Joy:

Sadness:

After some awesome powder turns, and a couple pretty good lessons, I found out that several folks that are acquaintances to me, and rather influential to the ski community at large had passed away in an avalanche earlier that day. This is a huge loss to Stevens Pass, and skiing in general. My thoughts and prayers for their friends and families. Those guys have influenced so many… I hope we can all learn something from this, and move on in a way that would honor these great athletes and human beings. SPKA.

Rolled over to Hogsback chair, my favorite way to get a feel for the snow conditions. Ran into some buddies who said it was deep… still snowing hard. Collected what felt like an inch just on the ride up the lift in my lap. Wow, this is going to be good. At the top. Jetting down under the chair, sneaking over to a little wind drift zone. Hammered a pillow with a big lazy slash. Boof! Faceshot! Cleared the googles in time to tee-up to the roller ahead. Sent it big, another boof, another faceshot. Another great run at Stevens Pass and I had the whole day ahead of me.

Welcome to an ongoing series I will be posting about gear, and what I’ve found works for me.

Boots are a real challenge for me. The ski instructor in me wants boots that are warm and comfy. The skier nerd wants an extremely technical, precise fit. The freerider wants boots that won’t destroy my feet and shins if I huck and land backseat. The weight weany, gram shaving ski mountaineer wants a light boot that hikes and skins like a shoe.

While there are several new “beef” AT boots on the market now, I am cursed with a low-volume foot shaped like a chisel. I briefly considered going with a boot like the Dynafit Titan or Black Diamond Factor, but after trying them on, going so far as to size a full shell down from my normal 27.0, and still not having the buckles do anything, I gave up on that idea. Plus the weight weanie in me didn’t like how those boots “walked”.

I have come to the conclusion that a “boot quiver” is more the way to go for me.

For skiing the lifts and short sidecountry missions, I will be skiing a pair of Head Raptor RS 130 boots. These are a 130 flex, 95mm last plug boot. I replaced the stock powerstrap with a 2-ply booster strap, and will probably cut the shell a bit to soften them up, as a Head 130 flex is much stiffer than the 130 flex Tecnica boots I’ve been in for the last few seasons. The beauty of a plug boot is that it fits nobody. You must grind the inside of the boot to fit YOUR foot and your foot alone. Allows for unrivaled precision. To allow for my freerider tendencies, we (Head NW rep Deano) ground the toe box for length to help prevent the dreaded black toenail. I am super stoked, as the 98mm freeride boots I’ve had in the past have always been too wide and high volume.

For longer sidecountry stuff and pure backcountry adventures, I’ll be rocking a modified pair of Dynafit Zzeros. The Zzero is an awesome boot, my only real gripe is how crappy the stock liners are. They have a short bsl, which is great for hiking, along with awesome lateral stiffness. Unfortunately, molded and unmolded, I get uneven shin pressure and lack of heel retention out of the liners. I replaced the liners with Intuition Powerwraps, and put in a 3 ply Booster Strap. Ahh, much better fit, with no heel lift. I am also planning on putting a more upright setting on the walk mode and removing the lower buckles and replacing them with a wide buckle off a Spirit 3 or Salomon Ghost boot. I’m also on the lookout for a Krypton or other stiff tongue as an experiment, but I’ve heard that those tongues are almost too much considering how soft the lower shell is. We shall see.

My first comment when Lone Peak came into view was “holy shit that’s a big mountain”. Seriously though, this place is huge.

It had snowed 18″ overnight. The upper mountain hadn’t been open the day before, leaving deep powder everywhere above the swift water chair. Did I mention the sun came out? So, the bases were stacked: 18″ of pow, sunshine, and all terrain on the mountain open. Joe and I then proceeded to have one of the most memorable days of the season, threading through trees off Challenger, bowls off Dakota and Shedhorn, and a laps off the tram.

I only had one encounter with the famed Big scree. Skiing through the bottom of Liberty bowl in a tracked area, my gaze (and skis) were drawn toward a little untracked spot… at Stevens Pass, anything is fair game after we have a 50″ base… not so much at Big Sky. Two lovely turns were then rudely interupted by a hollow scrape sound. Quickly stopped and found that I was skiing into a pack of sharks hidden by 5″ of snow. A quick traverse out and I was in the clear, with no harm done. Joe told me of stories of instructor buddies ending their season on rock gardens like I found… not a good way to go out, I think.

One aspect about Big Sky (that may cause my readership to think the PSIA stuff has gone to my head) which is overlooked about Big Sky is the fantastically long and wide intermediate runs there. I know this may sound lame but I love arcing down groomers. Stevens Pass really doesn’t have that going on like Big Sky does. It was pretty neat to ski 1000′ vert of wide groomedness, and not have to dodge gapers, kids, snowboarders, hit sideslips, traverse lines and death cookies.

