So much so that George & Cavan decided to fire up the snowmobiles in the parking lot Friday Night…

Trying to Get Cavan's Sled going...

Success!

Job well done.

So we got some more natural snow on Friday…  If you live on the East Coast you really need to pack the car head up to ME, Northern VT, or Northern NH…  Down south may have had a heck of an ice storm, but fortunately we mostly got more snow.  We are in full on winter up here and you really should take care of yourself and come make some turns; you’ll feel a lot better about the world.

So Friday I hopped on a Notch 1985.  I had ridden one of the early protos, but hadn’t been on one in a couple seasons.

Holding an early Notch 1985 proto a couple of February's ago; six riders didn't cross a track...a good day...I still remember George doing a crazy blind drop into a river bed...I think Ron took this picture?

Friday was one of those storms everybody was jonesin’ for, so the parking lot was pretty full by 8 am, and  it got played out pretty fast.    Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity to make some turns on the 1985, to see if I would prefer it as my full-time powder deck.  I loved the ability to ride fakie.  Now, I can’t tell you I was doing huge airs in pow and needing to put down the landing gear switch, but it really was more about coming to a stop in a tight area and deciding that I feel more comfortable taking the option to my left (I’m goofy).   For example, I would never take on a water bar fakie on my tapered Notch, which I did Friday.  It really shows how this board evolved from the Design and much of why I rode the Design before we had the Notch in the line.

I had to give back the 1985 Notch that day, and so I rode my own tapered Notch (158cm) the rest of the weekend.  I was riding it with my Targa’s.  (The Green/Brown one’s look pretty tight on it, lame, I know…)

Ready to Drop - 12/14/08

I had to start the day riding groomers or use groomers to get to “where I was going”.  I will say that for my riding style the tapered Notch is very satisfying at railing on groomers.  I tend to have a lot of fore and aft movement on my board;  driving into the nose to start a turn and powering off the tail coming out.  I really felt more confident initiating turns at speed on my own Notch (on groomers).  Honestly, I really was blown away how well the board coped with groomers; if you ride a bunch of pow and can only afford one board, do not hesitate to buy this as your one board.  Obviously, the board rides pow awesome so I won’t spend too much time on that.

So for myself, riding in VT on lift serviced stuff, I think I prefer the tapered Notch.  I think the same would be true if I was doing frontside and backside stuff out west.

If I was out building kickers or in general riding in more of true backcountry experience (hiking, using snowmobiles, cats, heli, skinning, etc.)  I would choose the Notch 1985.

I hope this helps you understand some of the differences between the two boards and why different people might choose the different models and why both exist.

I would finish my "hot lap" coming down at the foot of this rocks. This line is just over a knoll from the main gully...sometimes a little extra work gets you to a slightly hidden untracked line.

PS-  I did a POV video of riding this gully but I had the camera on the “compact” setting, so it kind of looked crappy on YouTube.  I’m not really a fan of POV stuff so I guess it was karma.

That was one of the comments on the bulletin board I found this on…

Happy Black Friday Americans!  Happy Friday to non-Americans! My mom went to the drug store to buy a TV at 7 am today.  Now, you could get stuck on the fact that she was buying a TV at a drug store or get stuck on the fact she was doing it at 7 am…but there is something quintessentially  American about that; you can almost hear the star spangled banner in the background.

Winter’s happening all over the place, so make sure you give winter gear for Christmas.    I mean who couldn’t use a pair of socks or a sweater?

Monday we had yet some more fresh snow in Vermont.  So I caught up and made some turns with Will. Will is one of the writers behind VTDeathrider.com along with Capt. Al.   I kind of surprised him and made him do a little interview about what gear he was rockin’.

So first, give Will some credit for being the first victim and being kind of on the spot.

After the tape stopped rolling, Will also pointed out that he has a wider foot and that he has struggled for a good boot fit in the past.  The updated Libertine have worked really well for him thanks to the last and the heat moldable liners.  His Graft is a little more the setup for banging laps on the “stock run”, but we were riding wet heavy snow Monday.   (Look for a Deathrider post about the “Stock run” )

So yet another fun day here in VT…four days on snow…four days riding fresh.

I have to say we’ve been blessed with good opening days up here the past few years.

We had 8-10″ in the last 24 hours.  It was a little windy so the main open trail was a little firm and will do well with the groomer on it a few more times.  They also had the rope dropped on a couple runs that they were blowing snow on.  The first few runs were pretty fun as the snowmaking rollers offered some good opportunities to launch and slash.

Some of us ventured to another area for one run as well, unfortunately the natural snow was arguably too light as the conditions over there would be best described as dust on granite (as opposed to dust on crust).

So I’ll try and get back to the original goal of my posts…

So my shred today was an Anthem 59 with Shift Bindings.  I liked the Anthem today because on the firm snow it had the control and power to rail confidently.  The directional nose was a nice advantage in the fluffy.  Paul updated the shape on the Anthem reflecting what people like in the Agent while maintaining the responsiveness that the Anthem is famous for; that new shape helped make buttering and lauching off of rollers a blast.

