Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

Okay so some of us have been enjoying the World Cup here in the office… there’s a bunch of us that grew up playing the game… ze German office is obviously psyched that they are still in it…

That said, there is definitely a group of people I’m friends with that are mystified by it all.  I thought this was a good demonstration of how the conversation goes…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
You’re Welcome – World Cup
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

(The whole clip is good but John Hodgeman comes on at 1:00 and starts the conversation that I’m referring to)

Here’s an email from our warehouse up in the Netherlands:

RE: Holland-Brasil

Dear All,

As you probably know our country plays against Brasil tomorrow for the worldcup.

Match starts at 16.00 hours our time.

We are allowed to leave the office at 15.15 hours to see this match with family and friends (or in the pub) and I will certainly use this option.

If you have any urgent matters, please let me know overnight.

Anyways, hopefully your country is still in it and they have the tactical nuance to keep progressing in the tournament unlike ours.  (kudos to Pat Morris on the “anthem”)

The past week has been super warm here in VT, so I think we can put aside any thoughts of any more late season storms.  (Man I swam in Foster’s the other day…hard to think I was riding pow just a few weeks ago)

It’s like 4 am and I can’t sleep right now so I figured I’d do a post that I’ve been meaning to do for a couple weeks.  This is the “the one picture alone isn’t enough to blog about at the time but hopefully all these random pics from the whole winter will come together as a good blog” annual retrospective blog.

I’m pretty sure I’ve used none of these pics before so feel free  to call me out if I have…

We caught some beautiful days at Carinthia at Mount Snow (which is really doing a ton of things right BTW; if you are from the east and haven’t gone, I’d highly recommend it)   Here’s a video that tells the story much better…

So a month or two ago, I wrote about Spring rituals…

Well, as much as we might be known for other kinds of  spring rituals, we try our best every year to do a good solid Spring Cleaning…

Like a lot of things in life sometimes you just have to commit…when you do, you’ll be more than happy that you did, once you’re proven successful.

…and I didn’t have the one I had been using today.

Dedicated readers of the blog will know that I’ve done a few splitboard adventures in my time.  Long story, but one of our team riders needed one and since he “gets shots” it’s safe to say I had to give up the board I had…

Well I wasn’t bummed about not having the splitboard until today (I’m sure you can find some other posts about our season here in the East).

Instead of trying to do a video I just took some shots…

Anyways as my last post indicated it’s good out there…go get some…

Product Used:  Design 158, Taipan Jacket, Franken- Targa Bindings, 2011 Libertine Pureflex Boots, Blitz Pack, Emblem Gloves (Hike Up),2011  Index Gloves (Ride Down)

So March was crazy warm here in VT, and when it was happening, we all knew that we were seeing days off the end of the season.  It was almost like March was doing an impression of April…

Starting with closing day, April’s been doing a good impression of March. I was trading texts with Capt. Al that this weekend definitely had good potential for snow and subsequent hiking.  So I wake up Saturday morning with shred on the brain and try to go to Stowe’s webcam to check out conditions: broken.  Well, that’s when it starts pouring here in Waterbury.  Just so I’m clear, it was POURING rain.  So I end up running errands in Burlington, ya know, a nice little Saturday, even had time to get to Bed Bath & Beyond.

So I get home and see the post Eastern Boarder has made on their Blog about Wildcat, which of course get’s me thinking about when I’ll go to Tuck’s again.  After a check of the radar, I see pink in NH and was all bummed that it seemed all the snow went to Wildcat and Mount Washington.

Well I had blown off the work I had to do this weekend until Sunday and this morning I was continuing to procrastinate when I got this photo from Josh…

I have to admit I wasn’t totally convinced.  I saw the icicles and remembered the POURING rain and figured the snow quality probably sucked pretty bad.

Then the call came…someone driving a snowcat had given Josh a ride up for a second run… he verified the snow was definitely the shredable variety.  One of my bosses was urging me to go ride, so my work could wait, seemed logical at the time.

I finished my game…struggled to find pants to hike and ride in…and got on the road… safe to say I shouldn’t been the first person down the trail I went down… but I was…

(POV video always seems like a better idea when recording it than when you actually have it on screen.  This is definitely my half-assed video editing, do not hold this against the Kids on Shred boys).

So East Coasters, get out there and earn some turns…

(oh BTW, West Coasters… ease up, we know you have snow, but remember those years you didn’t and then you’ll let us enjoy it when we actually get it)

Hitting soft jumps, Parking Lot BBQ’s, spring events, the list goes on…

One classic New England spring ritual is heading to Tuck’s.  To do Tuck’s right, you keep your eye on the weather and try to grab the first sunny 60 degree day of Spring.

Due to the awesome weather we have been having in March, that happened earlier than ever this year (for me)…probably any day from Tuesday through Saturday would work this week…so where I would normally take that day off and run to New Hampshire, this year I was able to hold out until Saturday, which enabled Justin from Warranty to come along.

