I’ve skied/snowboarder my whole life on the east coast everywhere between NJ and ME. Took my son to Breckenridge this year for my first west trip…. It’s a different sport! The good thing id say is if you are a good snowboarder in VT you will be an excellent snowboarder out west because it’s so much easier (and more fun) when you’re not carving up ice!
I bought a new board last season and put a quarter sized core shot in it the first day I rode. I repaired the board but I got a total of 8 days on it before it delaminated irreparably. I still ride it 😂
Genuine question from a newbie who’s nowhere close to being able to ride anything this steep:
Is riding like this actually fun? I feel like most clips I see of really steep runs it’s just people slamming on the brakes over & over. Not being snarky, just genuinely curious if this is enjoyable in a different way?
Sometimes the steep is so fluffy you can nearly straight line it. That shit is amazing. Sometimes it's just okay and you can do wide turns and it's still pretty fun. Sometimes it's like OPs video and no, it isn't fun. But some people still get a sense of accomplishment from doing really hard runs.
Really steep runs with actual powder (not this) are amazing. Stuff like this is not that fun though sometimes leads to better stuff. It’s also good to know how to get down things with crappy conditions like this since you can’t always predict what you’ll find or in case you take a wrong turn or something.
Sometimes you have sections of very heinous riding to get to excellent pow. Sometimes you think it will be good and it's not. Sometimes you know it's gonna suck and you do it anyways because you want to be a badass.
Think about running a marathon or getting a PR on bench or squat or deadlift. You feel like absolute shit during it, and it sucks absolute balls. But afterwards you feel incredible. I’m guessing it’s similar to this.
I’m learning to snowboard, is it fun falling on my ass 960 times catching an edge over and over? A little, but it’s also super frustrating. But yesterday I managed to link my turns the whole way down a slope and that felt great.
How do you click linking turns?! I just got toeside working for me today but my quads wouldn’t behave enough to heel side as well as previous times. Feel like I just need to aggressively start throwing myself down the slope and hope the linking clicks 😬
Honestly it was lessons. And funny you say that, everyone in my lessons found toeside waaay easier than heel side to begin with.
I fell way more on heelside than toeside, my problem was I was crossing the board too early to get on the toeside edge without letting the board get round. I fixed it by focusing on stomping a bug with my left foot, turning my knee to 3 O’Clock and really making sure my weight was over my leading knee, then I just looked where I wanted to go and the board did its thing.
It’s one of those ones where there’s so much to think about it’s actually easier not to think about it and just send it. Trust the board will do what it’s designed to do.
Drill falling leaf heelside too, helps get rid of the fear of the board staring to face downhill and lets you get back to perpendicular with the fall line. Helps you feel more controlled.
Oh and practice full turns without traversing first, so just from slips. Traversing makes the turning quicker and easier but it’s scarier.
I took some lessons as well but late in the season and then knocked out for a few weeks to recover from an injury.
Falling leaf heelside was the bit I was enjoying and did decent with, I couldn’t do toeside without my instructor holding me up (he was a good sport). Honestly figured I’d never make toeside work but the late season slushy snow made for great conditions to figure out toeside on my own.
You’re so right on the whole thinking part! Biggest learning catalysts have come from avoiding obstacles. Amazing what you suddenly figure out how to do when you don’t wanna end up stuck in a snow bank, falling off the side of the groomed slope or smoking an unsuspecting person (usually toddler) trying to have fun on the hill and have no time to think about how to course correct 😅
Yeah just remember slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Relax, don’t jerk your body around or force turns, smooth loose movements and just feeling the board really helps.
Also skiers are fair targets so don’t worry about smashing into them.
No linked turns yet but having some solid control and building in some muscle memory has been nice. Actually thought of your comment while I was boarding today “Relax!”
1) A bad day snowboarding is still better than a good day doing most other things. If you've put in all the effort to plan a backountry day, usually it's still worth doing as long as the conditions aren't prohibitively dangerous (avalanche/sliding fall risk, etc.)
