Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

…when you scored that PBR beanie…

...but not as cool as this pair...

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

The snow stake is at about 8 1/2 feet

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…

...but I got there about an hour early...snow was still pretty solid when I headed down.

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.

(In case you needed a photo for reference)

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.

Anna getting lowered...

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.

Mike Toohey. Having your hand on the chair is the equivalent of missing your grab

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

So I was a little slow out of bed today. Normally I like to get to the mountain first thing; I’ll totally forsake runs with friends for fresh groomers and no lift lines. With being a little late I knew I had to come up with an alternate plan to avoid the lines.

It was beautiful today and when it’s beautiful, faithful readers of my posts know that I like to get on top of the mountain.

Here’s the first thing I saw when I got to the summit…

Can't figure out if the dog or I was more confused....

No animals were harmed in the creation of this blog.

This will come in handy…

I think Bill Byrne reminded me about this little bit of East Coast nostalgia…

You’ve had some long days at work so now it’s time to get out on the slopes…

Method Mag had that photo on Facebook. They’re a European mag if you couldn’t tell from the board…

Happy Holidays! Think Snow!

So you’ve seen the pictures of the PureFlex Lacing System, and it seem pretty simple, pretty straight forward to you. You got 4 zones in the boot, each zone is separated by locking guides and thus there’s a load of customizability. The mathematicians amongst you probably figured out that equals to 16 different combinations of tightnesses achievable. What you can’t tell from the pictures though, is how easy and fast it is to lace up a PureFlex boot. Check this vid out:

So Saturday was beautiful here in Vermont. At least in terms of the sky it was beautiful; like often happens when it’s clear it was very cold (no insulation for the earth). Kind of a contrast of what was happening down south.

View from the top of the Gondola

So the top of the mountain was calling out to me…so in the spirit of Capt. Al I decided I need to head up to the top. It was really driven more from the hiker/backpacker in me; I really wasn’t headed up thinking I would find that great of snowboarding up there.

The view was pretty much only hampered by the curvature of the earth. I only had the camera on my phone, so hopefully the pictures work for you.

Looking West, Adirondacks in the distance...

Looking Southeast past the resort...

The hike up was super wind-packed so I was ready for more of that when it was time to drop in....

...but the turns were much better than I expected

So I need to end by reminding the reader: when exiting the resort make smart decisions well within your comfort/ability level. I backed away from another line on Saturday that I’ve done numerous times as I wasn’t comfortable with the ramifications of a mistake. Stay safe…

So any of you on the East Coast know that it’s been a slow start to the winter.

No big deal, the Farmer’s Almanac has been making heavy claims so we’re in a good mood… Well winter finally set in with 20″ at Stowe last weekend and then the mountains around here started to turn the lifts this past weekend. We also have snow in the forecast every day this week.

I didn’t take any pictures of Stowe, so you get a picture of kids standing in line for Hot Dogs (or red hots as you call them if you’re from WNY) at the Waterville Valley pre-jib from Twitpic.

mmmm…hot dogs

(See if you don’t order a red hot dog in Rochester, you might just get a White hot dog)

Figured we needed to balance the RnR Tuesday posts with some fun at the end of the week.

(don’t be disappointed when you realize this will not be a regular feature of the SDS blog)

Thanks, Steve for emailing this gem.