Fortunately, Mother Nature is only like 50% of a vacation’s success.  Although terrain was limited, the conditions were very good. Much props to Crystal’s snowmaking crew and their groomers for keeping the slopes in excellent shape.

We hooked up with Marhar Snowboards to do some demos and hook them up with some feedback on their 2013 line and that was really cool, not just for Leo & I but for everyone else to meet them face to face & get to ride some of their boards.

Mild temps and low winds made for almost spring riding conditions that firmed up after the sun went behind the clouds. The bluebird skies gave way to a few hours of snowfall on Saturday afternoon-evening. There was a lot of gaper dodging but overall the crowds were not too bad and there was not much of a lineup for the chairlifts.

One highlight was the guys at A. Papano’s Pizza (the best gas station pizza ever) who let us make mixies in their dining room, and even hooked us up with a free pie on our way back to the cabin. Other highlights included Sam’s first ever black diamond run, and A-train’s savage encounter with a snow fence as 5 ski patrollers watched him run in to it.

Add in some good beer, some shufflepuck, and a whole lot of horrible karaoke (video of which is being saved for ransom purposes later…), and well even though everyone would’ve preferred better (more) snow, I think it was a success and hopefully we can do it again when there’s more snow on the ground.

Superb spring conditions with daytime high nearing 40 degrees, snow was great in the morning but firming up as the day went on and noticeably choppy after lunch.  We put in a full day primarily riding the Mineral Basin, Little Cloud and Gadzoom. I wanted to check out Gad 2 but it wasn’t running, unfortunately, but that means I have a good reason to return. We found a few in-bounds tree chutes to run and the steeps were exactly as I remembered (only with more snow): fun as all hell.

We’ll be heading to Powder Mountain today and then back to the Cottonwoods for the rest of the week.

This pole is extendable/retractable, so I can easily stow it in a backpack. If you’re not feeling the DIY MacGyver urge, there are a variety of factory-made options like the XShot Camera Extender or various monopods available for less than $20.

Gratuitous self-congratulatory picture taken in my kitchen so excuse the really bad lighting!

I’ll be mixing up some videos from Breckenridge where I used this mount and the footage came out really nice. Although for ease of use locally I’m still going to use the GoPro as a hand-held (carrying the pole around is a pain in the ass) you get much better videos with an extended pole mount like this.

The event coordinators from Otsego and Don Thomas did a great job with the location and coordinating vendors like Bern, Burton and K2, and there were some product giveaways and freebies (I saw a lot of kids carrying massive 686 die-cuts, and there were some hoodies being tossed to the crowd, too). The vendor booths had schwag like DVDs although these were mostly ski DVDs I did snag a copy of First Chair, Last Call, a Bern baseball cap and a K2 beanie and about a dozen mini ThirtyTwo keychains that god knows what I’m going to do with.

Crowd turnout was good, the event coincided with an art fair in the city so there was plenty of foot traffic and people driving by stopping to check it out. There was a good crowd, the skate bowl was full of groms all day long, and the overall vibe was pretty chill.

I put together a little video edit of some of the preliminary 16+ group.  Due to technical difficulties (i.e., I’m an idiot) I did not record the finals round. Sorry for the kind of lame edit, but MovieMaker was giving me fits last night in ways I can’t begin to explain so this is unfortunately the best I’ve got for now.

The publicity and open forum lends well to the chill vibe – because basically anyone could sign up and ride (limit 50 riders, I think) there wasn’t a lot of pressure or anything. That said I was expecting maybe a little more talent in the comp, just based on what I see at the mountain every week in the winter, but it’s still a new event and it’s also really early in the season so I can understand why it wasn’t all tech rail riders.

This year’s turnout and event were a great improvement, and I think the O-Park crew and the folks from Don Thomas are probably pretty thrilled with how it went down. Look for an even bigger and better Am Jam next September!

This one is pretty good.  There is plenty of room for a bungee approach from either side.  By all appearances the building is currently vacant, which means it’s probably not going to be plowed in the winter, which means that snow is going to be all over and rock salt isn’t.  And as a vacant building, we don’t really need to worry about catching unwanted “attention”, and we can hit it during the day on weekends so no need for artificial lighting, etc.

I posted this picture a week or so back, a handrail set at a local high school. In addition to having clean runway areas, this double-set has no stairs.  You can still bust your ass on concrete, but at least there’s no pointy edges.

This one is high risk because of the type of building and the location of the office park. I think it’s probably staffed a good portion of the time and also on weekends, and it’s in a heavily trafficked and visible space.  Also, if you get sent off the end of that rail you’re going through plate glass.  I’m not going to bother trying to keep this one a secret because of it’s bunkus location. Maybe cross this off the list…

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I’ve updated the Snapshots page to include these pics, as well as some previous vacation pictures.

I was trying to scout some backcountry lines but we’ve got very little snow. On top of that, the lines are only maybe 100 vertical feet. Even if we had 2 feet of snow, it might not be worth the effort to drag my board all the way out there…

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As a bonus, I strapped up my new Dakine Poacher backpack and took it for a test spin. I loaded it with some extra gear just to test it out with some weight.  It was very comfortable and definitely will come in useful if I ever have to hump my snowboard and gear through any legit backcountry.

Here’s the X8 all set up, stripped the Burton Cartels from my Legacy in preparation for tomorrow evening’s ride and mounting them on the ICS channel was a breeze. It’s obvious how easy they will be to adjust, compared to the conventional 3x or 4x mounting kits.

…And a little close-up of the tail. I didn’t know the graphics were reflectored. That’s real cool. Also the board is “living color” and I’m not totally sure what that means except the sticker said that in different temperatures it will change colors, like Hypercolor for your shredding I guess.

The two inch size differential from my NS Legacy (163cm)was not nearly as apparent as I thought it would be, and although the Burton X8 appeared to be noticeably narrower than the Legacy, when I stacked them, that wasn’t as noticeable, either.  The X8 is significantly narrower at tip and tail, but only about 1.5cm narrower in the waist. It’s also considerably lighter and has way more flex.

I’m excited to try out a new board, even though its twin-tip park orientation is going to be a different ride than I’m used to on the all-mountain NS.

Full review to follow, sometime on Thursday.

None of my old pictures are large enough really to meet their needs, for the same reason that I don’t have much good video content: I spend more time riding, I don’t have sweet cameras, I don’t have cameramen sitting all over the mountain with super-zoom lenses ready to take 300 pictures per session, etc. Iif I get any pictures worth sharing over the next few weeks, maybe I’ll give it a go.

Here’s how you do it, straight from their website…

How to Enter:

• Take an original picture of a friend or a complete stranger performing a trick or snowboarding across a scenic view.
• Post the image to your blog or website.
• Add the phrase “Give me free snowboarding gear” as a link to EternalSnow.com as entry into the contest.

Once the photo and link are up, send a Direct Message on Twitter to @eternalsnowcom and submit an email to eternal.contest@gmail.com.

The Rules:

• The contest will run for 3 months, with 1 winner per month.
• Submissions end one week before the end of the month.
• Top 10 go to a vote.
• Must be an original picture.
• Image must be in landscape format and large – approximately 3000×2000 would be good so we can resize as necessary.

Full-disclosure: I have no relationship, commercial or otherwise, with EternalSnow.com. A few years ago I purchased some softgoods from them (I think it was my old pair of ThirtyTwo boots). I spent a few minutes on the line with one of their reps who helped me pick out the right boot, they were knowledgeable, shipped their goods quickly and had competitive prices. I would do business with them again.