Season closer for Villars

[Ripzalot]

This was last weekend for Villars and many smaller local resorts. Nice to end it on a late powder note. Two days of dumpage brought knee deep powder, enabling top to bottom runs for one last time this season. And no crowds. I never stood in a line all day, Saturday or Sunday.

Saturday, dumping all day, and I do mean dumping. Low viz but not bad. Very cold. Talked with a guy on the first lift and ended up doing circuits around the resorts with him all day. Nice to have a local show the sweet spots.

Sunday, clearing to bluebird, knee deep pow. I pretty much tracked out the offpiste myself until about 12:00. Then a few people actually started to show (must be the sun), which meant it was time to hit the closed top to bottom run. Sweet!!! Leavin a trench all the way down.


Where is everyone? HaarmP!



Giandi making fresh lines on piste





Looks more like February







Day two - bluebird and deep



Again, where is everyone?







My lines







And no lines



Nice line



Home - quite the contrast

[NoKnees]

Wow... Nice conditions to have all to yourself. Great pics as always... Clean, simple, and fluffy....

Tahoe evidently had some nice conditions Saturday, and hopeful E at least got some of it.... I was supposed to, but life once again conspired against me.... definitely bummed, especially seeing empty powder filled mountains like that...

Nice...

[Ripzalot]

i'm taking tomorrow off for a sick day. care to guess where I'm headed?

to helmetcam or not to helmetcam, that is the question.

[Tantrum]

Beaver Creek was terrible on Saturday. No new snow and daytime temps in the high 40s and nighttime lows in the 20s makes for some hard-ass snow. The groomed runs were slick and I kept looking for the blue-line. The ungroomed was stiff and rutty and hell on the knees. We called it a day at 2PM. Luckly, we got out of the garage in under 4 hours so we didn't have to pony-up $20 for parking.

Overnight, the house got about 4 inches and we heard Denver was getting pounded with snow. I-70 was pretty good until we approached Denver. For you locals, Floyd Hill was a parking lot of front-wheel and rear-wheel drive cars. Luckly, the mini-van is AWD and we scooted through the chaos. Unfortunately, AWD doesn't protect you on the downhills and it was painfully slow. I saw quite a few tourists in their AWD SUVs in accidents and stuck in the drifts. All told, we got about a foot of Sierra cement at home and man was it hard to shovel! That's all for this year!

[canuck]

Great photos...like having a private resort....

bastage

[jibnot]

Empty days are great, throw in the powder.....


Any tips on the helmet cam? Think I need to buy some shorter cable and figure out how to hold the recorder better. I?ve seen little backpack things that strap across your chest like a backwards backpack. been using a fannypack. (canuck told me they?re cool)

Anyways just wonder if anyone has advice on cable management and a good way to store the recorder, accessibility.

[NoKnees]

I've had the most success with a smaller Lowe over the shoulder camera bag setup kinda like the DTS Tracker avy beacon harness. So shoulder and waist strap to keep it from flapping, bag in front... easy access to turn on and off... Short wire run under my chin strap to the bag keeps it from flapping around. Only problem is that in a hard fall I might crack a rib or two, but better that than my spine... Works for me for resort riding.

The time I took it backcountry the camera was in my backpack and that was a pain routing the wires there as I always had too much slack and it was a pain taking the pack on and off to do everything.

[Ripzalot]

Empty days are great, throw in the powder.....


Any tips on the helmet cam? Think I need to buy some shorter cable and figure out how to hold the recorder better. I?ve seen little backpack things that strap across your chest like a backwards backpack. been using a fannypack. (canuck told me they?re cool)

Anyways just wonder if anyone has advice on cable management and a good way to store the recorder, accessibility.

i have some pics at home, will post later....but basically, here is my setup:

i box up my digicam (sony hc40) in a tupperware type box and then put it in my backpack. the cables route under my arm and up to the helmetcam. at first, i had the helmetcam mounted on my goggle strap, but found that it suffered from up/down vibration whenever you hit bumps or are in hardpack conditions. i've since moved it to a velcro helmet mount. it took a couple of tries before i got the helmetcam positioned correctly. at first it was mounted pointing too low, so all i got was the first 10-20m of ground in front of me. something to think about with the helmet mounts is that on a snowboard you are not looking straight forward, but usually slightly to the side and down a bit. so you either have to compensate by positioning the camera or by physically being conscious of where you are pointing your head. (i chose the latter).

for the cables, i've read many posts with people having problems. at first it was a bit of a tangle and i had to have someone help me put on my pack. but now it's easy. first, braid the wires together (helmetcam cable + lanc remote + microphone). this keeps it all more as one wire. instead of going over the shoulder (which i originally did) go under the armpit from the pack and then up to the helmetcam (i have a bit of slack to do this with). this makes it much easier to put the pack on and take off without thinking about the wire(s). it also puts your lanc remote in an easily accessible and consistent spot.

one thing to note about boxing up your camera - on my sony, the av cable is a straight plug (not right-angle) and plugs into the side of the camera. this creates a very pressure-sensitive delicate point in the whole setup. imagine falling on your back and squashing the camera and bending that cable from its 90 degree position to 45 (or worse). that will be the end of your helmetcam once that happens. to avoid this problem, i had to find a tupperware slightly larger than what i wanted. deep enough to put the camera in at the bottom with enough space above to keep the cable protected from bending. the only padding i have for the camera is ABOVE the camera in the box, not below, because i can't afford to lose any depth in the box to protect the cable plug. i even went one step further to protect the plug by taking a small suction cup, drilling out the middle, and inserting this over the plug end. this gives the plug something to provide more stability/stiffness in it's vertical position to the camera. lastly, do not put the box in the bottom of your backpack, but rather near the top. that way if you go down on your back, you are less likely to squash the camera. a safer spot would definitely be a bag in front, on the chest or waist, but with my straight-plug problem, the box method offers more protection.

btw, this all fits nicely in a dakine heli pro pack (a small volume pack).