All said, Big Sky gets a thumbs up from me… hope I can make it out there again this year.

Snow blanketing the tall peaks. A light dusting of snow in the passes.

It’s coming soon, and I’m more stoked than ever.

October 11th, 2009. Only a week before, everybody had been wearing shorts and flip-flops. But since Montana does not have a fall or spring, winter comes abruptly. I cannot recall ever skiing powder this early in the season. It was great. My friend Jeff and I woke up at the crack of like 10:00 am. When we arrived at the upper parking lot at Bridger Bowl, we were a little dismayed at the meager inches of snow on the gravel. But we strapped sticks to packs and hit the trail despite. Alpine boots, 130mm waisted skis, and a summer of general sloth made me quickly wish for my Dynafit setup, but I didn’t have touring skis for this season yet. So we trudged up the trail. It took way too long to hike up to skiable terrain, but when we finally got there, the fruits of our labor became abundantly clear. Knee deep powder, with enough hard stuff to keep us off the rocks and logs. There were a few tracks here and there, but it was mostly ours for the shralping. After a pathetic session on a dimple of a jump, we turned our attention to the ham sandwich that Jeff had brought. Sandwich gone, we hiked up to the top of the run, and decided that the one we hiked up had the best coverage, so down we went. Being my first time on rockered skis, the run was far too short, and we soon found ourselves back at the lodge, wishing that the ghostly lift chairs would spring to life and carry us up for another run.

October 29th. Two days before Halloween, and two days before I moved back to Washington, winter was at it again; and this time I brought my camera. This time there were no slowboarders: A different Jeff, myself, Kyle, and Kevin, and we left at the crack of like 12:30 pm. For some reason I was the only one who brought powder skis. Kyle, Jeff, and Kevin all had sticks about 80mm at the waist. So of course I was a little slow up the hill, but it was worth it on the way down. We finally made it to the top of Pierre’s Knob, and after much deliberation, we decided to ski the South Bowl; after we ate some pizza anyway. Kevin and I traversed a ways around the bowl and dropped in over some small pillows. I caught a bad case of perma-grin, and stopped about halfway down the bowl to get some pics. Kyle decided to jump the cat track and “spin as far as he could with no intention of landing.” and well, watch the video. I also nabbed a video of him and Jeff skiing down the top half of the bowl. Jeff was lamenting on his choice to leave the pow sticks at home, and Kyle, well… But to his credit, his skis aren’t very floaty, and there was a lot of snow. We skied the rest of the way to the car, my perma-grin was back, and didn’t subside until we reached the car.

A last hoorah before I left my beloved Bozeman.

**(Perma-grin, is a non life threatening condition in which the victim cannot help but smile cheek to cheek. Symptoms can last anywhere from a few seconds to several hours or more.)

The drive, while long was uneventful. While driving us 97 over Blewett, I couldn’t help but admire Diamond Head and the other peaks in the area. Ski touring destinations this winter? Yes, I think so. I need to find a local to guide me about up there- the snow pack is thinner and much more finicky than what I am used to at Stevens and Baker- Montana/Colorado-esque in many ways. The thought of skiing on a buried facets and rocks has always deterred me in the past. Still, it is a short drive, and could be good when the weather further west is nasty.

Summer skiing is probably one of my favorite things to do. I’m not really sure why- is it because of the long breaks I take between trips? Or is it some deep held desire to seem “hardcore” to the casual skier? Maybe it’s just the combination of sunshine and being able to ski in places that are inaccessible or to avalanche prone in the winter.

Crystal was enjoyable, although it seems that most of people there preferred to traverse across the steeper terrain instead of skiing fall-line. I’ve never understood this phenomenon, it’s frequently done at Stevens. People seem to be content with making a giant right hand “turn” down Tye bowl, screwing things up for those of of us skiing the direct entrances such as Nasty Gash and C-Slit. Half the adventure of skiing those lines is ripping GS turns out the bottom across endless traverse tracks, getting slammed into the fronts of your boots and nearly taking out some Gaper snowboarder “riding the pow, man!”.

While Mindy and I got lots of laps in at Crystal, I think we had more fun skiing a roadside chute off Chinook Pass. No people, except for the random Texan asking how we got up to the top of the hill (politely responding “we walked…”) in the parking lot. Turns were fairly steep, and while it was slightly suncupped, the snow was soft enough not to notice. About 600 vertical ft of bliss. Rather enjoyable. The pair of Movement Sources I was on really shined in those conditions, sweet big GS turns down the fall-line. They have a slight amount of early rise in the tips- just enough to make the skis feel loose, but enough sidecut and stiffness to lay down trenches when on edge. I like em’.

Anyways, two thumbs up for Crystal staying open so late. I had a great time up there, and it seem lots of other folks did too.