Lookout!

<-- One of only four lousy pictures I was able to take before my frozen batteries croaked. I have buy a camera that actually works in the cold. One of these days, I'm going to lose my senses and a Canon 20D is going to come home with me...

Skied to the fire lookout across from Mt. Spookaloo yesterday, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5400' elevation. This picture is looking down the bowl to the south where people who have learned to tele tear up some turns. I think I skied right about 2000' vertical by the time it was al said and done yesterday. It was tough to tell from the altimeter because a high pressure front was moving in. My altimeter indicated I was descending while I was going uphill. Talk about bruising my fragile ego...

Tried some tele turns on the way back to the lodge. Holy crap Batman! The Atomics turn so damned fast it's scary. They turn faster than my Atomic downhills - which have more sidecut and are the same length (190). I wasn't even making bunny hill speeds and the turn rate was amazing. The super-sidecut skis are almost too much of a good thing.
The really good news is that the Black Diamond kicker skins I bought worked very well. You can't ski straight up steep inclines, but they're not supposed to let you do that anyway. Aside from the gay, post-modern leopard skin print on the bottom, I'm very happy with them. Now I can have skins with me on short day outings without the bulk and weight of full-length skins. The kickers are about 1/3 the weight and bulk of full-length skins.

The Big Lie: Women as Mondo Purchasers of Outdoor Gear

I've spent some time lately doing something I rarely do, shopping. Most of my outdoor clothing is/was flat worn out, so I've been shopping the sales replacing a lot of it. I remember about oh...a decade or a little more ago about how "women were being totally ignored in the outdoor products marketplace." Well...I hate to say it, but it was for a reason:

MOST WOMEN DON'T BUY LOTS OF OUTDOOR GEAR

See fer yerself, if y'a don't believe me: http://www.mountaingoatoutfitters.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=284

What's going on at Mt. Goat is pretty characteristic of what I'm seeing in stores: mountains of leftover women's clothes at the end of the season. And so it goes with the rest as well. If you're female and you need skis/boots/poles/etc., get thee to the store now because you can get it all for 50 to 75% off.

Back in the good 'ol days when it was 75% mens/unisex clothing and 25% stuff that needed to be specifically tailored to women, you could find men's outdoor gear on the rack. Now, the men's clothing/gear is mostly sold out midway through the season and all the outdoor chains have to firesale the women's gear just to get rid of it. What's really irritating isn't so much that I can't get stuff on sale, but it's even hard to get it at full price.

The hype rarely seems to mesh up with reality. Yes, there are a lot more women in the outdoors than there ever used to be, but it's not a 50/50 ratio, nor do I think it will ever be. You have to wonder how long this nonsense is going to go on. How long can can a store/chain stay in business when they have to firesale 2/3 of their remaining inventory at 40-50+% off? I'm not bagging on women here, so don't get the wrong impression. I'm happy to see more women participating in the outdoor/traditionally male-dominated sports, but the fact is, women are not participating at the same rate as men, and the purchasing volumes reflect that.

It's just an observation of commercial reality for any of you that might be in or going into retail.

It's All Fun and Games Until Your Eyelids Freeze Shut

Daaayuumm!! 3 hours later and I'm still cold. (And no, I'm not remotely exaggerating about the eyelids.) It was cold, but didn't get uncomfortably cold unless you were right on a ridge getting blasted by the wind. The yuppie skaters stayed close to the lodge on the tree covered trails. Only saw one other guy with the nads to ski out to the back trails.

For those of you not in on "the joke." There is a definite caste system in Nordic skiing on Mt. Spookaloo, skaters being the bourgeois or dare-we-say aristocrat class. They rule the mountain. The world revolves totally around their every whim and desire. All other skiers are only tolerated to the extent that their absence will mean higher grooming fees for the high and mighty.

The Chosen Ones begrudgingly tolerate track skis, make funny faces at anyone with backcountry gear, and they hate dogs. I mean they HATE dogs. You've never seen so damned many "No Dogs/Achtung! Der Hunden Verboten!" signs in your life. Who in the hell ever heard of skiing without dogs? Only on Mt. Spokane with its resident skate Nazi xenophobes does this kind of crap go on.

You can actually identify the non-skaters pretty quickly. They're the only ones who say "hi!" and chat with strangers while passing by.

So, guess which section of the bus yours truly gets to sit in?
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Meanwhile, back to the skiing...

It was big fun right up until frozen trees were groaning so much under the strain of the wind that you could tell the trunks were ready to explode. If nothing else motivates one to ski like hell, that certainly will.

For what it's worth, the grumpy old guy at REI was right. Fat skis want to turn. The Atomic Selkirks are about as wide as you can ski on a groomed trail and still have fun. Anything wider needs to be off trail period. Otherwise, they just want to plane and turn. Fat metal-edged skis are slow, but man, the control is almost worth the trade off. I can steer these babies by sitting in the back seat. It's a lot like my old Rossi 4SV downhill skis.

And unless I drop acid, get lured to the dark side, and buy a set of skate skis, I will NEVER, EVER go back to those crappy NNN bindings. Those things are the most worthless POS's on earth. If you have never skied a 3-pin binding with a good boot, you have no idea just how much control you're giving up with that NNN nonsense. Worst of all with NNN, if you break a binding, it's almost always at the pin molded into the boot. Once you do that, you're totally screwed. You won't be able to step back into the binding and you'll be postholing all the way back. It's more than a minor problem when you're even a mile or two back in the woods. Have it happen 5 or 10 miles back, and well...do I really need to explain?


Evil NNN Binding (left) --vs-- The binding the way God intended

To summarize:

• 3 pin: good
• NNN: crap
• Free Wax Job at REI: worth exactly what I paid for it.

My only real regret is that I did not buy TWO pairs of Karhu backcountry boots when they were on sale.

No, they're not as cool as the old, leather boots, but miles better than the goofy NNN yuppie moon boots that are all the rage.

Going Soft...

The Selkirks, in North Idaho, as seen from Quartz Mtn. here in the People's Socialist Republic of Washington.

Talk about becoming everything you despise in one day. Here I am, swilling coffee and pondering the joys of frosbite versus the comfort of sitting in front of the stove. The skis are waxed. I want to ski. The weather? 10F, dropping fast...and the wind is howling.

Should I stay or should I go...?

Back in Black! (er...white)

The Travelblogue is now back to life! My old blogging software ceased to function somewhere along the line of 6.023 x 10^23 Windows updates....so it's been a while since I've been able to update the Travelblogue. I've condensed the old blog along with several forum threads that I've posted over the years. Now that it's back up and running, hopefully I'll be inclined to take more pictures.

Tomorrow we test out the new XC skis, a set of Atomic Selkirks (190cm):

Finally, I have a set of nice all-around BC skis. I may add a set of Fischer Outtabounds so I have a skis for deep powder. Somebody buy more grip tape dammit! I need more play money for skis. All the ski sales are killing me. ;-)