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When I moved to the midwest in '07 I mostly gave up skiing and snowboarding aside from a few outings, despite having grown up a short drive from both the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains and spending most winter weekends of my youth sliding on snow in one way or another. Two winters ago I took an awesome trip to Colorado with some FMs and got hooked again. This past winter I went full bore with a 23 day car camping dirtbag trip around the rockies- NM, CO, UT, ID, WY (Mountain Collective Pass). It's really changed my outlook on winter. I got a newer size/old man appropriate snowboard and even rediscovered telemark skiing and the crazy advances in gear since the late 90's. This winter I'm doing the Indy Pass tour of New England with some buddies joining up along the way.

Anybody here shred? Let's talk about it.

I'm partial to the lesser known, lower traffic mountains, for the most part, and backcountry stuff is on the horizon once I'm properly prepared. Very comfortable on most terrain on a board, but I'm still getting re-started on the Tele's and I'm much more shaky.

jeff fox wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2024 8:36 pmskiing and the crazy advances in gear since the late 90's.

I'm a little curious about this as that was the last time I was a regular skiier. I tried snowboarding a few times and it was a disaster.

I don’t envy anyone trying to pick up snowboarding after age 30. Day one is spent mostly falling on your ass and knees. Padding can definitely help. Just gotta realize that you need a minimum amount of speed to initiate a real turn so you gotta find the right slope and go for it. Gear advances are more noticeable once you can really rip at high speeds or in deep snow.

Skis are wider and shorter, more forgiving on your knees. Last time I did alpine skiing was around 1990, but my recent experienced with Tele has been awesome- I was on soft leather boots and long skis in 2000-2001. Now the boots resemble more flexible alpine boots and the bindings are burly and offer a ton of support and control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTj2F7YDHUs
Indy Pass is the best thing going in the sport right now. Truly a force for good and I hope they stay that way.

I've been boarding since the late 90s, but I learned on Michigan "mountains," which are fine, but nothing like what you get out west, of course. I really like Mt. Bohemia in the Keweenaw for backcountry-type stuff in the Midwest, but I haven't been there since 2002-ish, so I don't know if they've changed anything. I was boarding there the first year they opened (2000) and it was wild. Barely-cleared runs, lots of trees, crazy powder.

When I lived in MT, I spent a lot of time at Discovery resort near Anaconda, because it was relatively close and cheap and never busy.
I lived in Denver for like 5 years and never went boarding during that time. It was just too expensive. Only picked it back up since I moved back to MI.
I'm still using the same board I got in 1996, an Avalanche Special Wide 157, but I did upgrade my bindings to a set of Flows and a new pair of boots. Curious what a newer board would gain me.

Kind of a side note but I started looking into cross country skis early in the pandemic, but snow quality in recent years here has been an inch or two of slush and nothing you'd want to be out in. I can think of 2 or 3 days in as many winters where I may have put them to use. Maybe it's still worthwhile more inland or north? I think I could get more into that, as it's less about thrill seeking for me and more about being outside and getting exercise.

penningtron wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 11:06 am Kind of a side note but I started looking into cross country skis early in the pandemic, but snow quality in recent years here has been an inch or two of slush and nothing you'd want to be out in. I can think of 2 or 3 days in as many winters where I may have put them to use. Maybe it's still worthwhile more inland or north? I think I could get more into that, as it's less about thrill seeking for me and more about being outside and getting exercise.

Yeah, it's cheap enough to be worth having around even if you don't get to use it much. I've only used my nordic setup a couple of times here. There's some great BC stuff up in the UP where a Tele setup would be perfect, but it's only a few more hours to get to New England at that distance.

Former FM Jason A frequents Mount Bohemia- supposedly it's gotten a little overrun in recent years but if you time it right it can still be unspoiled. The $99 season pass is pretty ridiculous.

Would love to get back into Alpine skiing.....it's been about 10 years or so, and I was never really any good. Part sport, part thrill ride, part spectacle. They're all valid experiences. Truly to appreciate the sport you need a mountain, and the midwest does not. I've only ever been in CO, and that was awesome. If I had it to do again, I should have just been a ski bum.

My son and I took a trip to Copper Mountain, CO last year and will be making a yearly ski/board trip somewhere new every year. I learned last year that my 12-yo skis that I got for "Tahoe cement" were pretty useless in 6ft of fresh powder. I was very under-gunned. Will rectify before the trip this year. My son boards, he had a new set-up and had a blast. I was absolutely exhausted digging myself out.

Having been a skater and still surfing, I started snow boarding (in the early US 80s when resorts would not allow snowboards, and we had to make out own jumps and shit in the back country) but grew kinda bored with it, so went back to skis. I would like to try mono skiing though. Looks interesting.

Not crap.

I've been riding for going on 3 decades. From the midwest, learned here and still hit the WI/MI slopes on occasion.

This winter I finally rented a modern board instead of using my 20-year old big mountain board. My old board was high end at the time, built for stability and speed. The new one was so light that I was paranoid it was going to squirrel right out from under me on the first turn. Of course, no - it was better in every single way.

Have spent a decent amount of time in CO and a couple other places with big mountains. Great memories, great views and great frustration with how much of an expensive pain in the ass the big resorts have made it to go there. Unless you buy a season pass in June, you are basically lighting money on fire in Colorado. Which I confess I have done a few times.

A-Basin has been a favorite. I hope it stays solid despite being sold to Alterra.