Here’s to another fine season for all y’all, with bright snow crystals to dance on, and family and friends to dance with.
It was really nice getting out on skis again, getting up on edge, bending the ski, and carving through the arc. It was a lovely summer on Superior, but now it’s time to rip.
Some of the folks whom I hadn’t seen since last season skated up to me exclaiming, “Are you OK? They said you went into the trees and were hurt!” I tell ya, it’s getting so a fella can’t fall without a fuss. Sorta like having to poop in an open field – lack of privacy.
Yes, I fell, no I did not go into the trees, and no I was not hurt. Sheesh! Anyway, I killed three tele binding heel clips during the day from opening up the throttle (the parts are old plastic, so they can’t always take the force of a sudden and powerful heel lift on a deep-freeze day), but the fall wasn’t for gear failure – it was just me crossing my tips.
One of my students was smiling from ear to ear while skiing on her first set of new skis and boots, and she brought out a couple of her friends to try snowboarding. Lots of smiles!
An old friend who is into tele-kiting chatted with me on the lift while we made some runs together. Later at the bar-ski-bar-ski a level 4 who had been conducting an alpine instructor’s course joined us, and once the place shut down the office manager sat down and announced that she is getting a monoboard. Vive la 70s! I wonder if her grandparents were monoboarders? But who am I to comment, for I ski on what are essentially modern modified Kandahar bindings that would not be out of place ninety years ago.
It’s all good! 
I’m not going to get on snow until January. This will be one of my latest starts ever.
We are off tomorrow, driving to the mountains. Two weeks in the Austrian alps and looking like pretty nice coverage already with more to come.
I apologise though, we are very much leisurely skiers and unlikely to have extreme tales of derring-do.
There’ll be beer and schnitzel though! That’s got to count for something.
I managed to hit Monarch Mountain a couple weeks ago, and quickly realized Colorado is a WHOLE different animal than Minnesota. I managed a couple blue runs, but I pretty much kept my out-of-shape butt on the easiest runs. Fortunately, I found out I can get from peak to base without leaving packed powder. It was wonderful, but oh did my legs hurt the next day.
21k vertical today. Good parking, great snow. Rode a chair with the worst person I’ve ever encountered in my life. If it wasn’t a quad, I’d have pushed them off. But the rest of the day was Deluxe, so fuck that noise. Damn near perfect, actually.
Lovely stuff, If we could only rid the mountains of everbody else!
First day for us today. Weather hovered around freezing with a dusting above 1000m and flat-ish light but the snow was plentiful, well bashed with a grippy and squeaky top few cm, very forgiving if not massively fast.
We took it fairly easy, the mountains we normally use tend to have some comfortable routes down even 1000-1300m vertical drops so you don’t have to go hard in order to get nice long runs and build your confidence.
We started at 08:30 and finished about 2, that felt like enough and my boy started to feel his boots were too narrow so we got them changed at the bottom (very useful to rent until his feet stop growing).
Took a break at 10:30 for coffee and shared a germknodel with my wife, roughly the size of a baby’s head. Perfect ski food! (and only 6.50 euro, I love a bargain, part of the reason why we go to Austria, it sounds like it should be expensive but it isn’t)
Next few days are a mixture of snow and broken cloud/sun and temps anywhere from 2 to -14. We’ll have to choose carefully but situated where we are with the ticket we’ve bought we have the luxury of slopes ranging from 700 - 3000m facing all directions within a 30 min drive of our apartment so I’m sure there’ll be something to suit.
What I’m really looking forward to is a sunny and mild-enough day to go high onto the Kitzsteinhorn glacier and a coffe and Swarzwalderkirschetorte in myfavourite cafewith my favourite view.
I have not skied for 20+ years, but used to go a lot when I was younger. Now I need some advice.
This year, I want to go back to my favorite place, Wildcat in New Hampshire. I was a speed demon but had no form to speak of, but I knew how to take a spill and avoid hitting things. Mainly, I want to go fast! I reckon I will take it easy the first run or two, but eventually the need for speed will overtake any instinct for caution.
I don’t have any gear and expect to rent. What has changed? I know boots and bindings are different from what I was used to. What else? Someone told me that skis today have no edges - can I still get the edgy type?
Are there still chair lifts and T-bars? Will I have to know any special lore to deal with snowboarders and such? What am I missing?
Work overtime on that caution instinct. You sound like you will be very unsafe out there, and a danger to yourself and others. Wildcat has some runs where you can generate a lot of speed and if your skills are rusty you’re likely to get out of control on unfamiliar gear. Spend time staying under control. You’re likely to get your ticket pulled by ski patrol if you’re out of control on icy crowded slopes.
Skis still have edges; whoever told you that doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Modern skis are shorter and more shaped, meaning they have more side cut, are easier to turn quickly and generally less stable at high speed. At least that will be the case for most rental gear. Bindings are better, but you’re unlikely to notice any difference.
