After swapping a couple of emails with the sponsors behind the trip, I’ve learned that I misreported some information on day 34. The main sponsors were Tuaca, Red Bull & Intrawest. Sweet Leaf merely provided their yummy tea.
More specifically
My buddy Adam came up from Dallas for what might be his last snowboard trip for a while. He’s got a baby on the way. I’ve never ridden with Adam, so I was intent on making sure I made it up to Copper mountain yesterday. It turned out to be a great day with lots of fresh snow. Copper had 5 fresh inches on the ground as we were driving up, and it continued to fall all day long.
It turned out to be one of the most abusive days of boarding I’ve had in a while. I’ve been riding the Arbor exclusively lately, and constantly adjusting my stance as I go. Because of the fresh powder and types of runs I thought we would be doing, I switched back to the longer Burton Custom for the day. I couldn’t seem to keep the board under me. I biffed it over and over. On my first run of the day, I splattered while trying to avoid a skier that cut me off while I was airborne. He apologized, but it didn’t do much to help the thumb I laid back in the process. Ouch. During our powder runs, I found myself constantly eating it. I couldn’t understand why. Knowing that I ate it on clean powder runs, you can imagine how much the bumps tore me up.
Later in the day, I examined my stance on the board. It was a lot different from how I’d been riding. I adjusted my bindings and it made a huge difference. It was a little too late, as I was already physically wiped out from crashing so much through the day.
I still had a ton of fun. We started things off on the moguls as we were riding with skiers. Then we dropped into the Enchanted Forest (holy crap, what an awesome run!). From there, we worked our way to one of the back bowls and spent most of the day. Near the end, we took some groomers down the front and hit the intermediate terrain park and a few tree runs in the process.
Due to a variety of factors, I was left without a ride home. I ended up hitching a ride at the top of the parking lot. The dude that picked me up was a local native named Luke. Turns out, he just started competing in slope style and used to compete in boarder cross. I’m hoping to get Russ back out here to shoot some video of this guy. Luke was kind enough to go out of his way and drop me off at my doorstep. Hell, he even helped me carry my gear up three flights of stairs - very nice guy.
Everything hurts today - it’s great. Legs, back, arms, neck, toe, thumb… it’s all trashed. I’ll be headed back out again tomorrow for day 36. It’s a special day, as it will be my base goal for the season. After tomorrow, I will have doubled my riding days since moving to Colorado last May. How cool is that? My next big milestone after tomorrow will be day 64 - which will give me a grand total of 100 days ever. And, of course, I’m still striving for the ultimate goal of 100 days this season. Wish me luck!
65 days left…
As mentioned before, I managed to smash the nose of my Burton Custom 162 on a rock. I took it in to Colorado Ski and Golf to see if I could get it fixed. This is the second major repair job I’ve made to the Custom - not counting filling gouges in the bottom sheet. The first repair I was able to make myself. I didn’t want to take this latest one on myself.
For $20, they did a really decent job of patching it up. He had to remove some of the metal and fill the gap in with epoxy. The ‘after’ part of the before/after photo attached was taken after a day of riding. I did manage to rough up the sensitive spot while riding. The original patch job was really clean looking. This photo shows that, even after abusing the nose of the board, all the layers are holding together nicely. I’m not sure how many more days I’ll get out of my Custom; but thanks to a job well done at the shop around the corner, it looks like I’ll get a few more.
Dear Self-Titled “Starbucks Buffoon”,
I was serious when I said, “I’m so blogging this.” I’d like to dedicate this post to thanking you and your co-workers (but mostly you) for providing me with the most entertaining Starbucks ordering experience I’ve had thus far. My first cup of Starbucks coffee with an extra “shot of love” was both a tasty treat and wonderful pick me up before a hard day of riding. Thanks for the laughs.
For the record, Wikipedia defines buffoon as:
…someone who provides amusement through inappropriate appearance and/or behavior. Strictly, a buffoon describes a “ridiculous, but nevertheless amusing person.” In the broad terms, a buffoon is a clownish, publicly amusing person, such as a court jester…
Thank You,
The guy who ordered a cup of coffee with a shot of mocha, a shot of espresso, a shot of love, a few cubes of ice, and room for cream.
I went to pick up the Custom from the shop this afternoon - which I will have to post about soon - and noticed the clothing store next door had gone out of business and was selling off all of their furnishings. I dropped in and, sure enough, they had a good piece of hardware to use as a snowboard rack. I’ve been trying to find something for a while. I’ve even considered building something from scratch. I’m rather handy, I just don’t have a lot of tools available. Anyway, I think this will do nicely. It’s not as space saving as I had hoped for, but the shiny chrome sure looks snazzy. (not really, I hate chrome, but whatever, I’m content)
I have enough hardware to hang a total of 6 boards and I currently own 4. In the photo, I only have 5 shelves setup. I’ll probably slide everything a bit closer together when I put the last shelf bar on. So, the quiver, from top to bottom:
Our weather patterns in the US are all kinds of crazy right now. There are 3 separate storms blowing in off of the west coast. We just had a front move through that brought freezing temperatures all the way to Florida. It sounds like the west cost is in for a pounding this weekend. We’re expecting more snow through the weekend and into the middle of next week. I love the snow; but I’m hoping it doesn’t get as bitter cold as it was a week ago.
The craziest thing is the current temperature distribution. It’s warmer here in Denver,CO than it is down in Houston, TX. It’s really nice here right now. I suppose that makes up for the -26 wind chill (in the mountains) I just went through. Anyway, I’m going to be up boarding this weekend and it looks like the temps are going to hold in the 30’s. I think it might make for some nice weather.
