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17 miles would be so sweet. My 107 miles gets a little old after a while. Can we get a stat for miles driven to ski/board in the stat manager? Then maybe I could contend for a top ten spot in something.

I'll be there Sat/Sun/Mon. Just checked the cams and they are blowing. Temps look good through the weekend. Should be an excellent opening day weekend. Can't wait.

The song in that edit perfectly captures the feel of the new setup. Nice work. ----------------- TR BB 12/09/09 ----------------- Got to the lot around 245pm, 10 or so cars in the lot. It was a straight up fogfest during the drive up, and until about 5:30. Until the snow was slow, but it was still good enough to hit most of the features. Around that time there was a light sprinkle of rain, so I went for a brew. Mr. Adams & #9 were no where to be found in the bar, they were still getting set up for the weekend. Bartender said they would obviously be ready to go by the weekend. After my Yeungling, headed back out to find that the rain had stopped, the fog had cleared, and the snow firmed up a bit. Couple more people were waiting on the slopes for me, but not so many that it ruined the flow too much. Bonus for me, landed a new trick! 270 on -> FS BS -> 270 off. I know nothing spectacular, but still a first for me, so I was pretty much grinning for the rest of the night. Called it a night around 6:30. Excellent night, totally worth the drive. Couple of shots:

Trail map says little boulder is open. Not that that is anything special, but I'll be able to get some turns in.

3 it is then.

My boss is outta town so I was planning on headed up to BB for a 2-6 sesh, but this weathers got me bummin. How wet is it gonna be, worth the drive?

That's how I handled my Tahoe trip last year. We woke up early every morning, checked the stats and headed out to the mt with the most snow. Worked out really well. Ended up driving a good deal, but it was definitely worth it.

I think its a fun idea. I've toyed around with doing it almost every year. I usually get scared by last minute airline prices though. Sometimes you can find a deal, but you usually have to take some unfortunate flights. You should pry do a little leg work ahead of time still though. Like pick a couple mts you might want to visit, and get a couple potential itinerarys together so that your not completely scrambling last minute. Hope it works out for you.

The drive from Denver seems to be the best answer. I looked into flying into grand junction and aspen, and the flights were definitely available, problem is car rental gets seriously jacked up. I got a price of around $300 to take the from and return to Denver. Trying to rent a car in Aspen and leave it in Denver was giving me prices around $600+, thats just wacked. Serious stormage on the highway could be an issue, I'm a batting a 100% on major pow during my westwardly travels. Don't want to ruin the average, so be ready for snow!

Trying to book some flights by the end of the week, I'll post up my schedule once its finalized and anyone could meet up that would be sweet. Would cool to have some local knowledge on hand.

Thanks for the info, didn't realize there was an airport in Aspen. Looks like I can get a flight on frontier that isn't too outrageous. Guess I'll have to run some numbers and see what looks best. I got to the beav last year, but only for 2 runs. We were chasing the pow and heard the beav got slammed, but when we got there it was only 2" or so. We ended up heading back to vail for 1ft+. Spent the day in the back bowls, truly epic.

UM is indeed good stuff, just saw them in DC sat night. Super fun time. My roomate has some battle wounds from jamming out too hard. He was getting his groove on and slipped on a nice pile of booze on the floor, he wrecked hard. It was hilarious. Might be in your neck of the woods for some riding though Nick. Were going to do either Aspen/Snowmass 1/21-22. But then either Loveland or WinterPark on 1/23-24. I made it out to Loveland last year, and it was fun, but haven't ever been to WP so we might give it some love. But regardless it would be cool to grab a drink and actually meet some pasrs.

So my favorite band, Umphrey's McGee, just announced the beginning of their tour schedule for next year. Its taking them to SLC -> Aspen -> Denver so I'm planning a boarding trip around the tour. I'll end up with 5 days in SLC and 3-4 days in CO. Schedule looks like this: 1/15 PHL -> SLC. 1/20 SLC -> DEN. 1/24 DEN -> PHL My main question is concerning getting in between SLC and Aspen. Anyone do the drive before? Googs says 8 hrs. My other option is to fly to DEN and then still have to drive 4 hrs. I guess we'll save some coin by driving, but should I be worried about rd conditions? In either case after riding/driving, I'll end up in Aspen around 12-1am. Anyone have any thoughts on flying vs driving? Next question, the first CO show is in Aspen. So the plan was to hit either Aspen or Snowmass for two days. I hear awesome things about both, anyone want to add their 2 pennies on these resorts? My mt preferences would be trees then parks. Super stoked, if anyone wants to catch a show or some riding hit me up. It will likely just be me 1 other guy cause I'm not too sure I can talk anyone else into this trip.

Any secret Jay Peak knowledge?

Belleayre is pretty dumb, but I've always had fun there. Both times I went we stayed in the gangster motel that had a bar attached to it. Both times there was like 1 or 2 townies in the bar and the couple of us. Good times mixin it up with the locals. The first time I was at the mt. they ended up parking us in the invent a spot in the aisle. We geared up and started to walk to slopes, at which point we remembered we forgot something, so we headed back to the car. Guess we took too long of a safety meeting because we left all the doors to the car wide open, oops. Good thing we had to walk back to the car. Would definitely be cool to get on the snow. If they open I'll be doing my best to get there.

The weather doesn't appear to be playing nice. But if it cooperates I'll pry be there with a couple heads.

Back Yard Bang

Sold. Mods please remove.

yes

Breakage could be a serious issue. I imagine it might be a hassle to get a boa replaced, but they have been around for a couple years now so I hope shops are set up to accommodate that issue. The salomon though are essentially just normal laces tied together at the end with a handle. If they break you can put some normal laces in there and it pry wouldn't be a problem. Never had to do that, but I did take the handle apart to get a peek and its just a lace with a knot to hold it in the handle.

the fine print says must use between: opening day and 12/23/09

Thats just crazy talk. Lacing your boots in the cold sucks, having the ability to quickly tighten up your boots is money. I can understand maybe not liking some of the first gen quick lace stuff, but the double boa is legit, and the Salomon system isn't really any different than normal lacing, just quicker. I've been rocking the F-20's for a couple years now. The smaller footprint took some getting used to when dealing with bindings, but aside from that things have been great.

In the new issue of Transworld there is a BOGO coup for JFBB.

154cm 2006 Burton Custom with 2007 Flow NXT-AT $175 I rode this board two years ago for about half the season. Just wasn't really into it. Last year my brother got a couple of turns in with it, but it's still in good shape. Some minor top sheet paint chipping, but other than that its good to go.

161 Neversummer SL-R. I weigh around 170. I like the board a lot. Its a little stiff for everyday riding for me, but for pow it slays. I only have like 10-13 days on it. The first week was in CO last year. It was like 60ish degrees out for a week, and then I showed up and it dumped like 2 feet. Your welcome. Second week was in Tahoe, we got like 1-2ft each of the first 3 days. Good times. I'm hoping my luck continues this year. I've only been out west 3 times now, and everytime there has been insane amounts of pow.