Today was a beautiful blue-sky day. Unfortunately it was a COLD day, with no recent snow. This meant that the snow was hard as rock. Definitely not the day for trying anything, and I mean ANYTHING. Even trying the tree run through Pete's almost got me killed.

After a couple of runs I started to wonder if part of my problem might be dull edges. After all, I've never had the Heritage sharpened. So I took it to the Seymour shop, and $20 and 15 minutes later I had new edges. I wouldn't...

I got up to Seymour today before opening. It wasn't an auspicious start. The fog was as thick as I've ever seen it. And by which I mean I actually could hardly make out the snow under my feet, let alone anything that was coming at me. In addition, there was a thin layer of new snow over top of refrozen lunar landscape. However, it was snowing, and it kept snowing, and by 11am the fog lifted. Made for a much better time.

I discovered (or confirmed) a couple of issues with my snowboarding...

New years day today, and I managed to get up the mountain for opening time. Surprisingly uncrowded, and I was able to get my favorite parking spot. It was totally blue sky this morning, and cold. The snow was pretty crisp, and I wouldn't want to pratfall on it, but it wasn't snowcrete.

I got a very pleasant surprise on Lodge. The park crew added a couple of jumps in the Young Guns area, just the right size for beginners. Actually just slightly larger than what I'd consider comfortable,...

I went to Seymour this morning with all the stoke in the world, impatient to see what the park crew had set up in Mushroom -- and anything else new that they've thrown in. Wow, what a total letdown. They pulled the two flat boxes from Mushroom, put them on the transition to Lodge, and replaced them with -- get this -- two rollers. Yep, that's Mushroom, the beginner park. Two rollers. Whoopedy-fucking-do. Oh, they added a ride-on rail at the end of the two flat-boxes, except what they did was put...

We went to Seymour Wednesday afternoon for an afternoon/evening session. I had originally intended to take the bus up first thing in the morning, then meet the family when they came up later. Should have stuck with that. There was some new snow early in the day, but by the time we got there at 4pm it was snowcrete. Plus there was a constant light drizzle, the kind that keeps your goggles just fogged up enough so that you can't see where you're going. I am truly amazed at how much difference that...