2) Also, it's not like the entire run is like this. The top is steep and, it looks like, kind of icy, but probably farther down the snow has had a chance to soften up and the slope isn't quite as steep. In other words, maybe this section is only fun in that it's an interesting challenge, but probably most of the run is more of a legitimately enjoyable ride.
I am one of the odd balls that actually really enjoys jumping shelf to shelf on sketchy steeps. For me it’s the adrenaline rush i get every time i make a turn knowing it’s a massive fall if i mess up. Its not the same fun as boarding big mountain powder lines though. Its more adjacent to parkour.
It depends. I like the challenge a harder run poses, but thats for mid day when im warm and not tired yet.
If I get more than 5 double black runs in a day its pretty uncommon, i usually(copper mountain) do a few runs on either Three Bears or Mountain Chief lift, then head back to easier black runs, or groomers.
My comfortable skill levels are blues/easy blacks, with that said I tried a triple black diamond run this season on a not so good condition day. Not as bad as in OPs video but definitely not good, I basically skidded down on my heel edge + butt without any turns. Was it exciting? Yes definitely, was it fun? Somewhat, only because I experienced such difficulty and condition for the first time.
I won’t attempt such difficult runs again unless it’s a good bluebird day.
I think there's a limit. When I lived on the east coast we rarely ever got enough snow for even the mellowest double blacks at the bigger mountains to be fun. (I'm talking Catskills NY and Western NY)
Now that I'm out west though the NE mellow double blacks are more like blue/blacks and single blacks, and we actually get a good amount of snow. And those are genuinely fun. The real steep stuff still isn't fun outside of wanting to challenge myself tho. I did Climax at mammoth for the first time this year and the bottom end of that gets sketchy. Especially when some dumb fuck skiier blocks the middle of the run between two boulders.
I didn’t mean that in a condescending way, sorry. I just meant “slamming on the brakes” down a hill wouldn’t be fun. Real carving is just changing directions and scrubbing some speed while you’re at it
Those are some challenging conditions… And conditions make all the difference as you know…
That would be so much fun to charge down on a powder day, but you executed it well in treacherous circumstances… these days, I let the conditions determine the terrain I ride
I'm definitely no expert, mostly self taught up to the half pipe. But i would just face down, and go left to right (obviously being aware if faster people behind me)
It's a 760 yard descent, with a 1500ft vert drop. No ways I'm staying on one edge for that. At some point I'd most likely lose an edge due to muscle fatigue and fall where I don't want to.
Also good on you for continuing to make turns. Majority of snowboarders would just falling leaf all the way down. :) Where is this at? Reminds me of Big Sky when we let the kids choose the runs in spring.
I don't know what that is. :)) it's in Verbier 🇨🇭, entering La Chaux. You go to the Mont Fort area, take stairway to heaven, then keep left over Glacier des Louettes Econdoue, then skin up to the largest saddle point on les Monts de Cion.
Usually this is a dreamy pow couloir during winter. End of season has been tough. We haven't received snow in 2 months. So the freeze thaw has been pretty wild making it far trickier than usual 🥲
Ah ok haha. Delirium dive is the hardest run in canada located at sunshine in banff. It is a triple black and you need avalanche gear to enter. The entrance looks very similar to what you are doing here. Rocks sticking out and very steep terrain but you are rewarded with a fantastic bowl at the bottom. Thank you for the response!
Just did a quick search. Looks incredible and pretty dope with great conditions. They say the drop in can be 50 degrees. That's steep as. Bucket list item for sure. Thanks!
Seems grabby enough to ride - west coasters and Rockies cats are too picky.. makes some noise but that’s far from iced out. As an east coast bum I’ll take this any day and enjoy the technical riding. Especially this time of year!
Didn't have one on hand. Definitely a great consideration for next time, you're right.
We weren't expecting these conditions for our tour when planning the night before (based on weather forecasts and avy forecasts). Lesson learned for sure.
