Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

It looks like your havin some fun out there Larry.

Snow is looking a little fluffy, maybe that Cascades concrete is just a rumor to preserve the snow for the locals? Good stuff, glad you're getting some nice conditions.

Snow conditions look good up there. We've been getting the goods down here in Oregon as well.

thanks for posting the videos

cheers,
JT

fisheater wrote:Snow is looking a little fluffy, maybe that Cascades concrete is just a rumor to preserve the snow for the locals? Good stuff, glad you're getting some nice conditions.

No rumor! It can get cement-like in a snap here. Often times with such low altitude ski areas (the base of Alpental is about 3000 ft.) we'll get serious dumpings of super water-saturated threshold snow, which is great to ski if you got fresh legs, a point em attitude and stupid fat skis, but when that is followed by semi-solidifying temp drops, which can happen often (sometimes mid-day) then the stuff sets up to the consistency of a harsh skiing wet cement. Forget getting any side slide out of the skis and your knees WILL feel every divot and lump. Crazy! That isn't the bad though, in fact it makes stupid steep runs get spackled with skiable snow, more-so than Colorado. The bad is when it goes from rained on wet cement to full on bullet-proof re-freeze cured cement. You can't even puncture it with a pole plant, and it shuts the off piste down and sets up the conditions for puker avalanche slides when the wet, big snow dump returns. But this year has been exceptional with only a few re-freeze days and instead a number of Colorado-esque pow days. Hell, I've even skied under blue skies three times this year! That's a record. Usually we ski in a white-out fog.

Rock_Doc wrote:Snow conditions look good up there. We've been getting the goods down here in Oregon as well.

thanks for posting the videos

cheers,
JT

Wish I'd had my camera not facing so down. It kinda ruins it. I was hoping to capture our best steep runs in prime conditions, instead all you see are skis. I'll figure out the camera one of these storms. Glad to hear you guys are finally getting your rightful snow. Skied with a lady from Bend the other day who told me Bachelor was hurting this season.

That is cool to see you ski though. Which skis are you on? I see your old school “skis together” in a way that I avoid, as a newer tele skier. On my skinnier skis I tend to run my uphill tips into my boots but on more powerful gear I tend to two track it a bit more.


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anemic wrote:That is cool to see you ski though. Which skis are you on? I see your old school “skis together” in a way that I avoid, as a newer tele skier. On my skinnier skis I tend to run my uphill tips into my boots but on more powerful gear I tend to two track it a bit more.


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Those are 177 K2 Pinnacle 95s with 132 tips. They are a fat tipped, big ass ski.

I think I'd like to see a vid of you "track" that inside ski more in conditions like what I'm skiing in the vid, i.e. skiing fast fall-line on 4" fresh on top of variable crud on slopes 40 degrees +. To get an idea of the slopes Google Alpental's "Schluct" and "Adrenaline." On the last segment I'm on the 47 degree Adrenaline. Now I'm not saying you can't do it, but I've never seen it done. In fact most tele skiers I see either parallel, tick tock and or double pole hop their way down slopes like that.

anemic wrote:That is cool to see you ski though. Which skis are you on? I see your old school “skis together” in a way that I avoid, as a newer tele skier. On my skinnier skis I tend to run my uphill tips into my boots but on more powerful gear I tend to two track it a bit more.


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Anemic... That name sounds familiar. You were on the old TTips wren't you? I left it in about 05 after my account was severely hacked. My old handle was Telebump. There aren't many of us from that era on here. Good to run into an old-school shit giver. Keeps a person honest. Bravo sir! Did you have the avatar of the comic fox skiing with a refrigerator on its back?

Hi Harris & thanks for the dialog. I am anemic without avatars on any forum (although I did add a sailboat avatar recently in my shaving forum).

Yes I was lurker on the old TT forums but if I registered anemic there it was not with an avatar and I posted little if at all. I'm 'anemic' on almost every web forum dating back to my involvement on the Letsrun.com forums. A runner posted a question about anemia, which I brought upon myself through an unwise combination of marathon training and blood donation - talk about anti-doping! So I logged in as anemic to respond and I stuck with it. I kind of like the vulnerability of it for online interchanges.

It is my goal to ski with you one day, someplace. I'm just now becoming comfortable in my tele stance (season 3, about 15 ski days this year including combination of 100' dawn patrols, lift riding days and golf course / bushwacking days).

I really loved watching your 'lens down' video. It made it impossible to gage the slope angle, but it sure shows the technique and massive skills you have! It's fun to watch. I cannot wait to ski something like that, soft, deep & steep.

I am a two track alpine skier owing to what OGs like you & me call the new skis, because we are 50 (Stenmark, Mahre bros were the models). I brought 'new ski two track' with me over to my tele habit. I love tele. I never walk away from the ski hill thinking, man I wish I had been on my alpine gear today so I'm ready to commit and swap tele bindings on my 186cm Line Prophet 100s, my true all-mtn, all-conditions, alpine mountain ski vacation boards which I used with Lange race boots. I have a pair of BD 01s just laying there so I am going to bring this pair with me to Whitefish in December which is *probably my next mtn opportunity. A little heavy for dawn patroling but MT isn't very high and I will really love them on anything Whitefish can throw my way.

*Probably Whitefish is the next trip; the wildcard being; two of my best friends live in West Vail & Beaver Creek so all I need is an epic pass and cash in some SWA miles for a plane ride and I could be there for some wicked dawn patrol sessioning - but the CO snowpack this year...also, college tuition...