SantaCruz
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Posts posted by SantaCruz
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I took my Hovercraft 160 out for it's inaugural spin yuesterday as the mountains around Seattle have been getting dumped on. Well dumped on by our standards anyways. I'm a big guy, 6'5 220lbs and the Hovercraft worked well for me. I had good float nad significantly less back leg burn in powder compared to my Rider's Choice BTX. And there's sitll room to make this better as I didn't have my bindings moved all the way back.
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No probs Tubby. Fwiw, I also take issue with folks calling all snow "powder", but that old chestnut can wait till another day.
+1 on that. Around here in the Seattle area, and NW North America in general, the snow can be pretty wet and heavy. But people still refer to it as powder. Drives me crazy! Not all new snow is powder.
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Thanks for sending stickers SJ! Mine have arrived in Seattle.
The new stickers look great. I'll post the flyers around the local ski resorts.
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Ungroomed checks out. I would usually say off piste or off trail. Def not piste off though
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My.Baker and all the local Settle hills will be opening this weekend. I think Baker will be a full opening, but the local ones will only be limited operations. Still I'm hoping to get some turns in
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I did a solo trip to Japan a few seasons ago and it went well. I flew into Tokyo and did a few days there and then flew to Sapporo and bus to Niseko.
Since you're also staying in Tokyo for a few days before hitting the snow I'd recommend sending your snow boarding gear ahead so you don't have to deal with it in Tokyo. Japan has a door to door luggage forwarding service which I think is generically called "takkyubin". Assuming that you fly into Narita, there's several places in the airport there which can do this for you. I did this when I fly into Japan but not on the way back. And let me tell you, it was a gigantic pain in the ass lugging my big backpack and huge snowboard bag around with me in the subway, up stairs etc. If you have a few days of non-snow activity planned afterward I'd recommend sending your gear back via the same service. If you decide you want to do this check with the people at Narita (or whatever airport you fly out of) to make sure that you can send bags back to them and they'll hold them. As I said earlier I didn't do this, but I assume they'll hold them for you.
It's easy to arrange, I don't speak Japanese and didn't have any issues working it out. Make sure to ask your lodging before hand to let them know that you'll be sending some bags there ahead of time. It shouldn't be a problem on the lodging end, they'll just hold your bags for you. The only thing you'll need from them is their address.
Aside from this I don't have any specific recommendations except to be outgoing force yourself to make friends.. It was my first solo trip and it ended up being about what I thought it would be. Great freedom to do whatever you want but it was punctuated with spurts of being lonely. This makes you be more out going and the good thing is that in my experience people were friendly and it wasn't difficult to make some riding and drinking partners.
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Snowing in the Pacific Northwest (in the States that is).
There's a chance for Seattle local mountains to open this weekend, keeping my fingers crossed
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Sorry to hear about your buddy passing Mitch. Glad to hear that you're ok.
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That's awesome. I was at Mt. Hood and Timberline last NY and didn't see anything about the Skiway bus thing, totally curious about it now. It'd be cool if they had the bus sitting around somewhere to check out.
Very cool about Timberline being the exterior for The Shining hotel as well, didn't know that!
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how much?
Tripler, I tried to PM you with more info and a price but it said you weren't set up to receive PMs.
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Indeed Tex, you were the one that convinced me to go Flagship! And a good point about the price as well, it's very reasonable for what you're getting. I've got the Hovercraft on order, supposedly shipping out sometime in the middle of this month.
So I'll now have 4 boards. The plan is
* sell my oldest one (Nitro Magnum 168)
* use my Rider's Chooice 165W as the early/late season board when conditions are sketchy
* Flagship 168W will be the go to board once the season has started and the coverage is good
* Hovercraft for the deep days.
Honestly the Hovercraft was a big indulgence. Especially since I live in Seattle and the snow here is typically wet and heavy and there aren't a ton of days when it's really deep. Although for $400 shipped it's a great deal for a pow board. And it's supposed to be another La Nina year
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The Sweetgrass guys (makers of Signatures) are currently touring showing their new movie, Solitaire. Coincidentally they're in Seattle and someone was able to get them to do a screening on the Microsoft campus for the charity campaign that the company does every October (MS matches all employee donations). It's a great movie with a different feel compared to most others I've seen. I really like how all their stuff is, as they say, human powered. Meaning they hike for all they're shots and lines in the movie. I also picked up a copy of Signatures from them, really looking forward to finally seeing it
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Nice, was just looking through the Evo catalog last night and saw the Powder Snake, a good looking board. I've got a Jones Hovercraft 160 on order.
But I'm like you, haven't had the chance to get out there and use one yet.
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I've got a Jones 160 Hovercraft on order, which is much shorter than the 165-168 that I usually ride. According to the specs it should handle a bigger guy like me. I'll report back once I've gotten it onto some proper powder.
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Was at one the my local REI's the other day and they had a few Flagships and Mountain Twins in stock:
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XEROX invented the GUI and the mouse. XEROX showed it to Steve Jobs and he thought it was brilliant and made the Mac. Microsoft then made Windows and Apple sued them but lost.
In software and computers everything is a copy of something else, that's nothing new.
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Welcome to the SJ Calibrator. I'm curious, what's the closest place to SB to go skiing?
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Keen to order a hovercraft but havent seen any available as yet anywhere........ any ideas?
I pre-ordered one from The House a few months ago. The last update I heard from them was that it was due to ship in Nov. They also said that they sold out their Hovercraft allotment in pre-order. I think you best bet is to see if any websites still have them available. If not then keep your eyes peeled come Nov, I'd imagine places with physical stores would carry them.
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My Flagship arrived a few days ago. Really stoked
I'll try and get some photos up soon.Now we all gotta play the waiting game for the snow to fall...
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D'oh! Thanks SJ-David!
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Btw, when looking at the map does it show your own location? I'm not seeing anything from Seattle, where I'm at.
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Cheers for the offer SC, I just got the quote back and they are charging $125 to ship to Japan, inclusive of all charges so I think thats acceptable. $92 is teh shipping charge on their website, throw in some sales tax and a small handling/paperwork fee.....thats not too bad in my opinion. so I'm gonna go ahead with the purchase
Sweet, glad you got a good deal TB!
Grab for Branches
in Snow talk, trip reports, Japan avalanche & backcountry
Posted
We've been getting a lot of snow the past week here in Washington state, several feet at least. I went riding with some friends on Wednesday and a friend got stuck in a tree well. Fortunately he went in feet first so he wasn't in any danger of suffocating or asphyxiation. He unstrapped one leg and was pushing against the tree trunk as hard as he could but his board didn’t budge. Eventually we were able to dig out his other foot, unstrap it and then finally dig out his board. It took such a long time and was exhausting. Granted we didn’t have shovels with us. I knew that it’s a pain in the ass to get out of a tree well but it was my first time seeing how difficult it is. It’d be scary to be trapped in one.