Demos, Deals and Driving

Sunday, February 6 - Saturday, February 12, 2011

     My first ski bum weekend of February 5 & 6 turned out not-so. A bout of bronchitis sidelined me from the slopes until Sunday afternoon when Tuck Wilson (formerly of So. Londonderry, VT) gave me a call and talked me out onto Headwall and KT for a few late afternoon sun-baked bombers before joining him and Bev for dinner and Super Bowl XLV. This began the week of my most skiing days of the season. Monday afternoon’s sunshine coaxed me out for a few more solo cruisers on Squaw. Tuesday was the WWSRA on-snow demo at Alpine Meadows. I headed out on the Stockli Rotor 72 for some fast eye openers on the groomed loose granular. Then Volkl Bridge, then some Salomon Sentinels.

     On Wednesday, Feb. 9  it was off to Mammoth Mountain with Tom Murphy for some more WWSRA demos. Huge place! Lots to explore. This time K2 Hardside then the Fischer Watea then the Blizzard Bonafide. All amazing skis, 98mm underfoot, perfect for the conditions of the day. Mammoth enjoyed a bit more recent snow than the Tahoe basin and the surface was terrific. On Thursday afternoon it was back to Olympic Valley for some research and job search, then on Friday morning I headed to Northstar-at-Tahoe for some solo snowboarding for the afternoon. Skiing is my preference but on a warm, sunny afternoon, a relatively boring mountain can be a lot of fun when you explore it sideways. Plus there’s something about the more tactical sensations of the snow through the board, through the thinner boot sole to the foot that is more sensational than a DIN sole on a hard plastic ski boot can convey. You feel the G’s of a carved turn to a greater extent. My Burton Method 158cm seems to handle all conditions well, even though it is so lightweight it still performs.

     After a Friday snoozer at Northstar, on Saturday I had succumbed to the steeps of Squaw’s Granite Chief and skied the middle of the day. The snow was firm and dead, but there were a few exceptional lines to the immediate skier’s right of the liftline, along the berm of the groomed/ungroomed where some wind sluff was trapped. And, no one was on it! After a few laps here on my Salomon Lords I headed back to Mountain House to tidy up for Parker’s arrival, hit the laundry and begin packing for the next excursion.