Montana 2011 - Ski Modding!

[scheides]

Another year in the books! Left MN around 3am last saturday, hit Red Lodge (just south of Billings, MT) about 1pm, skiis hit the slopes by 1:30. In the parking lot everyone was leaving saying it was raining, but there was obviously a storm front moving in so we stayed and lucked out, snowed the entire afternoon!

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Back on the road at 4:30pm, cruised into Bozeman to stay with relatives. Saturday night it snowed a good 4-5 inches at Bridger Bowl, so we stopped in there for some boot-deep shooshy goodness.

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an ex-coworker and good friend Chris Thielen (bananas, he drives a 300whp A4!) came with us this year:
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Then down to big sky sunday night. Overnight we got a few inches of snow, nothing crazy but maybe 2-3" just enough for some smiles. The triple chair on the upper-mountain is struck by lightning at some point leading to issues which led to awesomeness.

Tuesday: powder day, 4-6 base, maybe more like 8" or so in the upper areas. Thing is, they could not run the upper lifts and tram due to the power problems, so we tore around on groomers with 5" or so of powder on them with a huge crew of friends we've developed over the years. Imagine a wide open mountain covered in pow run just completely over by this crew:

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Wednesday: It snows all day and night. We wake up early, get first chair, and wait in line for the upper mountain stuff to open and after a bit we have the entire upper mountain as our epic, epic playground. 10-12" of completely untouched powder, we freaking lap the triple chair and tram 20+ times and basically collapse around 3pm, beer in-hand.

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Then it starts snowing again :) Thursday we wake up to 4" of new snow and it is just snowing and snowing. After a few laps on challenger, we find some nice and relaxing tree skiing to slow things down a bit as another 4" falls through the day.

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I made a slight boo-boo and got my skis hung-up on a tree, tails down. Trying to make it around a fallen tree, the left side was covered in brush so right side was my only option. A quick turn to check speed and then pull around this tree, I didn't make it. Caught tree about 1' from tip of ski, boots ejected twisting to the left (as they should!), skis planted, I flew into the tree with my left thigh and then did a front flip over it, landing upside down, poles still in-hand.

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Bruised thigh and ego, broken volkl mantra:
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Freaking goats:
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It keeps snowing. Broken ski > Broken leg though I guess! Talking to the manager of big sky sports in the AM, they're gonna help me talk to volkl about getting this warrantied. No core damage, everyone at the vario es the ski is fuct but w/o core damage it should not have failed like this.

Friday: wake up to another 4"+ of snow and it just keeps coming. We are freaking dead tired, I have a broken ski. I demo a pair of these:

http://k2skis.com/skis/twin-tips/obsethed

Resort is pretty empty this year, we decide a tram run is in order for the last day even though our legs are completely toast (as are our livers!)

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Again, nobody here, just us and the snow!
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The rest of the time is filled with drinking, eating, hottubbing, and sleeping!

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Still snowing as I type this, headed home :(

[scheides]

PS I broke a fuking pole too, bought a pair of titanium middle-of-the-road leki's for $61. They're about 2" too short for me but they got me by!

[A//// Guy]

Looks like a blast!

[C3L1CA]

Looks super fun!

[Speedfreak]

How were those freaky deaky wide ski's? I gotta buy new stuff for next year, not sure what to get/look for.

BTW, jealous doesn't cover your trip, didn't make it anywhere this winder. :(

[rose0529]

So jealous, sounds like an epic trip again this year! I really need to join you one of these big sky is sooo much fun!

[scheides]

Wide skis are awesome but the bigger you go the heavier they get. The volkls I have are IMHO a perfect combo of weight/wideness/firmness for an all-around one-ski-quiver. 97mm underfoot (a more traditional MN ski is more like 70mm)...and 130mm at the tip...I also really like the Volkl Gotamas and Fatypus D-Senders, those are more like 105-110mm underfoot and 137 at the tip, and these ones that I tried (K2 ObSethon) are 117mm underfoot and 146mm at the tip.

Ski technology has evolved so much in the last 10 years it is just nuts! There are a ton of options depending on what you want. The two new things for 2012 will be early-rise on a lot more skis (even the mantas)--think of a more banana shaped ski--and these K2's also had a cambered base so the entire ski is basically curved with the top high and the outside edges low. There are so many new designs it will be interesting to see where things are in a few more years.

My buddy chris also rode on a nice pair of Rissignol S86's and love them...a little narrower than my Mantras...86mm underfoot, 130mm at the tip. Rossi also makes a ski called the S3 that is close to my mantras that I would love to ride sometime....anyways, tons of great skis out there, and tons of snow! They are showing another 6-8" since I left....goddamn it!