SNOW IN THE PNW 2011/2012!

[Chainsaw_Willie]

A big "THANK YEWWW" to AaronWright for showing me around a small patch of his playground Wednesday.

The day started off almost sunny with some blue poking through


Aaron's dog Zeke and my dog Jack - brothers from another mother?


Aaron pointing out various landmarks


Then it was time to shred some beautiful, dense pow












Jack says "Thanks for the Milk Bones!"

[Bandit Man]

Just thought that I would mention that Grass Roots Outdoors (GRO) in Everett is sponsoring a demo day at Stevens Pass tomorrow. Registration is free at the store and I believe might have a small fee at the hill, but ON3P and a bunch of other brands will be represented. I'm looking forward to trying some new 2013 gear and not having to make the haul to Xtal to do it.

[XavierD]

Will not be able to make the demo day tomorrow, I will be up at Stevens on Sunday if anyone wants to shred. Any chance of seeing you up there Bandit Man?

[MagnificentUnicorn]

A big "THANK YEWWW" to AaronWright for showing me around a small patch of his playground Wednesday.

Good fun Will. That nasty crust was buried yesterday and the skiing was great. Today was even better with very small turnout. Hopefully we can ski some steeper stuff sometime if there is less new or it's had some time to settle. Today's ac got some huge results. We've had over 3" of precip since Monday which is huge for Mission.

[Bandit Man]

Will not be able to make the demo day tomorrow, I will be up at Stevens on Sunday if anyone wants to shred. Any chance of seeing you up there Bandit Man?

Saturday is the only day I can get up to the hill this weekend. I'll have my 8-yo in tow, so we'll be rocking the sweet lines off of Skyline and Hogs. Yeah, he's Training for Alaska...

[Scott~]

Stevens was bad today. Wait, I meant awesome.

[Eckels]

Kinda after the fact but anybody wanna claim the tracks in the china area from last Friday or thursday? Went out on saturday hoping to tag some lines i had been thinking about for a while and was chagrined to see that the exact lines I wanted to hit had nice swooping turns down them.

[Stercerft]

THE SNOW IS ALL GONE! I .. I'm devastated.

[ACH]

Eckles, if by "China area" you are referring to the Bryant's zone, that might have been Bryce Phillips and co.

CW, some excellent dog-pow stoke, as usual.

[Andyski]

The night skiing at Stevens last night pretty much sucked. Nasty crust on all aspects I was able to get to with an intermediate border in tow. Will investigate higher elevations in the area today and report back.

[media310]

Short but sweet.



Daniel almost catching the bottom pillow. Fucking unreal right now.
Took the day off the watch the Super Natural - wowsers

[userA]

chainsaw and Aaron nice shots you shared, the canines looked realhappy.
been every imaginable condition possible around the western crest, mainly heavy snow, perfect for 'alaskan training'. chair rides been kinda windy as well so it's been perfect.
never a line for a chair so that is perfect as well.
bobby

[userA]

if anyone wants to train tomorrow we will be the pnwghetto site dodging sewage in lot 4. the neighbors dogs attack other dogs so beware, but are nice to children we think. morning training is best but not too early. long lift lines tend to hamper productivity but lots of other distractions if that becomes a problem.
bf

[ncwskier.]

Good day at stevens yesterday. The GRO demo went well. Got a chance to play around on the oar from on3p which was a blast. Here is Rowen on them out in Grace.

[AweShuksan]

Is this some sort of April fools joke?

[samthaman]

Is this some sort of April fools joke?

X2 that is a strange pair of skis, and a strange way of skiing them

[bfree]

Looks like the excess material just hasn't been ground off yet. Pretty funny though.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using TGR Forums

[userA]

no they are a multi tool for both seasons when descending the mountains.

[userA]

...as well as winter in the cascades for april first.
the training went well and z-bo rejoined the alpental tribe
good to have a fundamentalist join in lot four antics.
bobby

[GeezerSteve]

Nice try ncwskier. I aint biting on that april fools shit.

DH via Tronsen was the tits today, untracked, stable. It'll be there tomorrow.

[ncwskier.]

Nice try ncwskier. I aint biting on that april fools shit.

DH via Tronsen was the tits today, untracked, stable. It'll be there tomorrow.

Not an April fool's joke, just happened to line up with the date. It is a ski called the Oar, 96 under foot 180 something in the tips and tails, 186 pillow fight rocker. Only 1 pair was made and there are no plans to put it into production. Anyone that came by the demo tent yesterday would have seen them. The concept is that you will sink down into the snow making everything feel deeper, but the tips will still be on top. Quite an interesting ride. There is more info on their facebook page.

[TWoods]

From Rowen:

"The OAR is an idea I've had for a while now, and today was the first day it touched snow. It took a lot of design innovations and went into the press with hours of work invested, and I need to thank everyone who helped build it with me.

Why design a ski like this? Because despite skiing Caylors almost every day, I miss sinking into deep snow, especially the wet and heavy stuff we are used to out here. Plus, the large surface area of powder skis means you slap instead of stomp on the large airs. If only there was a way to let the ski sink underfoot, but not submarine and sink in the tips. Thus, the OAR - 96mm underfoot, goes to twice that in the tips and tails. We've also given it a convex base in the tips and tails, just to increase the surf factor.

Skiing this today was... surprisingly easy. It handles like a 96 underfoot ski does on hardpack, once you get used to the very, very short running length. In powder, it took a while to trust the tips to do their job, but its easy to get used to. Its very strange, that is to be sure.

This project took a ton of work, a ton of man hours, and some very crazy test-skiers to actually go out and ride this thing, but I couldn't be happier with our results. It was a challenge and test our capabilities here at the new factory, and I think with this accomplished, its only going to get stranger from here on out.

And last word, many thanks to the people who I met and got out skiing with today, special shout out to Thomas O'Connell for this photograph. Peace,

- Rowen

PS. Keep Freeskiing Weird!"



It's real!

[Andyski]

Jim Hill on Saturday and Yodelin today were both chock full of special. The reality of work will suck after two days of fantasy.

[wickstad]

Mission Ridge is still on. In fact coverage is pretty damn good.

[wickstad]

Photos from Mission 3-31 and 4-1.