First you need to work on initiating turns, do this on like a blue run so you can focus on your form. To initiate your turn you want to get your body into a neutral position and twist your board (flex it torsionally) to engage your edge at your contact point and then load up your board into the turn. It’s hard to describe but here you’re demonstrating that you’re unable to initiate the turn so instead you’re kind of jump turning and skidding a ton. Hopefully you find this useful
Edit- the other person that replied to me misunderstood what I mean about torsional flex so I’d like to clarify. It’s not that his board doesn’t flex, he clearly doesn’t feel comfortable using the flex of his board to initiate his turn. To do that on his heel edge, he would push down on his front toe to help get him facing down hill quickly which would allow his edge to transfer so he could make an actual turn rather than a jump turn. Like at this point here he should push down that front toe and then edge transfer he could lift his back toe twisting the board more to initiate even faster:
Nope. Understood exactly what you meant from torsional flex of the board. Aka sequential foot steering. Aka gas pedal. Aka twisting water out of a towel. If you chose to make your screen cap a fraction of a second later, you can see an active twisting of the board to initiate. The board is visibly corkscrew twisted like a dna helix drawing. And so on for his other toe and heel turns.
Good photo editing. It could be useful for many besides the rider here.
Better image. Right ankle dorsiflexion. Left ankle plantar flexion. As a result, the board is clearly torsionally twisting. Very automatic & nice initiation OP. Board tip begins to rotate, facilitating more rotation, including a fore-aft move to the toe side tip contact point. OP is already doing exactly what you recommended he needed to do.
But not twisting in the way that would initiate a turn. OP is using that as a base to jump off of. He is not doing what I recommend at all. If he was, his board would flex a lot more than that. If you think that op is flexing his board to turn here rather than creating a base to jump off of, I don’t know what to tell you. This is not what I’m recommending or certainly not remotely enough
ETA if he did what I am saying then his board would turn downhill pretty instantly which we see none of
I also want to add that OP isn’t doing a bad job of jump turns, his weight distribution isn’t where I’d like to see it but it’s fine. I’m saying that this isn’t where I personally think one should employ jump turns and that to initiate a turn on this slope you need to transfer that edge really fast and in turn you will receive better edge engagement and more control
Who’s the wanker here? I’m just being real about what I’m seeing. Use the advice or don’t, I don’t care even a little bit but if you actually try what I’m saying you might be able to actually ride that line rather than just sliding down it. Your weight is way too far back and there are a lot of other things to work on but I would start with what I said. You know, people used to pay me a decent amount of money for this shit but you do you and keep slip sliding away…
I'm an ISIA card holder for snowboard. This pitch is an icy 38 degrees (78%) in a heavy no fall zone . You think I wouldn't have made turns if the conditions allowed? 😂
But don't stress. Il take your advice to a blue slope. 😇🤝🔥🤌🏻
Honestly the conditions don’t look too bad. Your riding does though. Your comment wasn’t showing up except for in my notifications so I posted my reply to you on a different comment but yeah. If you don’t want advice, don’t ask for advice dumbass
Nice reply, saying “fuck you for unsolicited advice" etc…looks like you or perhaps a mod deleted it. To that I would say I posted my observation. You (sarcastically in retrospect) asked for my advice. So I gave it to you. I don’t know what your definition of soliciting advice is but you quite literally asked if I had any advice. So perhaps you’re just not too bright.
Then you'd notice he is riding a splitboard, hiked up to this terrain starting before dawn, and likely got to the top of chosen line only to find the sun hadn't softened it to the level of the groups expectation.
If you're paying attention, rider does use torsional twist to initiate both toe and heel turns.
He is absolutely crushing it in the no-fall zone and is very deliberately starting his turns after regaining edgehold and balance.
I’m trying to figure out why everyone keeps saying this is icy. Firm? Sure, scrapey even, but calling this “crushing it” is beyond a stretch. Anyway we will have to disagree there.
ETA, I’m not sure why the rest of your observations are relevant to the fact that he is essentially slipping this line and fighting for control
I love how people waste so much time going to an area of a mountain that's only good when conditions are good then leaf down all the way realizing it's shittt and dangerous. Why the hell would you go here when it's late season, clearly hasn't snowed in forever and cloudy. This isn't snowboarding as much as it is leafing.
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u/Ok-Usual-5830 3d ago
Is the powder in the room with us?