Yes, the main lift at Wildcat is a High Speed Quad that takes you to the top. The rest of the lifts are fixed grip chairs like the old days. No T-bars at Wildcat these days. You don’t need to do anything to deal with snowboarders on the lifts, although they may ask for a spot on either end of the lift to make things easier.
The main thing is ski in control, and don’t be that guy. There’s been a big crackdown over the years on reckless skiing with people having little patience for mad bombers.
Hey that’s what they used to say - “ski in control”. I guess things haven’t changed all that much.
When you say skis are shorter, I hope not like Shortee skis. My mom liked those, I didn’t. Turning is easier, but at the sacrifice of trackability. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.
But I promise not to be a mad bomber. (Of course, that’s what a mad bomber would say, right?) Seriously, if the slopes are icy, I ain’t going.
Back in the old days, Wildcat used to have mailboxes on the trails, with souvenir buttons you could collect. “I skied the Polecat trail at Wildcat”. I will wear mine proudly.
Twenty years ago there were still a lot of non-shaped skis, and the shaped skis were not as dialed in as they are today. By comparison, today’s skis are far easier to turn on hardpack and ice. When you start your turn, roll your weight onto the inside edge of your outside ski and let the magic happen. Carved turn - Wikipedia
Watch some current youtube instructional vids on how to carve, rent a performance ski and boot package (not untuned, non-waxed/non-phantomed lifeless crapola) and get some instruction, be it sole instruction, group instruction, a carving clinic, a day long group mountain guide . . . just, as Telemark wisely cautions, don’t be that guy.
Bindings have been dialed in over the years so that these days they tend to be a more effective at releasing when you need to be released and not releasing prematurely.
Boot manufacturers have put a lot of effort over the years in working on flex characteristics. A significant advance in boot liners is in how some of them can be custom heat molded for your feet. A recent advance in boot heaters is wireless boot heaters that are fob or cell phone controlled.
There has been significant development in helmets. Twenty years ago most people did not wear helmets. These days most people do wear helmets. Look for a helmet that protects your temples and ears and is able to deal with multi-directional impacts and can redirect/dissipate impact forces. An example is POC Skull Orbic Spin line.
There is a good variety of goggles frames that are soft and face conforming, and there are lenses for pretty much every light condition, although flat light is flat light is flat light.
Twenty years ago high end jacket and bibs/pants were waterproof+breathable Goretex adhered to a nylon shell. There are more options today for you to find the right breathability for your exertion level.
Not a lot has changed for UV skin protection, but these days spray-on sunscreen is easier to find. Lip balm remains the same. To save a few bucks, just find someone whom you think shares your taste preferences and ask them to kiss you.
Folks still prefer gloves to mittens, and they still complain about cold fingers. If your fingers are cold despite good gloves, then get some Baffin Polar Mitts so that your fingers can keep each other warm.
For ski masks there was already a wide variety a couple of decades back. Be sure there are no skin gaps when fitting helmet, goggles and mask.
Wind shut down Heavenly Saturday early, an pretty much kept it closed Sunday.
I took the dogs out in the Jeep to hunt for meeces.
Two things to watch out for with boarders. (1) They do not have eyes in the back of their heads, so don’t expect them to see you when they turn toward their blind side. (2) Some boarders sit down in the middle of the hill, and some groups of boarders sit down in a line across part of the hill, so always ski in control so that you can easily avoid them.
I could have used your pups at my chalet. Last week in the middle of the night my cat deposited a live mouse on my face while I was sleeping. I’ve glue trapped three mice since then.
If you haven’t skiid for a while I’d have three peices of advice, helmet, helmet, helmet.
Even a moderately decent one is more comfortable, warmer and gives more protection than a bobble hat and goggles. I switched over a decade ago and love it. Here in Austria it is a legal requirements for kids and I see virtually no-one without one,
Exhibit A in ‘Why Cats Suck and Will Never Be As Good As Dogs’. 
Total agreement- especially at a cold, windy mountain like Wildcat.
I will borrow a helmet, sure. As for some of the other suggestions, I got electric boots, a mohair suit…
But this is just a one time thing. Unless I like it so much I want to go back more often than once every 20 years.
It’s addictive. Hope you get hooked.
A snow gun deposited a fifteen-foot-high pile of hard snow in front of the clubhouse, smack dab in the middle of the children’s play area. Rock solid, very smooth, with a forty-five degree pitch and a short run-out. Textbook attractive nuisance, but since it was not climbable no alarm was raised.
Eventually a primary school age little girl discovered kick-stepping, as if she were an ice climber, only without dual-point crampons and ice axes – just helmet, alpine ski boots, warm gloves, and determination.
It took her a while, but eventually she made it to the top, climbing the un-climbable with other little kids following in her boot steps as if she were a Sherpa leading up the Hillary Step. Not one of them peeled off her steps, and all of them had a blast sliding down the steep main face, climbing and sliding and climbing and sliding and climbing and sliding.
. . .
Later, in the clubhouse, I had to make way for a diapered nine-month-old who was crawling at Sanna Tidstrand speed to – where else – the race room.
There’s hope for the world.