View from the valley

Hiking out after a run

Deeeeep snow

Dropping into Nightmare

Down in the depths of Nightmare left

Eyeing up the entrance to “Two Smoke”

Untracked into the valley

Hiking up

Across the valley to lines from last years trip

Looking down Log Jam (with a helicopter in the valley).

Traversing across the valley to zone 4 at Silverton

Beginning the hike to the “billboard” (top of picture)

Tips up – birds eye view of first line

From across the valley our first run (click for route)

Next up “Meatball” on the other side of the valley (click for route)

The long approach to Meatball couloir

Eyeing up the entrance to Meatball

Dropping in

From below – with skiers waiting at the top ridge and Scott midway down

The “lodge”

Sunday brought some different weather – cold and windy

Back up to the billboard, trying to stay warm

Scott getting some of Sunday’s powder

Fischer GTS – My first tele skis from back around 1990. These skis are the ones I learned on in New Hampshire and Maine ice. They’re 200cm and initially skied with Merrell Ultra leather boots and the Riva bindings still on them. They were notorious for bending due to the metal top sheet and have been replaced several times due to bending in icy east coast bumps.

Tua Mega – After a few hand me down alpine skis that had been mounted with those lovely Rivas, the Tua’s were my next tele ski. These were nice skis, skied in a 192 and considered fairly fat for their time. They were actually fun skis in soft snow. Mounted with superloops, these skis had many great days in the San Juan backcountry. They look like swiss cheese today due to the constant ripping out of bindings.

K2 Totally Piste – I never really liked these skis. They were stiff and dead feeling from the get go. I’ve been using them as spring steep skis until last season. Good riddance.

Tua Sumo – I loved these skis when I got them. They seemed huge when I found them on super closeout at EMS. Mounted with T9 G3’s these were great touring skis – light weight and super fun in soft snow. I toured on these a couple of weeks ago for the first time in a while and they didn’t feel too fat anymore.

Atomic TMX – A decent all around ski. It’s a 168 which seemed ridiculously short at first, but I’ve adapted. Decent in soft snow, holds an edge on harder snow, I’ll be keeping these around.

Salomon 1080 Gun – To be mounted. These are the newest ski in the pack and the reason for cleaning out the garage. They’re not huge by today’s standards, but I suspect they’re gonna be a fun soft conditions snow with 96mm underfoot and a wide shovel. The twin tip thing is new, but hey why not?

Here’s to the future. It’s funny to see how skis have changed so much in 17 years, meanwhile the evolution of boots and bindings has been much slower, although the advent of plastic boots was a big shift. The binding thing however hasn’t really changed too drastically and I’ve been happy with G3 performance and reliability, so I’m sticking with that until something more compelling comes along – like maybe some Dynafits

Pre-skiing morning chores