If anyone is interested in joining me just let me know.

The third is a backpacking trip out to the Mount Mitchell area in early March to climb Blackstock Knob (one of the SB6000 mountains.) That should be chilly but as long as its sunny it should be nice. I am excited enough about backpacking to not mind the cold and am looking forward to knocking out another over 6000 peak.

The other backpacking trip doesn’t have a date yet, but will be when things warm up a little and will most likely involve some people who are excited to go backpacking but have never been before. Hopefully my brother and sister will both be able to come out and we’ll do something like Linville Gorge or Shining Rock.

Alright well there they are, roughly and without much detail. Just let me know if you are interested in joining any of them.

I am planning two snowboarding days within the next couple of weeks so I have been keeping a close eye on the local resorts, and here is the latest update:

• Beech Mountain, NC is now completely open except for one cat track! This is where I am planning a trip for next Thursday, so I am pretty excited that they got it all opened up, including the halfpipe. Thursdays guys get a free lift ticket, and since I have my own board the only thing I’ll be paying for is gas money. Pretty sweet. This mountain sugar mountain are also supposed to get real snow four days this weekend and next week, before I head out, so things could be really nice. 14 of 15 trails open, 4 black diamonds.
• Sugar Mountain, NC is now completely open except for one cat track, including their terrain park. I am rather tempted to head out there, but once again there are long lines since their lifts aren’t very efficiently placed. 19 of 20 trails open, 3 black diamonds.
• Winterplace, WV despite the comercials you are hearing on the radio now, they still are not open all the way. Most of their runs are easy or are connector runs, and the best area still doesn’t have a lot of trails open. 21 of 28 trails open, 2 black diamonds.
• Snowshoe Mountain, WV is almost completely open as well, and again has more trails open then the other three places combined. Their website claims they have gotten 41 inches of snow in the past 16 days, so things should be awesome out there. The only trails closed are some connector trails and one double black. 55 of 57 trails open, 12 black diamonds.

I found this blog at GetOutdoors to be very interesting. Watching the two minute history of snowboarding and seeing things like this come out, its kind of neat to see just how young snowboarding is, and its nice to see there is still room for innovation. Click on the picture below to open it up full size and check out the details of this new thinking. I would not be at all surprised if all snowboards soon adopted this thinking.

UPDATE: All this weeks its been freezing temperatures in Western NC and they are getting some snow, so they are finally able to open up new trails. Today Beech opened up two more intermediate trails so they now have 9 open. By next week I wouldn’t be surprised if the resorts are able to open everything up.

I have been keeping an eye on the ski resorts around NC, VA, and WV, to see if they are finally getting snow, and here is my official snow report:

• Beech Mountain, NC still only has one intermediate line from the top to the bottom, but it just opened up Oz run on the back of the mountain which is intermediate and is a pretty good run. Thats the run that I learned how to carve on, so if you want to learn to snowboard, beech would be ideal right now. The nice thing about beech is that it has a plethora of lifts to the top so none of them get too crowded. 7 of 15 trails open, 0 black diamonds.
• Sugar Mountain, NC is almost entirely open except for a black diamond and a few connecting trails and the terrain park. Two of its three black diamonds are open. The problem with sugar is that the entire mountain is serviced by one lift and its not even a high speed quad, its a dinky two seater (there is a second lift but I haven’t seen them use it yet this year). It has the longest runs from top to bottom but also the longest lines. 16 of 20 trails open, 2 black diamonds.
• Winterplace, WV has about half of its trails open, including one black diamond. Their lines are never too bad, and the trails that are open are spread all over the mountain so that no one lift should be overworked too terribly. 16 of 28 trails open, 1 black diamond.
• Snowshoe Mountain, WV has almost as many trails as sugar, beech, and winterplace combined, and almost all of them are open. The only trails closed are some of the black diamonds and a few out of the way connector trails. The only negative about snowshoe is that it is the most expensive of the four places, but it also has the most trails, so you get what you pay for. 44 of 57 trails open, 4 black diamonds.

I have always been interested in how things work.  As a kid one of my favorite books was “The Way Things Work” by David Macaulay with the mamoths explaining everything.  So naturally every time I go skiing and ride the high speed quad I am always wondering how the heck it works.  Well I looked up chair lifts and found out that the high speed types are actually detachable from the cable.  When the chair gets to the boarding point then the chair is detached from the cable and moved slowly along while the cable continues to run at high speed.  Very interesting.  Here is an explanation with photos.

In thinking about it I thought that detaching the chairs would be one way to do it, but I thought that that would be way to risky and I figured that they must have a lever that pulled out the slack in the rope between the chairs while the chairs were moved slowly around.  Does anyone know if there are high speeds lifts designed like this?  If not then feel free to make offers for a license for my idea.