This year’s winter vacation will be to Park City, where I am seeking revenge for the whiteout blizzard and ensuing rainstorm that befell me in January, 2005.
Five of us will be renting a condo in Park City, a few blocks off Main Street for the week of February 15 through February 21.
I did finish an 8-mile run last night, but it takes a lot of conditioning and training to prep for 3,300 vertical feet, all day long, for a week (I did four days back-to-back at Tremblant last February and lost 8 pounds). We’ll have 5 full days on the slopes, and if we play our cards right, will be able to enjoy Twilight session at PCMR on Monday night. Fact is, none of us are Ninjas, and we’re all on the wrong side of 25, so I’m thinking that 3 or 4 days is the most we’ll take on the snow.
I’d like to spend most of my time at The Canyons, but I do plan on taking a shuttle to Sundance at least for one day out of the week, and if it’s possible to find some of that chest-deep powder at Alta, I’ll suffer the hour-long bus ride for that, too.
Airfare is hella-expensive right now, and I’m hoping it comes down a little bit, but the deal we got on the condo more than makes up for it. Now if only I could find a way to avoid paying $85 for lift pass at PCMR. To top it all off, I’m in desperate need of new snowboard boots…
Unfortunately not caught on video: David Z nearly breaking himself in half, David Z spending all of Saturday night hugging the toilet with a wicked case of food-poisoning.
In other news, videos from Jackson Hole are still in works-in-progress.
RJW has been learning the fundamentals of “getting rad” this season on his snowboard. After two days at Copper Mountain (CO) he was feeling confident, or at least *more* confident in his abilities than in the weeks prior. After several miscarriages on a small jump, he decided to move up to the bigger jump because it looked easier.
And then he nailed it on his first attempt. Which only made him greedy:
He just bit through his lip and was bleeding a little bit. That was the end of the night, but he confirms that he’s ready to rage again next week.
Unfortunately, this video is pretty much my entire catalog of snowboarding clips from previous years. I would like to put together a handful of videos, each about twice this long, after Jackson Hole.
I knew I had some old footage on my laptop, somewhere. Unfortunately, as these videos were captured on my old digital camera, and not a camcorder, they are of questionable quality. Also, MS Windows Movie Maker is not compatible with the .mov output from my old camera. So they were lost in the archives, until recently.
When I told Adam M, aka “The Highlander” that I would be posting these embarrassing clips from Whistler (2006) on YouTube, if I could convert the .mov to .wmv, he begged me not to. I am not a kind and loving god:
In all fairness, Adam is one of the better skiers that I know, and he can hold his own on a snowboard. We’ll see whether he’s willing to tackle any cliffs, bowls or chutes, at Jackson Hole next week, though.
Every so often, a handful of us are able to trek North to Gaylord, MI, where one of our college fraternity brothers and roommates works at the Otsego Club, a private golf and winter-sports resort. This past Friday, car troubles almost stalled our plans, but we decided to make a late arrival and head up there anyways. For this particular trip, only David Z and Chris D were in attendance.
We arrived shortly after 10pm, kicked back a few beers and had a pizza at the Logmark bar, and then chatted a while with Mark before turning in for the night. Saturday morning we met a scrumptulescent buffet, before suiting up and heading out to the slopes.
The Otsego Club is surprisingly large, and probably appears larger by virtue of the sheer lack of people. The chairlift lines are empty, the slopes are wide open. But they’ve got a nice arrangement of terrain of varying difficulties, as well as freestyle features scattered throughout. Most resorts limit the freestylers to a small chunk of real estate, with a handful of jumps and rails. By my count, Otsego hosted 18 rails of varying lengths and difficulties, as well as a few small “kicker” type jumps, a beginner size half-pipe and an expert half-pipe with 18ft walls. There were at least two 15ft jumps, and two more 30ft jumps. And unless you’re competing in the X-games, a 30ft jump is enormous. [Note: x-gamers routinely hit 50, 65, or even 80ft gaps. I have seen 50ft gaps in person, and they're terrifying.]
This trip was a rare appearance by Chris D, and only his fourth time ever on a snowboard. By the end of the day, though, he was nailing frontside boardslides and 50-50s on the beginner rails. You’ll see a slow, but successful boardslide towards the end of the video.
Chris D’s alleges that David Z is “better than [he thinks he is].” Discussing progression, we decided that half of the recipe is speed, and the other half is simply “balls.” You have to try it before you can bite it, and you usually have to bite it before you can slay it. On the 30-footer, for example, by my estimation, I was only going about 60% top-speed, and it was among the largest gaps I’ve ever hit. I feel confident that I could’ve hit it much faster, but at the end of the day, on tired legs, I didn’t want to press my luck.
The trip’s highlights, however, did not come without hardship. About an hour into the drive home on Sunday morning, David Z rounded a bend on southbound I-75, right into a speed-trap. At 87 miles per hour. Just a tad too fast. Ogemaw County’s finest quickly pulled out of her hiding spot, and issued a citation for speeding. It could have been worse, however, the ticket was issued for 5mph over the limit — no points in Michigan on a freeway, and a small fine.
After this disheartening experience, we comforted ourselves with breakfast at the Cracker Barrel restaurant outside of Bay City.
Although other adventures take place in the interims, the annual gnargasm is the pinnacle trip of the year, combining an exciting winter locale, nightlife, and world-renowned ski slopes. It is with great pleasure, I announce the fifth annual installment of the gnargasm has been scheduled, participants confirmed, and airfare purchased.
Previous voyages have taken us to Winter Park, CO; Park City, UT; Whistler/Blackcomb, BC; and Lake Tahoe, CA.
After some deliberation (plans were tentative for Tremblant, QC and Killington, VT) it was ultimately decided that this year takes us to Jackson Hole, WY. The primary reason we chose Jackson Hole over other destinations:
Jackson Hole kicks ass.
Secondary reasons: we don’t have to spend 10 hours driving there, which means we don’t have to take as much time off work, and it is only marginally more expensive. Despite a desire to go to Jackson Hole ever since the first gnargasm in 2003, I’ve never seen airfare from Detroit for less than $500. By Thor’s Hammer, the stars have aligned this year and airfare on a particular set of dates in late February is considerably cheaper. The opportunity could not be denied.
With 50% of the terrain rated “expert,” including in-bounds bowls and chutes, I’ve heard that Jackson Hole is the type of place you go for one of two reasons:
You are a badass and you know it.
You think you are a badass and want to prove it
Also, it’s a pretty cool historic little cowboy village, and the scenery is amazing (I was there in the summer, years ago). Coupled with 450+ inches of snow per year, and amazing terrain, it’s a no-brainer.