I’ve been riding the new Unibody bindings on my groomer set-ups since last year.  I really like the feel of them; I would argue that they have a nice “skate-y” feel to them.

Pictures…

Looking down the Nose

Midway Shack

This is the first song that came on my Shuffle today as i was riding…

Sunday Update…

Well I had fun Saturday, but I really had fun Sunday.  There was no question the wind was blowing both days, so you look around and say “where did the 14-18″ that they advertised go?” (storm total)

Well, I found it all…in one spot.

I can’t claim I found it first…but there was plenty for three laps.

Sunday song…

So the other night I drove up to Stowe and put a Zep CD in my CD player. Now, my love of Zep has been well documented in my other posts so I won’t get into here.

But a little later in the evening the Zep was still playing and a lady had joined me…I couldn’t help but think of Damone’s advice (specifically Point 5)…

Now that the election and the negative campaign season is over, I think some political operative is writing commercials for this company….   HERE

About 48 seconds it kicks in real good…Nothing like playing on people’s fears.  They’ve played this commercial for about two years on my cable here, not sure if you seen it where you live but honestly it cracks me up.

Remember, don’t trust those strangers with their strange chemicals…

Note to self: Check the stance on your board before you hike the mountain. Apparently I lent my board to somebody at World Quarters and it still had a 2 ” wider stance than I normally ride. October hiking riding is not for a ball’r centered stance

Note to self: Get a digi cam that has a flash that accurately reflects how light it is and that the batteries don’t die after 3 poorly lit pictures

Note to self: Make sure you do that again.

At 4:45 my alarm went off…  four hours of sleep had never felt so bad.    I lay in bed trying to commit to whether I was going to do it.  I had spent last night getting my shit together pulling things out that had been stored for the summer.

Last night was promising…It was like a misty fog here in Waterbury at like 7 pm.  Temp was like 44 down here so I was hoping that the altitude change meant it had already started.

I have had a long week and a seven hour drive to do tomorrow so I was totally okay with not getting up as  the snooze button was pressed for the second time.

Possibilities….as I lay in bed that’s what started running through my head.  The possibility of making those first turns.  The possibility that Jerry would send that email with pictures showing that it was ridable.  The possibility that I would have had all my shit together and just not gotten out of bed.

So after a few more presses of the snooze button I was dressed and out of the house at 5:15.  See the problem is there is no weather reporting right at Stowe.  The airport is at lower elevation, so checking the web is no better than looking out the window here in Waterbury.    Also, you need to start hiking in the dark, because you need to drop on the first snow right at the break of day.  Once the warmth of the day hits the snow at the bottom then you’re walking out; the moisture count just is so high that the snow starts clumping…the last two sentences mean you can’t look at webcams to help make your decision.  Basically, you can’t wait, you need to commit, you need to believe in the possibility.

It was snowing pretty good as I crossed from Waterbury into Stowe. This was a good sign.

Then the bad signs started setting in.  The snow didn’t increase at the high school.  Again…it didn’t increase at the touring center.    The other bad sign at the touring center was that it was calm.  For it to be it’s shreddable best, you need the wind to be blowing and swirling at the mountain.  This will deposit more snow on certain trails which makes those trails rideable when others aren’t.  Generally with a weather change like this, you can count on the wind.

Finally i got up to the mountain and I could still see some green in the lawn near the lodge.  If you don’t have full coverage there then you know your returns have diminished significantly. So maybe 1-2 inches at the Midway.   (So probably the same amount as in the pics from October 3rd that Dumont posted, except those were at the top and the Midway is at the gondola base.)

Watching the radar last night it does look like there were shredable amounts over in the Adirondacks, but obviously it wasn’t quite cold enough at altitude here.

Sometimes I think that if I hadn’t taken the chance…that it would have been there (a kind of Murphy’s law).

Then again, better to try and not succeed, then lie in bed and wonder about the possibilities.

(Sorry for the lack of pics, but as I said, it was still dark; I’ll link to or add some pics for Stowe’s site later today)

So Ron did a post the other day giving you a tour of his desk. I figured I’d give you a tour of what I look at through the day at Rome. It pretty much starts and ends with my email inbox.

The craziness of my job kicks in around the start of August and runs through the trade shows in January. If everything has gone right, February and March can be “more” realistic (not the worst for getting my shred on). May through July are all about getting ready for August through October.

During the busy time of year, I run this Advanced Find thing in my Outlook. It’s interesting to me to see just how much different items are going back and forth.

So first figure there’s about 22 working days in September. I received 2811 emails in my inbox this month…so that’s an average of about 130 mails per week day. I generally don’t include the emails in my search that I have rules on and get sorted into other folders (auto ship confirmations, Data backup confirmations, Warehouse receiving files, etc.). Also, my junk mail filters are pretty good so this does not include those for the most part.

What are the mails? Well it could be anything from an urgent delivery to a shop in Canada or working with our Ukrainian distributor to have them pick their boards up. This particular image has a lot of international distributor stuff in it.

It is interesting how the Internet has totally changed this all. I mean what would I do with out it? Just think, you’d just be playing Tetris right now instead of getting to this part and wondering how you get that five minutes back.

song of the day