Phil

It looks like I am a day late and a dollar short for this conversation, since the Tuesday sessions are now finished for the season, but please allow me to add my $0.02 anyway. I make no claims about my freestyle ability, I am just an old fart who has been around the industry a long time. First, some history: Bear Creek hired me to be the Freestyle Coach in December of 2006. At that time, there wasn

The preseason hours are for picking up your season pass. The mountain is open regular riding hours on Thursday - 9:00am - 10:00pm.

You are not hearing because there is nothing to hear. Nobody knows yet. It is just too early to tell how much snow will be lost and how much can be made in the coming weather. The website says: Stay tuned for updates on opening day! When they know, you will know.

I asked the same question of BC management today and got a definitive "NO".

For the record: I approached the Snowsports School Tech. Dir. today and mentioned what was said on this thread. He assured me that this was NOT a snowsports school clinic Tuesday night. I saw the clinic in question Tuesday night and I also saw the other two clinics on the hill. One was for snowboard instructors, the other was for ski instructors. Neither of those two were the clinic that you are speaking of. Just thought that I would set the record straight... Also, K2 rider, the person in the black fleece was not the Tech. Dir. He was giving the other clinic to the ski instructors. Again, the ski instructors group was not the group in question. Neutral - I'm not trying to play good cop, bad cop either, but anyone downhill from you has the right to ride/ski however they want, wherever they want as long as they 1. do not hit someone below them and 2. yield if they merge onto another trail. What you may see as irratic behavior or taking up 80 percent of the trail is actually perfectly acceptable. It may very well be annoying to you and maybe others on the mountain, but it is their right and anyone coming down the hill behind them still has the responsibility to not hit them. The same thing happens with racers/carvers - they have the ability to change direction on a dime and be all the way to the other side of the hill in a split second. I have seen people try to pass them and fail miserably. It was still the fault of the person trying to pass even though the racer/carver was extremely unpredictable and changed sides of the trail in the blink of an eye. At least the beginners/people in lessons are going slow.

I know. The first paragraph was referring to your post. The second was referring to Neutral's post.

You guys are talking about two different things. I went looking for the Tech. Dir. of the snowsports school today to show him this thread. HouseMusik's point was well taken and I was going to make sure that if things went down like this, they would not again. OTOH, saying that you got cut off by and instructor and their students sounds more like you were the one uphill and they were making turns in front of you. If that is the case, it is your responsibility to avoid them because they are in front of you. I see people all of the time who lack the skills to turn and fly straight down the hill and get pissed because people are making turns and turn in front of them. The people downhill actually have the right to turn however they want so they are NOT cutting anybody off. I see this the most on Drifter, Lower Polar Bear and Lower Kodiak. Instructors and their groups are making nice (albeit painfully slow) turns and people come screaming through their group. I also hear people complaining at the bottom about these people cutting them off. If you want to go straight and feel that people making turns below you are cutting you off, there is always tubing. My $0.02

Good call. Once you get the rocket, think of adding a BS shifty and grabbing with the back hand: Of course, the crail was originally done in the pipe and is more natural there, but we don't have a pipe to try it on.

A crail is when the rear hand reaches toward the nose on the toeside. It was made famous by Jeff Brushie. A freestyle coach straightened me out. The grab is a "nuclear" - rear hand close to the nose on the heelside. More accurately, it is probably somewhere between a "nuclear" and a "sail" grab. More on www.trickthat.com

I hope you guys don't mind me stealing a clip from the vid, but what is this grab? It's sweet and I'm jealous. I think that I am too old and inflexible to pull it off. When I was younger and more flexible, I used to do "Swiss Cheese" airs - this is similar, but not between the legs and it looks harder.

What ever happened to base bevel? You can have the best of both worlds without detuning your edges. Beveling your base edge 2 or 3 degrees will give you all of the forgiveness you need on rails while still giving you sharp edges to bite into the ice wherever you need. I would never detune my edges, but that is just me. I run a 1 degree base bevel on all of my boards. I used to run a combination bevel on my jib boards - I would run 2 degrees from the tip to the front of the front binding, 3 from there to the back of the back binding, and 2 degrees from there to the tail. It worked really well. I could still take the boards anywhere and do anything and never had to worry about them catching an edge on the rails. In the end, I decided to go back to the 1 degree because it suits my needs better. If all I did was rails, I would go back to that setup. As far as multiple boards, I keep a quiver of four boards on hand at all times (with many more in my basement). I rarely change mid-day, though. I usually decide what I want in the morning and stick to it. After all, any board can do anything, as long as it is within the ability of the rider. I know a former WC racer that can throw 1080's on his 190 race board and hard boots. By the same token, I have two different friends who are freestyle coaches that can beat most amateur racers in a course on their noodliest park boards. Hope this helps.

I want to congratulate you guys on organizing a monumental gaper day today. I cannot believe the turnout you got for this event. It wasn't just the costumes, these people were very convincing - standing all over the parks, pretending to forget to unload the lifts at the top, getting knocked over by the lift at the bottom - and so much more. Great event guys. Keep up the good work. I am assuming that you are holding your next gaper day on Presidents' day, right?

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a better Black Bear park. Seriously. my $0.02

Can you expand on that?

Here is a link to the Freestyle Coaching page. There is info on both the Tuesday night (intermediate) program and the Saturday (beginner) program.