I had the wrong setting on my camera so I don’t have many good pics of the terrain… but check the pics on Tuck’s site here

We left Waterbury at 4:45 to reach NH and get a spot in the parking lot…Safe to say we were powered by Red Bull

So I was smart enough to bring a couple cans of Bud up…I was smart enough to hide them in the snow…in the end I wasn’t very smart and stepped on them with my crampons

The below picture has seemed to get a response from people…I think it’s because a lot of the pics don’t do justice to how steep it is there…this clearly demonstrates once you roll over the edge there is no looking back.

Here’s Justin ready to drop…he was testing next year’s Blitz pack…   I love the sky in these pictures…it looks painted

Fortunately we had some more Bud’s hidden back at the truck…Here’s Justin handling some hard earned rest

Definitely a great day all around.

If you want to go, personally I recommend going with someone who has gone before. Additionally you need a mindset that recognizes the dangers of the mountain environment. I saw about five things yesterday that people didn’t get hurt solely due to dumb luck.

Most importantly, read the updates on the tuckerman.org and also read the morning postings on the avalanche board. It is your responsibility to make sure you understand every word; they have plenty of rangers and ski patrollers around as well to ask.

Now that I’ve gotten through that all, I do recommend that you go. It is an unforgettable experience that will challenge you in a variety of ways and it will keep you coming back for more…

My Equipment: Design 58, 2011 United Bindings, 2011 Libertine Pureflex, Insurgent Backpack, Cordova Jacket & Pants , Hoss Gloves (going down) Emblem Gloves (going up)

…when you scored that PBR beanie…

We have a ton of snow here in VT and the nice weather doesn’t want to quit…

Don’t get caught in a NIMBY mindset…you may have grass in your back yard but winter’s been happening… and now for the best tim eof the year: spring, with parking lot BBQ’s to match sunny park laps.

With Spring days at Tucks in mind, I hoped that the sun would bake the Rock Garden so I headed up…

Anyways, what I mean is: get out there the snowboarding is as good as you can ask for here in the East.

Conditions are about as good as they get in Vermont right now. So there was pretty much no question that I was headed to the mountain this morning.

I started getting my gear on around 6 am to head to the mountain. A benefit to living in Waterbury is that you are close to the mountain, so most of us will get fully kitted out at home: boots and all.   Dr. Fung has been having me test his latest creation: The PureFlex Libertine.

The snow we are getting is pretty wet and heavy and has really been wrecking havoc in the towns.    So of course I lose power right before I need to put my boots on.

I can attest the Pureflex boots passed the test and were simple to put on in the dark.  Nothing could stop me from getting to the mountain today.

If you haven’t seen the video on how the boots work, check it out…

(As Ian describes in his piece the orange lace goes in to the internal cuff so it is tightening the internal ankle cuff, as well)

Thursday, a bunch of Rome employees were doing what we try to do as much as we can…get our snowboard on.

Generally, this is a good week for us working stiffs; we start the week blacked out, but the rest of the week the mountain opens at 7:30. If you can get your ass out of bed, this pretty much means you can get just under two hours of riding in and be at your desk in Waterbury before 10 am.

So I was riding with Toohey, Anna, & Brendan and got a little ahead of them and rolled up on Josh. So instead of waiting, I hopped on the chair with Josh and headed up. Then…the lift stopped…abruptly. We were not quite half way up the hill.

We sat there for a little bit with some shit chat, when a patroller rolled up and declared that it was going to be a minute and they were going to have to evacuate us from the chair. Years ago I learned how to do evac when I was an instructor…I knew “a minute” was the understatement of the century.

Well the guys who rolled up to do our section needed some practice in the little things but safely emptied the chair ahead of us. Watching them empty the chair Josh & I decided that it was bad steez to have your hand on the chair while you were getting evacuated.

While waiting for the patrollers who evacuated the chair ahead of us, an extra patroller rolled up and this guy was pro. His rope was over the cable on his first try and we were down in no time.

Once we all had regrouped at the office most of us were pretty okay having had the experience; our curiosity well outweighed any frustration or inconvenience. I had never had this happen before (for real), and no one else in the office had ever been evacuated either.

So, first time for everything…

PS- the lift is now fixed

PPS- I missed my grab too.

Photos: Brendan

Today was a good day. Bluebird sky, 8” of fresh overnight, over 25” in the last 5 or 6 days.

I haven’t been to the SIA tradeshow in 4 or 5 years and I don’t miss it one bit; I’ve had some really good riding days in VT while tradeshows have been going on in other parts of the country (Vegas, Denver, etc.).

One thing that especially made my day today was my helmet. I was first in on a line that most people know and it wasn’t quite as good as the above picture; all the fresh snow was there but it was on top of some classic Ice Coast conditions.

About a third of the way in, Coming out of a toeside turn I caught my heel edge on a “punji stick” (in woods riding they are the 1-2” diameter stump of a sapling). Well, this resulted in me sliding on my back head first down a fairly steep line.

I have a good sore neck and my helmet to thank as, inevitably, my head plowed right into a tree.

So it’s safe to say I’m in a mood to recommend helmets today. My neck may still hurt but I was able to shake it off and complete some great runs later in the morning including “Ginger” above and “Mary Anne” the run after (quite possibly my two favorite names for misty trails).

Thanks to my helmet: my day, and more importantly, my life, wasn’t ruined.