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*** Official Snow Surfing Thread ***
- Thread starter 92122
- Start date
Downed power line, never opened. May try for tomorrow as a tune up before I head to Montana where there is less snow.
Truth. Lowered expectations and jet lag. All good. Missing the gluhwein a lot tho.
What???
Mammoth is far steeper than Sun Valley. Sun Valley does not have anything like huevos, hangers, noids, kiwi, or top of the world. Sun Valley was the first place I ever skied out west, back in 8th grade. I loved it at the time, but it is nothing compared to a place like Squaw, Alpine or Mammoth or Snowbird. Sun Valley has steep groomers, that is about it. Their bowls are not steep. Sun Valley does not have much that is crazy. Kent kreitler grew up there and he joked that he had to hit cattracks to get air because there were really not cliffs or serious steeps. Mammoth is really one of the great steep mountains in the u.s., it crushes places like Vail and Park City. I might rather ski Mammoth than any mountain in Colorado, although I love abasin and have never been to Crested Butte or Telluride.. They have held big mountain contest s in Mammoth, that would be tough to do in Sun Valley. I skied Mammoth a couple of weekendsa month in college. When I moved to Squaw after college I remember a buddy of mine competing in a contest at Mammoth, this would have been during my third winter there. He talked about how much respect he had for the mountain after the competition, after seeing guys throw down in both the kiwi/noids area and the TOTW. This is a guy that I have seen drop 40+ foot cliffs and stick them cleanly. I don't think he would have said the same thing about Sun Valley.
If you are talking about long, steep groomers with a fall line pitch, then yes Sun Valley is steep. If you want steeps like Philippe's, the noids or Werner's you are out of luck. The scariest stuff I saw there was bump terrain, there was nothing where you look down a chute and and feel terror, and that was as an East coast bump skier who was 13 and had never dropped a cliff. Mammoth was scarier to me the first time I went there, and that was in college, when I was a far better skier.
Sun Valley is a great mountain for fall line groomers and mellow bowls. Steepness wise it pails in comparison to a place like Mammoth.
Ok, so we're heading to Big Bear next week for a few days and will get a day or 2 of boarding in.
Question, in all my years i've never been to Snow Summit. Is it better to go there or Bear MTn?
(To be honest, I could give a ratz arse to go to either place, rather goto tahoe, but free accomodations with friends makes it good enough this time.) and cause Mtn. High just got 3' of fresh I'd almost rather go there, its. closer.
Question, in all my years i've never been to Snow Summit. Is it better to go there or Bear MTn?
(To be honest, I could give a ratz arse to go to either place, rather goto tahoe, but free accomodations with friends makes it good enough this time.) and cause Mtn. High just got 3' of fresh I'd almost rather go there, its. closer.
Sun Valley is definitively overall steeper. maybe the top 1/4 of Mammoth is steeper, but Sun Valley's blues & blacks are WAY more vertical than mammoth. I got back to Mammoth and was under 10mph on GPS compared to Sun Valley.
I don't know about that. I'm looking at the trail map and google earth in 3D and Sun Valley looks very intermediate, which matches its reputation. I'm sure it's a fun mountain and it's hard not to have fun boarding in general but I'm also thinking that even Gravy Chute, let alone Lincoln Mountain, is steeper than anything Sun Valley has to offer.
They're both about the same. I'd just go with wherever is close enough to where you are staying.
thats what i thought. we are closer to Bear, shuttle stop 2 blocks away, mtn 5-10.
let the sh!t show begin!
OTH, have reservations for last week in January in N.Tahoe, so this will be a practice run, been a couple years, same with the kids, so it'll be good to get them in a lesson.
let the sh!t show begin!
OTH, have reservations for last week in January in N.Tahoe, so this will be a practice run, been a couple years, same with the kids, so it'll be good to get them in a lesson.
lot of blues, but their blues are like 1/2 way down cornice. and lot of bowly runs can bank on hills. downside is lot of mogul runs too which I hate with a passion, even when skiing.
Like I suspected, a generally intermediate mountain.
I must be one of the few snowboarders who loves moguls and the challenge of keeping your sh*t quick and fluid while maintaining a fall line the whole way down. They're the best aside from a good powder day because there is zero forgiveness and they require absolute concentration and planning. Going back to my favorite childhood haunt, Reidar's at Snowmass, though, was extremely humbling. Those will ruthlessly eat you up as they're giant, have very narrow troughs, and shifty fall lines. There are many stellar mogul runs but I consider that one of the toughest out there.
So, Sun Valley is steeper because the blues and blacks are steeper? Blues and blacks are not about steepness, they are about getting back to the lift. If the best thing about a mountain is that the blues and blacks are steep, well that does not say much for the mountain.
If you want to get a high speed readout you can point the paranoids. Someone did that the first day of the big mountain contest in 2003. He won the qualifying round, although I don't think he won the contest.
So Baldy was a total shut show today but worth the wait for a couple runs of untracked goodness. Their runs are short but sweet. Got a few really good lines to tune me up for Montana. Side note: baldy locals are total degenerates.
Wow. Don't see Baldy looking like that very often!
While riding the lift yesterday and talking with a guy about how great Colorado is, I mentioned that Colorado does fall short on my favorite thing in life.
He said, "What's that?"
I said, "Surfing".
He said watch this...
While riding the lift yesterday and talking with a guy about how great Colorado is, I mentioned that Colorado does fall short on my favorite thing in life.
He said, "What's that?"
I said, "Surfing".
He said watch this...
Haven’t been a skier since the early 90’s but I love Chris Benchetlers Edit’s, Plus he’s married to a badass snowboarder Kimmy Fasani. Also haven’t really enjoyed the dead since the early 90’s. This video changed that.
Talked to my brother a little while ago. He and his family are still up at Squaw. Said yesterday and today were good days. XMas day was pretty much blizzard conditions and Thursday was overcast with 50 MPH winds on the ridges. Said everything was open but coverage still is a little sparse in some areas. He saw Johnny Mosley yeaterday.
Here is a sick video of a guy straightlining Kiwi Flat at Mammoth during a huge snow year. It is not normally that filled in.
Here is another video which shows footage of the Kiwi area. In much lower snow. It is from a contest, the Gravity Games in 2000 I think. It shows how rowdy the area usually is.
The line the guy skis is called Frenchies, and it is named after this guy, Guerlain Chicherit. I remember watching this contest on TV in Tahoe, I think it was on RSN or something. What blew me away was how crazy the line was compared to the lines guys like Shane McConkey and Kent Kreitler were taking. Chicherit was an incredible skier. I wish there was more footage available of him. He was skiing far and above the rest of the guys that day. I sometimes look up at that line in Mammoth and it blows me away that someone would even look in that area. Kiwi is rowdy enough.
Here is another video which shows footage of the Kiwi area. In much lower snow. It is from a contest, the Gravity Games in 2000 I think. It shows how rowdy the area usually is.
The line the guy skis is called Frenchies, and it is named after this guy, Guerlain Chicherit. I remember watching this contest on TV in Tahoe, I think it was on RSN or something. What blew me away was how crazy the line was compared to the lines guys like Shane McConkey and Kent Kreitler were taking. Chicherit was an incredible skier. I wish there was more footage available of him. He was skiing far and above the rest of the guys that day. I sometimes look up at that line in Mammoth and it blows me away that someone would even look in that area. Kiwi is rowdy enough.
I started skiing as a kid in the 70s at big bear and then mammoth with youth groups and ski club during the 80s (great trips with little to no supervision). Went to purgatory in 86 for a 8 day ski trip with 2 friends during winter break from sdsu. after the first day my ski boots hurt so bad and we saw guys snowboarding for the first time and decided to try it. they didn't allow snowboarders on the mountain unless they got certified by the instructors, we took a lesson and after a few hours we were good to go with our Sims Switchblades snowboard gear we rented. 7 days of powder boarding had me hooked and I have never ski'd again.
my buddy larry hooked me up with a sims Terry Kidwell model and I rushed mammoth non stop during the 90s. early 2000s my brother in law rented a room with 6 bunks at a house in mammoth and we would rush up in his 4x4 before major dumps and rush a few days of powder mid week using up sick days at work, those were some epic days.
then i had kids, then I tore my ACL and hadn't gone for the last 6 years or so.
my oldest kid is a senior this year so we planned a trip with 2 of her friends families and the kids wanted to go snowboarding so we rented a place at Brian Head. just got back, it was a pretty awesome family trip. report to follow.
my buddy larry hooked me up with a sims Terry Kidwell model and I rushed mammoth non stop during the 90s. early 2000s my brother in law rented a room with 6 bunks at a house in mammoth and we would rush up in his 4x4 before major dumps and rush a few days of powder mid week using up sick days at work, those were some epic days.
then i had kids, then I tore my ACL and hadn't gone for the last 6 years or so.
my oldest kid is a senior this year so we planned a trip with 2 of her friends families and the kids wanted to go snowboarding so we rented a place at Brian Head. just got back, it was a pretty awesome family trip. report to follow.